Snapshots from the jury selection for a murder trial.

Voire Dire Exhibit A. Note: this person made the jury. Snapshots from the jury selection for a murder trial.

Voire Dire Exhibit B. Note: this person did not make the jury.

My mother. She never judged me, never lost faith in me, & never flinched when my pain tried to push her away. Week after week, she wrote letters. Month after month, she visited me, no matter how far away the prison. Year after year, she was there, ever my champion. #MothersDay Early on, when I was facing a life sentence, it hurt so much to hurt her that I tried over & over to convince her to never visit me again. To forget about me. She wasn’t having it.

I was cleaning out some drawers yesterday and found the wallet I used when I first got out of prison. Inside was this $20 bill. It has a (short) story. I left prison at midnight April 8th/9th of 2012. My parents picked me up and we drove through the night from Los Angeles County back to San Jose.

I gave my old iPad to a man who just came home after 25+ years in prison. Unfortunately, it is so old that modern apps don't work with it. I've decided to buy him a new one.

If you'd like to help out, keep reading. This is Moe and this is the man I'm buying the iPad for.

https://twitter.com/hahnscratch/status/1642006859661062146?s=20

As someone who was ordered to pay more than $30k in restitution, I would’ve spent 9 years in prison without being able to call my family. npr.org/2023/04/28/117… The highest paying prison job I had was $3.90 / day, of which 50% was garnered toward restitution. It would’ve taken me 17,949 days incarcerated (or 49+ years) before I would’ve been permitted to call family or buy my own shoes.

Desantis’ defense is that a former prisoner wouldn’t remember a junior officer from 17 years ago.

Let me tell me tell you, as a former prisoner we definitely remember the junior officers. Why? Because they’re the ones we have the most contact with & they’re often the most cruel.

https://twitter.com/tomaskenn/status/1651667468530642969

The lowest ranking officers always have the most to prove and the most to gain. Their job is to do the dirty work and shield the brass from accountability.

I showed up to my 20-year high school reunion with personal checks for people I’d stolen from. Paying people money isn’t a perfect amends for harm caused, but I’ve found that it’s the simplest first step. twitter.com/i/web/status/1… These instances of paying people back have given me the opportunity to apologize, to express remorse, to discuss my selfishness in harming people, and to repair friendships.

I once stole from a high school friend's business and then asked him to give me a job. A thread. In the early 2000's, a friend of mine from high school started a satellite television business and I spent a few years working for him. Towards the end of my time at his company, I relapsed on methamphetamine.

When I was on parole, a cop tried to force me into giving up the names of three drug dealers in exchange for not taking me to jail on bogus charges. A thread. On a Friday afternoon, I visited the parole office for the last time. I had been on parole for more than 16 months, had done everything I was supposed to, and was being recommended for discharge.

Ice hockey was an important part of my time in prison. The challenging task of being an incarcerated San Jose Sharks fan helped me maintain a strong connection to my home on the streets. A thread. I'd been in the county jail just 7 months. I sat on my lower bunk, put on my over-the-head, canteen-purchased AM/FM headphones, and tuned into the familiar voice of Dan Rusanowsky. The pre-game show had already started.

When discerning wisdom in another, some things I look for:

- the capacity to forgive harm after it happens
- the capacity to forgive harm before it happens
- the capacity to forgive harm while it happens And by forgive I do not mean absolution of wrongdoing. I do not mean wiping away another person’s karmic repercussions. We can’t do that anyhow.

I turned up the music in my truck because I'm dying. Reflections on mortality salience, a thread. I was in my new truck, playing the Beastie Boys on the radio. Pulling out of my neighborhood and onto the main street, I stopped in order to let a handful of teenagers cross between the corners.

When I was facing life in prison, I comforted myself with suicidal ideation. It became a habit of mind that still visits me today. Some reflections... In 2003, one of my closest friends committed suicide in a violent way. It was my first exposure to the reality of killing oneself as a way out of life's suffering. Strange as it may sound, I suddenly realized that suicide was an option, albeit an extreme one.

I visited a prison cemetery today because I'd heard that the gravestones only had the state prisoner numbers on them. When I got there, the stone of each gravestone did in fact have the state number chiseled into it. However... However, I noticed that some of the gravestones also had plaques attached to them, plaques which variably had the incarcerateds' names, birth dates, death dates, and prisoner numbers.

Frequent and dramatic disjuncture in human relationships is a hallmark of incarceration. There is rarely any long term trajectory regarding human friendships inside. Relations end abruptly with transfer, housing movement, parole, or trouble.

When I was in the county jail, I had enough juice to have a friend moved from his jail to my own. I wanted him as my cellmate. A thread. After about a year living in the county jail, I had a cellmate named Mark. He was one of my favorite cellees during all my time incarcerated. Mark was smart, funny, and weird. He used to be a sommelier at fine restaurants, something he mentioned regularly.

It has been quite a journey since coming home from prison 11 years ago. From university to ordination, a thread. I was accepted to @UCBerkeley just two months after paroling. I’d filled out applications while still in prison. I graduated in 2013 with a 4.0.

Eleven years ago, I came home from prison. A thread. On February 8th, 2012, I sat on a bench in a prison fire camp in Los Angeles County. I watched the sun set behind the top of the mountains.

As someone who started practicing meditation, mindfulness, and yoga in prison, AND as someone who teaches meditation, mindfulness, and yoga in prison, I can confirm all of the above’s therapeutic benefits.

https://twitter.com/lisi_owen/status/1622651145192718336

To say that yoga or other similar embodied therapeutic techniques can help trauma is not the same as saying that they are the only things that help with resolving trauma, or that they should be the sole method by which someone works toward that endeavor.

There are some things that don't diminish no matter how much they are shared with others. Compassion is one such thing. If having compassion for one person makes it impossible to have compassion for another, it isn't compassion in the first place. Thoughts... I mention this because a lot of people criticize me, or other people in my comments, who have some degree of compassion for people in prison, people who have committed crimes. The criticism usually comes in the form of, "But what about compassion for the victims?"

When I was in the county jail, my attorney gave me advice that changed my life forever. The final words of Steve Cougill, a thread. I had my first felony arrest at the age of 18 and was facing many decades in prison. I hired an attorney named Steve Cougill and he grew to become something of a father figure for me.