The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison (44 page)

“Fuck the charge,” the inmate declared. “And fuck you.”

“Get him out of here,” Geouge ordered. The guards took the inmate’s arms and escorted him out the door and down the tier to his cell. He continued yelling profanities at Geouge as he was taken past other cells.

“You tell ’em, brother,” an inmate shouted.

“Fuck ’em,” called another.

Back inside the conference room, Geouge turned to his secretary: “Be sure to note that I told him three times to be quiet, but he refused and lunged forward.” Geouge examined the inmate’s thick prison record and read several written statements the guards had filed about the alleged assault. “I find this inmate guilty and sentence him to thirty days in the Hole and recommend a transfer to Marion,” Geouge said. The secretary noted his decision. Only the regional director could approve a transfer to Marion, but most were automatically granted if they were recommended by a DHO.

The confrontation annoyed Geouge. As he walked
over to a stainless-steel coffeepot that looked as if it had never been cleaned and filled his cup, he said, “Most of these guys hate the police when they’re on the street, so why would anyone think they’d change when they come in here? There’s not much I can do when one of them wants to be a shit but haul his ass out of here.”

According to bureau regulations, Geouge was the only official at Leavenworth with the authority to sentence an inmate to the Hole. Guards, lieutenants, and Warden Matthews could send an inmate there temporarily, but after sixty days he either had to be released or formally charged and taken before Geouge for a hearing. These internal sessions were much different from court hearings and were intentionally stacked in the guards’ favor. Statements by staff members were automatically considered more credible than those by inmates, and while inmates could call witnesses to speak in their defense, they were not allowed to question the guards. If an inmate wished, he could ask to be represented by a staff member who could ask questions on his behalf, but the bureau did not permit inmates to interrogate a guard directly, nor did it allow convicts to hide behind legal technicalities and other niceties afforded them in a regular court. If a guard said an inmate was guilty, that was good enough for the bureau. Because the process was so skewed in favor of the guards, inmates often claimed that the hearing process was a sham. They complained that nearly everyone who was brought before a hearing officer was found guilty. In the bureau’s defense, nearly all of the inmates arrested
were
guilty and the cases against them so blatant that it would have been impossible for a hearing officer to rule any other way.

But unlike his predecessor, who had a reputation for rubber-stamping cases, Geouge grilled the accused and the guards to make certain each was telling the truth. Although he had only been the hearing officer for a few months, he had managed to irritate some guards
by rejecting their incident reports, commonly called “shots,” which outlined the charges against the inmate.

When Geouge saw the next inmate being brought into the room, he figured his day was going from bad to worse. This prisoner had been accused of making a bomb out of thousands of sulfur match-heads he had hoarded, packed into a can, and then wrapped with roofing nails. Guards claimed he planned to attach the bomb to the light socket in another inmate’s cell so that when the man flipped the switch, the electric current would ignite the match-heads, causing an explosion that would shoot the nails across the cell like shrapnel. Geouge read the charge and the statements by four guards who claimed the inmate had started running when a guard decided to frisk him. During the chase that followed, the inmate stripped off his pea-green jacket and threw it to the floor. Officer Bill Terrell looked through the pockets and found the bomb, which he cautiously carried outside the prison. The device was later destroyed by the Leavenworth bomb squad.

“This charge is a bunch of shit,” the inmate said after Geouge finished reciting the details of the case. “I wasn’t wearing a coat and I can prove it.” He had three eyewitnesses, he said, who were willing to testify that he was being framed by a guard who didn’t like him. Geouge called the witnesses into the room one by one and listened to their statements.

“Did you see him throw down his jacket?” Geouge asked the first one.

“No, sir,” came the reply. “Why, he wasn’t wearing a jacket.”

Geouge rephrased his question when quizzing the second.

“What color jacket was the inmate wearing?” he asked. But the witness saw through the trick.

“I don’t remember him wearing a jacket,” he testified. “No, sir, I’m sure he wasn’t.”

When the third witness was brought in, Geouge
tried a new tactic. He asked him to describe what the inmate was wearing, beginning with the color of his shoes.

“He was wearing black shoes, green pants …” the inmate said.

“Wait, you said black pants and green shoes?”

