Felon: "Feds Don't Cuff Judges Behind The Back. That I Can Tell You."
From January 1991 - March 1993 I was in cuffs five times. Never behind the back.
By Mark Whitney
This is a story about the exercise of discretion, based on my experience as an end-user of handcuffs, waist chains, and leg irons.
President Trump was indicted five times. Like me, he was tried and convicted once, joining the 77 million of his fellow citizens with a criminal record and the 19 million of his fellow citizens who will die as felons.
At no time, however, was the then-former President in cuffs.
JANUARY 1991: ARREST (Cuffed In Front)
After a two year investigation, the FBI arrests me near my home in Norwich, VT, a bedroom community of 4,000 people, located just across the Connecticut River from Dartmouth College, where, in 1987, I established my second of four New Hampshire-based Ben & Jerry’s franchises. I’m 31. I did not have a lot of dating experience before getting married. So, this is my first time in cuffs.
Am I cuffed behind the back? I am not. I am cuffed in front and I ride in the front. FBI Agent is listening to Rush Limbaugh. Cuffs are so loose I could’ve wormed my way out and gone full Con Air on the FBI agent who is listening to Rush Limbaugh. During a short hearing I promise the Federal judge in Vermont that I will appear next week for my arraignment at the Federal court in New Hampshire, same state where I lied to the bank.
Had known that lying to the bank was the glidepath to becoming President of these here United States, I would’ve lied more bigly.
JANUARY 1991: ARRAIGNMENT (No Cuffs)
As promised, I self-report to my arraignment in Concord, New Hampshire, after which, I walk out the door pending trial.
JULY 1991: JURY CONVICTS (No Cuffs)
A jury convicts me for violating a couple of Federal statutes in my zeal to acquire bank financing for my fledgling Cherry Garcia Empire. My status is that of a convicted person facing a statutory maximum of 125 years in Federal prison. My no-money-down signature bond is continued, and once again, I walk out the door, this time pending sentencing.
DECEMBER 1991: SENTENCING (Still No Cuffs)
The elements of my sentence include three years in Federal prison, three years of supervised release, and 1,200 hours of community service. I am given 10 days to get my affairs in order, which is unnecessary because I am not screwing around on my wife. If the Judge and the Government learn one thing about me at trial, it is that I got all this lying to the bank stuff out of my system before I became a father. Parenthood will do that to a man. I teach my sons, “Never tell a lie. Unless your under oath.”
JANUARY 1992: SURRENDER (Cuffed In Front, Waist Chain, Leg Irons)
At my request, my father drops me off a few blocks from the Federal building in Concord, and I walk the final mile in a t-shirt in January in New Hampshire. This is the last chill I’m going to feel for awhile. I get a Snickers from the vending machine, toss the change in the trash, and sit in the lobby until the clock strikes noon. I take the elevator to the sixth floor.
“You’re five minutes late!” the Marshal goes.
“Tag it onto the ass end of my three years.”
“Smart ass, huh?”
“Apparently not smart enough.”
Marshal pats me down and places me in the small holding cell with three lovely and talented members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. I am officially in custody.
“Whadaya’ in for?”
“Lied to the bank.”
“I like banks, too,” he goes. Says when he gets out in 20 years “gonna’ hit a Brinks truck and get a puppy.”
“Goals are important.”
Two or three hours later, we’re in prison jump suits, which look great on the Angels. But, as a blonde, orange is definitely not my color. We are fitted with leg irons and waist chains. When we are cuffed — I cannot emphasize this enough — we are cuffed in the front. My clasped hands are linked to a waist chain. We are transported to the Hillsborough County Jail in Manchester where due to an inventory error, I am placed in maximum security because officials believe I am convicted of Class B felonies like my new biker buddies.
