By Michael Lambrix
To read Part 6, click
here
Whether it was the almost guttural rumbling of the diesel generator or
that unmistakable sulfuric smell of the exhaust, or the combination of
both as I struggled to sleep through it on that chilly late fall
morning, I don’t know. But there I was at the edge of that abyss between
sleep and consciousness and caught in that moment between time and
eternity. I found myself tangled in the perception of the past, and what
once was new became a prophetic omen of what my life would be, and in
that moment I discovered that redemption is a mirror we all look upon.
Each Wednesday, for as long as I can remember, the same perverse ritual
played itself out as a reminder to all of us here that we are caught in a
perpetual state of limbo between life and death. Each day that passes
brings us one step closer to that judicially imposed fate. We are
condemned to death and if we ever did dare to forget that, the generator
served as a not-so-subtle reminder.
Now it seems like a lifetime ago since I was first housed on that north
side of what was then known as “R-Wing” (since then re-lettered as
G-Wing for reasons I suppose most of us will never know). But merely
changing the identifying letter that hangs above that solid steel door
opening on to what was then one of four wings at Florida State Prison
that housed us condemned to die in the years before they built the “new”
unit of Union Correctional won’t change what lies beyond. Upon
entering, one steps into a hell that only the malignant mind of men
could ever manifest into reality.
It was late in the summer and I was coming off disciplinary confinement
when I was moved over to an empty cell on R-Wing, placed about half way
down the tier on the second floor. I was told by the guys around me that
it was a quiet floor and a number of the guys made it clear they wanted
it to stay that way. I had no problem with that, as the floor I was on
had gotten wide open with radios and TVs blasting both night and day and
more than a number of the guys yelling to each other so they could be
heard above the noise and it never seemed to stop. Now, a little quiet
would be welcome.
I moved to the floor on a Friday morning and it took the better part of
that weekend to put my property up and arrange my new cell. Only
recently were we given large steel footlockers to store all our personal
property in. Prior to that, we pretty much just piled the numerous
cardboard boxes containing what we called our own in any manner we liked
and they left us alone. But the administration claimed the fire marshal
warned the boxes were a hazard and had to go.
It was just as well, as the boxes were magnets to the infinite number of
both cockroaches and rodents that infested the death row wings. At
least with steel locker, it was a little harder for them to get in and
out, although it didn’t take too long before they found their ways.
By early that following week I was getting to know the guys I now lived
amongst. Funny how that is, every wing on the floor you are housed on
seemed to have its own different set of personalities. This particular
floor was known to many as the celebrity floor, as it housed a few of
the more notorious death row prisoners, such as my new neighbor, Ted
Bundy.
While most of those on this particular floor were there by choice, each
patiently waiting for a cell to open then requesting to be placed in it
as they wanted to be housed on a quiet floor, both me and Ted had no
choice. I was placed there for no reason but luck of the draw—when my
time in lock-up (disciplinary confinement) was up, it was the only cell
open and for Ted, they just liked to keep him on the second floor near
the officers’ quarter deck so that when the occasional “four group” of
politicians or judges would come through, they could be paraded down the
outer catwalk and get their peek at “Bundy.” Most of the time we would
know when a tour group was coming and when we heard that outer catwalk
door open, we would quickly throw on our headphones and pretend to watch
TV as none of us cared to be their entertainment.
At first I didn’t know what to make of it when I realized that I was
suddenly housed next door to Ted. In the few years that I had been on
death row, I was previously always housed on what was then known as
“S-wing,” which was one wing up toward the front of where I now was, but
in many ways a whole other world away.
Like everyone else, I had heard of him. And for a good reason he didn’t
exactly go out of his way to reach out to those he didn’t know, as too
many even in our own little world liked to throw their stones…even those
cast down together into this cesspool of the system. I was already
aware of how doing time was about being part of a micro-community of
various clichés, each of us becoming part of our own little group.
But it didn’t take too long before I found myself standing up at the
front of my new cell talking to Ted around that concrete wall that
separated us. As coincidence would have it, we shared a lot of common
ground, especially when I mentioned that I was born and raised out on
the west coast and that Northern California would always be the only
place I would truly call “home.”
