"My Appeal for Clemency is in"

 

Hard to imagine and even harder to see, but somehow true, we each and every convict on this yard have a common path. I often contemplate what that pathway could be. I think about the day that I first meet the man who would pin this murder on me. If only I had walked away. I think about the day I first meet the man I am convicted of killing, and I wish that I had sent him packing; that I has been at home with the flu on May 6th 1996 - anything. I think about the day of Nicks murder. It was just a normal day, nothing unusual. I wish that I had gotten speeding ticket or been in a fender bender, proving my whereabouts to the cops who never considered my innocence. I guess what I'm trying to say is, that every moment of a persons natural born life is a choosing. A choice here ... choice there... Sometimes the simplest of things or things we don't even think about. And all of them down to the smallest of decisions have led to a self-same outcome - be it happiness or sadness, success or failure, good health or bad, freedom or prison. Sometimes it could even be a coin toss that alters your life; should I go here or should I go there? Heads it is.

Yes, I suppose that we can deny the fact that our choices in life are beyond our control, but that won't matter because destiny, like God itself, cares not one jot or tittle what you believe or do not believe. Nothing in life requires your approval, because when you sign on for this world, you forfeit all control over where it will take you, like a tourist who trusts that the plane he gets on will get him where he want to go without his participation.

I know that you probably think that you have some idea of where life will take you, but it just isn't so. And when the final outcome presents itself, there's no profit in being hateful or vengeful, 'cause it wont change a thing for the better. And if life turns out to be a little bit harder that what you wanted it to be, well, drop your sack and deal with it, 'causes short of killing yourself, your pretty much stuck with the coin toss of life ... Heads it was.

I reach over and retrieve the envelope containing my life and open it. I do not attempt to read the pages of accompanying opinions, but instead go straight to the last page and read the outcome. The word 'denied' stands waiting there for me, like a smiling gold-toothed used car salesman. I wad up the whole mess and toss it to the ground, in much the same way as justice had been done those long hard years before and, then again, more recently, like today. It landed atop a pile of paint stripping's. In what inferno does Dante coldly script me! In what painting has Bosch put me! On what planet of the apes have I landed?

I wrote that a few years back ... when Joe Biden denied my first Clemency request ... I guess you have to be his son to get Clemency ... that wasn't nice. I take it back.

Point is. I have just re-filed for Clemency ... so drop a little prayer in the box for me.

#Mayor Mark says: Come on Alice Johnson, let's give a little Clemency!

 

Bastrop, TX 9/22/26