One prisoner’s reaction to Bush’s commutation of Libby’s prison term

I recently received an e-mail and letter entitled “Page from a Prison Diary,” which set forth one prisoner’s reaction to President Bush’s decision to commute entirely Scooter Libby’s prison term.  The text of this “diary entry” is set forth below (and is reprinted here with the author’s permission):

PAGE FROM A PRISON DIARY

July 4, 2007

The decision of King George the Dubyah to “fix” the 30 month sentence of his good friend Scooter Libby just came down. It must be nice to have such forgiving padres in high places.  Justice for just us! Too bad us commoners must actually abide by the law, no matter how strict, repressive and draconian.  Our cases were found to be “reasonable” recently by all 12 Circuit Court of Appeals in the country specifically because each of our respective judges adhered to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which were also used to sentence Mr. Libby. Every federal court in the land has held that any sentence meted out according to the Guidelines can’t be “excessive” by virtue of the fact that it does conform to Congressional legislation via the Guidelines.

Most people in prison feel like Libby got a raw deal, which is normal when you deal with the feds.  Almost every person that deals with the feds gets shafted in one way or another.  It’s just what the feds do.  Prior to coming to prison 30 months would have been unthinkable, now I eat lunch with guys who have been given 30 years or more on little more than the word of a jailhouse snitch, to save his own ass and a “Nifonged” prosecutor.  Our system will devour you if you have little or no money.  Our Criminal Justice “system” is truly “criminal” in every sense of the word.  Why worry about the law when Dubyah says, “Don’t do the time if you a friend a mine!” “All animals are equal, some are just more equal than others” is a fitting testament to our biased system of judicial mine fields, fine tuned for maximum harm (to some).

America is a great country but do we really want to lead the rest of the entire planet in locking up millions of our citizens, many times with questionable suspect charges and slanted courts? A similar thing happened many years ago in ancient Rome when Tacitus wrote in his diary, “Rome (and the U.S.) shall suffer now from its laws as it hither to forth suffered from its vices.”

Regards form the other side,