As the conversation carried on, he had asked if my family still lived
out there, but they didn’t, at least not any relatives that mattered.
After my parents divorced, when I was still too young to remember, my
father gained sole custody of me and my six siblings and then remarried
and we gained three more. It was anything but an amicable divorce, and
we never were allowed to get to know our mother.
But as I explained the family dynamics, I pulled out a picture of me
with my mother and stepfather taken when I finally did get to know them
when I was 22. I guess the snow outside the window gave it away, but Ted
quickly noticed that detail and commented that he had never seen the
snow like that around San Francisco and I then explained that my mom
didn’t live in California, as she had moved to Utah and I spent the
winter of ’81-’82 with them outside of Salt Lake City.
That caught his attention and after that I couldn’t have shut him up if I
had wanted to. For the rest of the evening and into the night he talked
about his own time outside of Salt Lake City and as we talked we
realized my mom lived only a few blocks from where his mom lived… small
world. As two people will do, when reminiscing about common ground, we
went on and on about various places we both knew, although neither of us
spent more than a few months there. But it brought us together.
In the following months we grew closer through our common interest in
the law. At the time I was barely just beginning to learn (Although at
that ripe age of 27 I would have sworn I already knew it all). Now twice
as old, I look back and realize I didn’t know half as much as I thought
I knew and through Ted’s patience I learned what it took to stay alive.
Most of those around here who consider themselves jailhouse lawyers know
only what little they might have read in a few law books and then think
they know it all. But as I would quickly come to know, only because my
new mentor had the patience to teach me, to truly understand the law you
must look beyond what the law says and learn how to creatively apply
the concepts. And that’s what makes all the difference.
During the time I was next to Ted I was preparing to have my first
“clemency” hearing. It’s one of those things we all go through and back
then they would schedule us for clemency review after our initial
“direct” appeal of the conviction and sentence of death were completed.
Only then, by legal definition, does the capital conviction and sentence
of death become “final,” if only by word alone.
But nobody actually would get clemency and we all know it was nothing
more than a bad joke, a complete pretense. I was still inexcusably
naïve, but Ted’s tutorage enlightened me and I dare say that if not for
that coincidence of being his neighbor at that particular time in my
so-called life, I would have been dead many years ago.
Back at that time, Florida had only recently established a state-funded
agency with the statutory responsibility of representing those sentenced
to death. But like most else in our “justice” system the creation of
this agency was really nothing more than a political pretense never
actually intended to accommodate our ability to meaningfully challenge
our conviction, but instead existed only to facilitate the greater
purpose of expediting executions.
A few years earlier as then Florida Governor “Bloody Bob” Graham
aggressively began to push for executions, at the time heading the
country in the number put to death, the biggest obstacle was the
complete absence of any organized legal agency willing to represent
those who faced imminent execution. Repeatedly, lawyers would be
assigned only at that last moment and then the courts would be forced to
grant a stay of execution until the newly assigned lawyers could
familiarize themselves with the case.
In 1985, Governor Graham and then Florida Attorney General Jim Smith
joined forces to push through legislative action to create a state
agency exclusively responsible for the representation of all
death-sentenced prisoners. They believed by doing so, it would speed up
executions, as lawyers would no longer be assigned at the last minute.
But many others argued that by creating this agency the state would
stack the deck by providing only lawyers connected to the state’s own
interests.
A compromise was reached in which a former ACLU lawyer known for his
advocacy on behalf of death row was hired as the new agency’s first
director, and soon after Larry Spalding then hand-picked his own staff.
This small group of dedicated advocates quickly succeeded in all but
stopping any further executions in Florida and the politicians did not
like that, not at all.
For those of us on the Row, it gave us hope. We knew only too well that
the insidious politics of death manipulated the process from the very
day we were arrested to that final day when we would face execution.
Anybody who thinks our judicial system is “fair” has never looked into
how the law really works. And with the agency exclusively responsible
for representing all those sentenced to death now at the mercy of
politically motivated legislative funding, it didn’t take long before
the conservative, pro-death politicians in Florida realized that by
simply denying the agency adequate funding they would render the work
meaningless while still technically complying with the judicial mandate
of, at least by statutory definition, providing the necessary legal
representation to carry out more executions.