FEBRUARY 1992: DANBURY, CT (Cuffed In Front, Waist Chain, Leg Irons)
There’s a knock on my steel cell door. It’s like 4:00A. Special meal? Express mail? Ass rape? None of the above. Marshals are here for me. An Angel, a couple of lovely and talented members of the Patriarca Crime Family from Boston and me, are transported to a medieval torture chamber in Danbury, Connecticut. It’s a 3-1/2 hour van ride. Identical to the lockup in Shawshank Redemption. More experienced prisoners tell me I am enroute to Allenwood Federal Prison Camp in Pennsylvania, seven hours away from my family.
If I learned one thing it is this. If you expect to see your wife and children while serving time, lie to the bank next door to the Federal prison. In the eighties this took a minute to dope out. Today, it’s a simple three step process:
Drive to the nearest penitentiary
Enter “banks near me.”
Lie to the bank.
MARCH 1992: WHITE DEER, PA (Cuffed In Front, Waist Chain, Leg Irons)
This bus is going to Lewisburg, euphemistically known as The Last Stop. You come out on a stretcher. But, miraculously, the bus first rolls up to Allenwood Federal Prison Camp.
“Whitney!”
I am the only person to get off this bus. They strip search me and assign me to a unit in a dorm. Guard says, “You’re in B2.”
I’m like, “Be to or not be to. That is the question.”
He does not laugh.
MARCH 1993: FORT DIX, NJ (Cuffed In Front, Waist Chain, Leg Irons)
I get into a dust up with the hack who runs the laundry (my new day job). Next morning, it’s another pre-dawn visit from the Marshals. I’m being shipped out. And, it’s just me. So, I know the laundry hack is getting even.
Next morning at lunch, I tell the Warden: (a) I am in litigation with the DOJ, (b) I have an appeal pending in which I am representing myself. I need a law library. Problem for this Warden is that he doesn’t have a law library, as he is required to have per the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment, which brings with it the right to have “meaningful” access the courts. I assure the warden that, on the one hand, I am not a vexatious litigator. But, on the other hand, if you force my hand, “never know what a judge is gonna’ do. Might appoint a special master to oversee the construction of this nice prison y’all building.”
I return to my lunch table. I see the warden talking to the assistant to his left. When he turns to the assistant on his right I read his lips.
“Send him back.”
JANUARY 1993: ALLENWOOD FEDERAL PRISON CAMP (No Cuffs)
I am placed on a Federal Bureau Of Prisons bus with 40 or so of my fellow felons.
Remember I said this is about discretion?
One of the guards yells, “Do I need these chains?”
Hearing nothing he says, “If even one of you motherfuckers fucks up you’re all in chains. Get on the fuckin’ bus.”
We ride like free people from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.
APRIL 1993: WHITE DEER, PA (No Handcuffs)
My term of imprisonment was declared unconstitutional back in January. Using a prison typewriter and my high school diploma, I send a letter to the judge who sentenced me. His name is Shane Devine. In the subject line I write: Motion For Devine Intervention.
I tell him he needs to let me go because the order he wrote banishing me to prison has been nullified, wiped from the books. United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston says he messed up so bad, they have to sentence me “afresh.”
This is not resentencing, which happens when you’re sentenced the second time. This is sentencing, because as a matter of law, the proceeding back in December 1991 never happened. For that reason, my position is that since I was free pending sentencing before I was sent to prison, I must once again be free pending sentencing. Had I walked away from the prison I could not have been charged with escaping, because there was no valid order holding me.
Denied. I appeal and win again.
“Inmate Whitney, report to the lieutenant’s office.”
Three guards escort me to the edge of the compound. They give me two weeks pay — a roll of dimes — and I walk my first mile out of Federal prison. Come up on the White Deer Motel.
“Not gonna’ believe this. I just got thrown out of jail!”
All of this is to say that the United States:
Has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prisoners
Allows prisons to be privately owned and publicly traded, by people who suspect we might be losing democracy,
Despite these horrible practices, even we do not cuff judges. Not in the front. Not in the back. Not on a boat. Not with a goat.
In other words, cuffing the Wisconsin judge behind that back and frog-marching her to the back seat of a waiting vehicle for all the world to see is 100% performative, and we all know whose watching.
But, hey — the President has a show to do.
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