Greetings & Good Hello. The mail war rages on! Today I was roused from sleep at 9:50 to head to the nurses station for more mail. Four parcels of “legal documents” arrived yesterday and were now being delivered to me. This was a late-day on the rec cycle, meaning that the 2nd floor cells were allowed our 3 hours of time outside of our cells from 10 noon and 22-23:00 instead of 8-10 and 21-22:00. As such, I was sleeping when the intercom called out “Mr. Welton, ring the bell!” – instructing me to get up and press the intercom talk button.
There is no real reason to press the talk button, so I just called out an inquiry and the tinny voice responded “Mr. Welton, that you?”
“Yep”
“Ms Howard wants you in the mail room” – followed by the beeping and electrical buzz of the cell door unlocking. I donned by orange jumpsuit, did a quick brush of teeth and scowled at my rank armpit stink – but hurried out the door to wait by the sallyport. Eventually the sallyport opened and I saw Ms Howard across the antechamber preparing shackles for me. This was new.
I wandered over, put my hands on the wall and knees up on the bench so my ankles could be shackled. No wrist shackles this time – just ankles. Then I was taken to the nurses station. Ms Howard seemed to be in a nasty mood. I was informed that she was getting tired of delivering me mail as she opened the first one of the four envelopes and prepped the copier. This was a copy of this web site and several pages of documentation on the EU’s AI law, the GDPR, and several US laws including the CAN-SPAM act and the Federal do-not-call registry.
The nursing station was buzzing with activity. Two other inmates were having medical intake performed and a couple of new officers, younger males, were milling about – they appeared to be the escorts of the medical intake inmates. Despite it all, Tony, the head nurse, hearing my sparring lightly with Ms Howard stepped around the partition dividing the medical from and the admin space to say hello. Tony and I had a “get to know you” interaction early on – one in which I went from being pigeonholed as inmate-trash to something different and where Tony and I now treat each other with respect. Out of all the North Carolina facilities, this one is by far the best medically, and given the sorry state of the rest of the facility that is saying an awful lot.
Tony and I chatted because my medication had recently been changed. I dropped one of my anti-hypertensives because my blood pressure is now way too low. We talked about the change in diet and I mentioned that lockdown was a particularly low-stress environment and also quite non-alcoholic. All in all my health has improved – mental health is difficult though, due primarily to the constant attack by people like officer Howard and the jail administrators – who block books, communications, personal and community hygiene, and take other steps to actively foment discord. We will see an example of this in a minute with Officer Wilson.
It was good to check in with Tony – it is nice to feel normal and have a normal interaction. My blood pressure is rarely above 100 now, which is pretty darn good for someone who has three stents in their heart.
The website and wikipedia dump finished copying and Tony stepped away with a smile and a nod. Ms. Howard was opening up the next parcel – this one was huge – a few hundred pages, and that was with 4 pages on a side, plus double sided. Eight pages of documents per sheet of paper – a huge dump. This was all of the evidence from one of the email accounts in my case. Ms. Howard was pissed off – complaining that attorneys didn’t send stuff like that. I informed her that I sent a copy to myself and my attorney and would she like me to have my attorney send it back?
Not wanting to be left out, the two guards escorting the medical intake prisoners jumped in. Together the three of them started some sort of country ramble that had something to do with mail, but seemed mostly incoherent. I am not sure what inspired Ms. Howard to copy this stack, but she did, and once it was on the copier she hurried out of the room on some other urgent errand. She is a woman in constant manufactured crisis, with her hands, feet, and mouth all connected. If any one stops moving, the whole system is liable to jam up.
I seize the moment to peer back at one of the nurses and to pantomime for some pills. She’s on the phone but nods. Earlier in the morning she had delivered the morning medication and there had been a mix-up with mine – she had had to pull one of my medications out. Perfect time for a replacement. And just in time as Ms. Howard returned in a flurry of activity. She immediately scooped up all the envelopes she had previously sorted and began to re-sort them. A woman in constant manufactured crisis.
The tirade began again as she opened up the third envelope for me and pulled out a sheet of papers. “Nuh-uh, no-way” she said. Looking at the envelope she said “This Eric looks like he just downloaded anything off the internet. No way” – as she pointed to my name on the return address. She did not notice it was the same name as the recipient – but then, noticing glaringly obvious facts is not her way. They tend to obscure her beliefs.
I asked if I could see the papers. “Ah ha!” I said, “These are the messages between me and my attorney” – then, as she stuffed them back into the envelope, I suggested – would you like him to call and authorize them? She immediately replied “He don’t know what in this” – and then, when I opened my mouth to try to challenge that she immediately shut me down and held up the last envelope, claiming “Now this one feels like legal mail. Attorneys don’t be sending thick packets, they send thin mail”. And she pulled out a series of unfiled handwritten court motions I wanted here on standby. These, at least, looked more legal than the actual conversations with my attorney.
At the end of it I got three of the four envelopes delivered – only the one containing attorney/client communications was deemed insufficiently legal. We had a thrilling conversation about the lack of any written policy regarding legal mail and, to my delight, the two escort officers informed me it was impossible for me to know more about postal law than the law enforcement officers – because I was a criminal. According to them, conviction was not a requirement for criminality, only arrest! Go USA!
Eric Charles Welton
Prisoner #94911
Columbus County Detention Center
March 27, 2024