“No, green pants and black shoes.”

“Black shoes?”

“That’s right.”

“And green pants?” asked Geouge. “Okay, I got it. Now, was his jacket black or green?”

“Oh, it was green, pea green, you know,” the convict blurted out before realizing his blunder. “I mean, uh, it wasn’t green, it was, uh, well, he didn’t have no jacket on.”

Geouge dismissed the man and quickly turned to the accused. “Do you go by the nickname ‘The Hated One’?” Geouge asked.

“Never heard that before. Man, that’s really cold. Who’d go by something like that?” he replied cockily.

“Your prison record says you have used that nickname for several years.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Four officers said they saw you throw down the jacket.”

“They’re lying, all of them.”

“You know what was written in the jacket?”

“How could I?” the inmate asked. “It wasn’t mine.”

“Inside someone had written ‘Property of The Hated One.’ ”

The inmate shrugged, unmoved.

Geouge found him guilty, sentenced him to 120 days in the Hole, and recommended a transfer to Marion.

For the next four hours, Geouge dispensed prison justice. Several convicts had been caught drinking homemade hooch, one had disobeyed an order, another had put a knife to an inmate’s throat and demanded sex.
Besides those cases, Geouge had two others held over from a hearing a week before. One involved a bulky white inmate covered with tattoos, serving several life terms for murder. Guards had found a shank hidden in the bed in his cell, but he had told Geouge that the bed had been moved into his cell only a few hours before the knife was discovered. It was a replacement brought in because his bed was broken.

“I never seen that knife before,” the inmate had claimed.

The story seemed plausible, so Geouge had postponed making a decision until he had a chance to investigate the inmate’s story. He discovered that the bed had just been moved into the inmate’s cell as he had claimed.

“I checked out your story,” Geouge said when the inmate was brought into the room.

“Okay,” the inmate snarled.

“Well, what you told me is the truth, so I’m expunging this charge and turning you loose.”

The inmate was shocked. “Well, this is a first,” he said.

“I figure you’ve been a shithead in other areas, but not this time,” Geouge replied.

“Hell, Geouge,” the inmate said with a grin. “You know me. If I have a weapon, I’m going to use it.”

“Get out of here,” Geouge said, “and don’t come back.”

Geouge had conducted a second investigation on his own since the hearings last week. This case involved a convicted murderer who had demanded that he be moved into one of the cells above the prison hospital, where inmates who needed to be protected from other convicts were housed for their own safety. The inmate claimed he owed several thousand dollars in gambling debts and was going to be murdered unless he was moved to “PC”—protective custody.

Geouge had been suspicious because the convict had been in various prisons for more than twenty years
and clearly knew how to take care of himself. In fact, his prison file showed that he had been accused of shaking down weaker inmates and it listed him as a reputed hit man for a California motorcycle gang.

Geouge had discovered that the inmate’s real motive in wanting to move into a cell above the hospital was money. He had reportedly accepted a contract to kill an inmate housed there who had disclosed a drug-smuggling operation in B cellhouse. Had Geouge agreed to the move, the inmate would have been able to complete the murder-for-hire.

“I don’t believe your story,” said Geouge when the inmate was brought before him. “But if you’re really in danger, you’ll be safer here in the Hole, so we’ll just take this one day at a time.”

The inmate was angry. “Hey, I demand you move me to PC.”

“Hey,” Geouge replied in the identical tone of voice. “You don’t demand anything here. You’ll be safe in the Hole.” (A few days later, the inmate asked to be returned to the general population.)

Geouge worked through lunch without taking a break. By late afternoon, he was ready to hear his final case of the day. It involved a twenty-nine-year-old black inmate from Washington, D.C., accused of gambling on Sunday football games.

“I’m guilty,” the inmate replied when Geouge asked how he wished to plead.

The case seemed rather simple. It had been a long day. Geouge’s secretary and the guards in the room were anxious to leave, but there was something about the convict’s docility that made Geouge decide to ask a few more questions.

“Like to gamble?” Geouge asked.

“I got nothing else to do to pass the time, man.”

“Who’d you bet on last Sunday?”

“Chicago. I always bet Chicago Bears.”

“Then you lost?”

