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Back to Maine Gulag. Back to Mike James' letter Letter to the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections from attorney Richard Gerrity describing prisoner abuse by guards at Maine State Prison's Supermax. ===================================================================== Richard W. Gerrity
May 29, 2005 Dear Commissioner, I am following up on a letter which the Governor wrote to you concerning Mike James an inmate at Maine State Prison. Before Mike James was sentenced his lawer, Justin Leary, argued that because of Mike's self-destructive nature Maine State Prison would be the wrong place for Mike. But because Mike already had extensive psychiatric care and because of the difficulty in finding another place, it was determined to warehouse Mike in the Maine State Prison. Unfortunately Justin Leary was probably a lot more prophetic than he thought or certainly than he wanted to be. A combination of the conditions at the Maine State Prison and Mike's violent and destructive inclinations bhave led Mike into a series of suicide attempts. Currently Mike is in isolation in the Special Management Unit (SMU). This should be a unit for dangerous hard core inmates who disrupt prison life. But some of its population is a drop off for the mentally ill that no one, including the inmates, want to deal with. It is a kind of warehouse within a warehouse for the aberrant who are about three standard deviations from normal. In a word, it is the place for Mike James. About two weeks ago Mike sent me a letter asking for a visit. The following is a rough distillation of that 90 minute visit. When I met Mike, I noticed he had a large two inch by two inch gash on his partially shaven head which he told me came from an attempted hanging. He also told me he has gone to Rock port local hospital 9 or 10 times after suicide attempts. Mentioning names and events he continued: 1. Sgt. Robinson works SMU second shift and holds grudges. He stripped him naked - no blankets for two days until a "team" assembled to determine when he gets his belongings back. 2. Beatings - James says he has received countless beatings when his hands were cuffed behind his back. He said the following guards have beaten him: Fred Knight, Ken Vigue, Sgt. David Allen, Sgt.Larry Wocester. 3.Officer La Montang - constantly speaks of suicide to upset James. 4.Officer Phillips - calls Mike a retarded idiot and urges Mike to commit suicide. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 2 5.Officer Mayo - calls him homo and that he is going to be raped. According to James he is sort of Jekyll Hyde: one day he is nice, the next day he is a terror. He has access to Mike's personal records and makes fun of Mike's getting beaten by his mom. 6. One winter night Mike was taken to a cell which had an opening so that the temperature outside was the same as inside. He was stripped naked and left over night. My hope is that by my memorializing these allegations there is not a resultant circling of the wagons by the prison and freeze on any action toward Mike. Whether these charges can be substantiated is one question; but there is no question, at least in this writer's mind, that Mike James needs to be moved immediatedly to a psychiatric institution before he,destroys himself. Sincerely,
Richard W. Gerrity. rdJ
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