At the time, I had already waited over a year for a lawyer to be
assigned to my case, but because of the inadequate funding of the
agency, none were available. For the entire Death Row population quickly
approached 300, the Florida legislature provided only enough money to
hire 3 staff lawyers. It was an impossible job, but they remain
committed.
Fortunately, with Ted as my neighbor, I received assistance not
available to others, and through his guidance I was able to file the
necessary motions requesting assignment of what is known as
initial-review collateral counsel. Although none were available, it
still built up the record and although like many others who were forced
to pursue their initial post-conviction review through such a
deliberately corrupted process, at least I was able to get my attempts
to have collateral counsel assigned to my case into the permanent
record, and although as intended, I was deprived of my meaningful
opportunity to pursue this crucial collateral review, thanks to Ted’s
assistance, that foundation was laid long ago.
It only took our Supreme Court another 25 years to finally recognize the
same constitutional concept that Ted walked me through so long ago—that
fundamental fairness and “due process” required the states to provide
competent and “effective” assistance of initial-review collateral
counsel and if actions attributable to the states deprived a prisoner of
that meaningful opportunity to pursue the necessary post-conviction
review, then an equitable remedy must be made available. See Martinez v
Ryan, 132 Sect. 1309 (2012).
I would say that Ted is probably rolling over in his grave and smiling
at all this, but I know he was never buried. It was his choice to be
cremated and have his ashes spread in the Cascade Mountains, where he
called home.
Perhaps this is one of the lessons I had to learn in those early years
when I first came to Death Row. I shared many preconceived opinions that
most in our society would. Because of what I heard of Ted Bundy, I had
expectations that soon proved to be an illusion. Often over the years I
have struggled with the judgments we make of others around us, only too
quickly forgetting that while we go through our lives throwing stones,
we become blissfully oblivious to the stones being thrown at us.
Maybe we will want to call him a monster, and few would deny the evil
that existed within him. But when I look to those who gather outside on
the day of yet another state-sanctioned execution, I now see that same
evil on the face of those who all but foam at their mouth while
screaming for the death of one of us here. That doesn’t make these
people evil, per se, but merely reminds me of a truth I came to know
only by being condemned to death: that both good and evil do
simultaneously co-exist within each of us and only by making that
conscious effort every day to rise above it, can each of us truly hold
any hope of not succumbing to it and becoming that monster ourselves.
Being condemned to death is often ultimately defined by the evolution of
our spiritual consciousness. I know all too well that there will be
many who will want to throw stones at me because I dared to find a
redeeming quality in someone they see as a monster. And as those stones
might fall upon me, I will wear those scars well, knowing that it is
easy to see only the evil within another, but by becoming a stronger man
I can still find the good. And despite being cast down into the bowels
of a hell, that ability, and even more importantly, that willingness to
find good in those around me has made me a better man.
It was around that same time that the hands of fate brought me into
contact with another man I knew long before I came to Death Row. The
thing about this micro-community we are cast down into is that it really
is a very segregated world. Unless you get regular visits—which very
few ever do—you’re never around any others but those housed on your
particular floor.
Not long after I came to be housed on R-wing, I went out to the
recreation yard and recognized a familiar face. I knew him as Tony
(Anthony Bertolotti) and back in 1982 we did time together at Baker
Correctional, a state prison up near the Georgia state line. I was the
clerk for the vocational school program at Baker while Tony worked as a
staff barber. Because both of us were assigned “administrative” jobs, we
were both housed in the same dormitory, just a few cells apart.
Although he wasn’t someone I hung out with back then that small measure
of familiarity created a bond and we would talk for hours about those we
once knew.
But Tony wasn’t doing so well. Like me, he had been sentenced to death
in 1984 and in just those few years he had already given up hope. That
was common, but few actually acted upon it. Tony was one of these few,
and at the time he was beginning to push to force the governor to sing
his death warrant, which he did subsequently succeed and became one of
Florida’s first “voluntary” executions. His only perception of reality
around him was cast within a dark cloud, so dark no sunshine could
appear. And his own escape from that reality was to pursue that myth
they call “finality” by bringing about his own death.