“Yeah, fifteen bucks, and I only get sixteen a month working in industry.”

“Well, we did you a favor by locking your butt up and keeping you from wasting any more money,” said Geouge.

The convict chuckled. “I’ve been saving up for the Super Bowl,” he said candidly. “I love watching that Super Bowl especially if my Bears are in it.”

“Jesus!” Geouge said as he read through the inmate’s record. “You’ve been busted for gambling several times and once for having more than the twenty-dollar cash limit in your cell.”

“Yeah,” said the inmate. “That’s the only weekend I won.”

Everyone in the room laughed. The convict’s honesty was a refreshing change. Geouge continued reading the file. “I see why you gamble,” he said. The inmate was serving a 125-year sentence for robbery, rape, and assaulting a police officer. He had already served seven years.

“What else am I going to do in here?” the inmate asked. “I don’t have a chance to party like you do.”

“Do I look to you like someone who likes to party?” Geouge replied gruffly.

“No, uh, no sir, I mean, you look like you got something to go home to, sir. What the hell do I have to do to enjoy my time? I bet, but I don’t get over my head and I always pay up. My reputation is good, you ask anyone, I always pay and never cause trouble.”

“Listen,” said Geouge, “we’re trying to tighten up on gambling because some guys are getting in over their heads, but I’m going to suspend this and turn you loose. The catch is, you got to maintain clean conduct for six months. If you’re caught gambling, you’re coming back to the Hole to serve time on this charge and any new charges. You understand?”

“Thank you,” the inmate said. He stood to leave, but before he reached the door, Geouge stopped him.

“Hey, I want you to do me a favor,” Geouge said. “Before you place your bet on the Super Bowl, come find me and tell me which team you’re backing, because with your record I want to bet on the other team.”

The inmate appeared confused. He turned toward the door, then stopped and turned around as if he wanted to speak, only to turn toward the door once again and stop. And then he finally understood. Geouge was giving him a break. The veteran officer knew that the inmate wasn’t going to stop gambling, particularly with the Super Bowl coming up. But Geouge also understood, he said later, that sometimes a twenty-nine-year old inmate facing another 118 years in prison deserved a bit of compassion, particularly when he had told the truth at his hearing and was willing to take his punishment without complaint.

“Hey, Geouge,” the inmate said as he stood in the doorway of the hearing room.

“Yeah?” Geouge replied.

“For a cop, you’re all right.”

On Christmas Day, Warden Matthews decided to pay a surprise visit to the Cuban units. As he and Bill Slack walked from cell to cell wishing the detainees a Merry Christmas, one of them began to applaud. He said in broken English that he was showing his appreciation to Slack. Two weeks earlier, Slack had brought a Polaroid camera, white shirt, black tie, and sport jacket into the cellhouse. He told the detainees that they could each put on the clothes and have their picture taken in an area of the cellhouse where the cells and bars wouldn’t be visible. They could mail the pictures to their wives, friends, and family enclosed with Christmas cards that were being donated to them by a local card manufacturer. The Cuban said he had been in prison for seven years and this was the first photograph that he had been able to send home to his children.

Slack grinned sheepishly, told the Cuban in awkward Spanish “
Felices Navidad
,” and continued down the tier with Matthews. Then the man in the next cell also applauded and suddenly the entire tier began clapping for Slack.

As he and Matthews walked up and down the five levels, inmates stood at the front of their cells cheering
and applauding. Matthews was exuberant when he left the unit. Slack beamed with pride. Five days later, guards found a Cuban hanging from his cell. He had committed suicide.

“This place is a roller coaster,” Slack said. “Highs and lows, highs and lows.”

Because the suicide was the first by a Cuban detainee in Leavenworth since the Atlanta and Oakdale riots, nearly all the major newspapers and national television networks carried the story. Most claimed the Cubans being housed in the penitentiary were despondent.
The Kansas City Star
reported that Warden Matthews had ordered his staff to perform a “psychological autopsy” to determine why the Cuban had killed himself. But “to others, there was no mystery,” the newspaper wrote. It quoted George Crossland, cofounder of the Mariel Assistance Program, a support group for detainees and their families, saying, “These people have told me over and over and over they’d rather die than go back to Cuba.”