So, there I lay that early fall morning. If at that moment I were to get
out of that bunk and stand at the front of my cell, I know that I could
look straight outward a couple hundred feet in the distance and clearly
see that grass-green building we know as the generator plant, which
stood just on the other side of the rows of fencing crowned with even
more rows of glistening razor wire. And then by looking off to my right
of the wing, immediately adjacent to the one in which I was housed, I
could see the windows on the first floor that I knew would be where the
witnesses gathered when they carried out each execution.
Although I knew these sights well, as well as the sound and smell of
that generator plant that they cranked up every Wednesday to test the
electric chair (long after that electric chair was banished and replaced
with lethal injection they continued to crank that generator up),
instead I chose to lay there in my bunk with my eyes closed and
manipulate those sounds and smell into a memory that didn’t drag me down
and even bring about a smile.
There was another time in my life when I would be awoken to the sound
and smell of a diesel generator, and it too was all about how I chose to
perceive it. When I was 15 years old I left home and found the only
kind of job a homeless teen could by working with a traveling carnival,
mostly around the Chicago area.
Most people might find it unimaginable that a “child” of 15 would be out
on his own, but if they knew what life was like at “home” then they
might understand why I can look back at that time and find a measure of
happiness I seldom experienced in my so-called life. Leaving home as a
teenager was not so much a choice, but a means of survival. I wasn’t
alone—all my siblings also dropped out of school and left “home” at
their earliest opportunity and so at least for me, finding work with a
traveling carnival was a blessing, as the alternative was to live on the
streets.
In the spring of 1976, shortly before my 16th birthday, I left Florida
with a carnival that had worked the local county fair, assured I would
find work when they joined another show in the Chicago area. But it
didn’t work out that way as it was still too cold for the carnivals to
set up. For the first few weeks I had no work and no place to stay. I
had no money for food and tried to find a meal at a Salvation Army
kitchen only to be interrogated by the volunteers who insisted they had
to send me “home.” I left without being fed and never again went to a
shelter.
At that time in my life, while most my age were just starting High
School, living on the streets and sleeping on layers of cardboard boxes
was better than being forced to return home and once the weather warmed
up and the carnival could set up, I found work at a game concession
paying twenty dollars a day—and the boss allowed me to sleep at night in
the tent.
Each morning when it was time to start opening the show, that generator
would crank up and first that distinctive machinery rumbling would be
heard followed only a moment later by that sulfuric smell of the diesel
exhaust, and when I closed my eyes that same sound and smell still made
me smile, is just like waking up to that job I found at 15, it brought
me, at least mentally, to a safer place that anything I knew of as
“home” and the freedom of being on my own.
Now when I hear (and smell) that generator just as I did the first time
on that chilly early fall morning of 1985, I am reminded that whether it
be man or machine, it’s all in how we choose to see it, as the evil
within anyone or anything can only exist if one chooses to focus on
that. But just as I learned from coming to actually know the person that
was Ted Bundy, and finding that although evil acts can undoubtedly be
attributed to him, he was not all evil, but also possessed that measure
of a man within that had good, it is also true for the many years that
would follow as if I’ve learned nothing else through this experience, it
is that this evil that exists within the manifestation of the men (and
women) around us exists on both sides of these bars and no matter what
the source of evil might be, it can only touch and tarnish my own soul
if I allow it to.
My lesson so long ago was that redemption (especially that of self) is a
mirror that we look into and it’s the image that looks back upon us
that ultimately defines who we are and more importantly, who we become. I
consider myself blessed to have been around those that society has
labeled as “monsters” as it has endowed upon me the strength to find
something good within each. And I know that as long as I can find a
redeemable quality in all others, there will still be the hope that
others will find something redeemable within me.
 |
Michael Lambrix 482053
Union Correctional Institution
7819 NW 228th Street
Raiford, FL 32026 |
2 comments:
it's perfect article about Redemption ,..
"todesuhr"
Michael,
My name is Martin Vassolo and I am a reporter with the Alligator newspaper in Gainesville, the largest student-run newspaper in the country. I've read about your story, and I'd love to speak with you in person or over the phone about your life and what is still to unfortunately come. Please email me at mvassolo@alligator.org and we can get this process started. I want to get your story out there.
Have a nice day,
-Martin
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