Not Even Jail Wants Me
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There is truly no limit to how surreal life can get. I am not in jail. I am back in my little alcove in Balboa Park, listening to the sounds of a live jazz band emanating from the adjacent restaurant. I did go and turn myself in to the Central Jail here in San Diego, but they refused to accept me. You read that right. The jail refused to accept me, even though I am a wanted felon allegedly, and one so dangerous apparently, that the government has saddled me with a designation that requires me to keep law enforcement apprised of where I am for the rest of my life. But yet, when I presented myself to be arrested, a registered sex offender who has refused to comply with registration, a felony parolee who has refused to comply with parole, they threw me back out into the streets. Here’s how it happened...
At about 3pm today, I walked into the Central Jail lobby and told the nice civilian lady named Megan behind the glass window that I had a warrant for my arrest and that I was there to turn myself in. I gave her my name, ID, date of birth and she poked around in the computer for a couple of minutes, and then called somebody. After about five minutes, she said they were going to check. I asked her if I was supposed to wait and she told me I could wait in the upper mezzanine lobby. Which I did.
I wait. At least half an hour goes by, perhaps a whole hour, before a female deputy comes out and asks me my name just as I am putting up my last blog post. I say, “Let me turn off my phone,” assuming she is about to take me away. But she says no, they are still checking. She walks around the corner and talks on the radio for about ten more minutes before she comes back and says the warrant is confirmed. That’s right. I’m supposedly wanted. I walk into a police station, give my name and ID and tell them what the warrant is for, and it takes them over an hour to confirm it!
She asks me to stand up and she handcuffs me, way too tight. She didn’t mean to. Later when I ask her to loosen them, she does. She proceeds to spend half an hour filling out paperwork and inventorying the contents of my duffel bag there in the empty lobby. Finally, we head to the booking area, which strangely you have to walk outside to get to, even though it is in the same building.
Another half hour or more goes by while I wait for her partner to bring her some form she needs to take custody of my duffel bag. I take a mugshot and then go for medical clearance. This is where it gets interesting.
I have high blood pressure. I used to take medication for it but I don’t anymore. Why? The only blood pressure medication that works for me is expensive, about $90 a month. Nine months ago when my financial life collapsed, I reached a point where I ran out and couldn’t afford more. It was a moment of existential realization for me. I was already being treated by society like I was the scum of the earth, and now I’d been pushed into the position where I couldn’t afford my medication. But I thought to myself, I should take it for what? To extend my life so I can take more bullshit from society? I didn’t want that badly to live under the conditions I was living under anyway. So I decided to stop taking it until I was a truly free man, if I ever was again.
When I turned myself in to parole and they took me to jail for medical clearance last October, I learned that this decision had some interesting effects. My blood pressure was very high and jail refused to accept me then too. But at that point, I was in the custody of parole. They took me to the hospital, but I refused to take medication and told them I would not consent to take any medication until I was free. They thought I was doing this just to inconvenience them, unaware that it was a decision I had made before.
My parole officer let me go standing outside the hospital. I was already homeless at this point, and my parole officer had taken the key to my car which was parked at the parole office twenty miles away. I thought that what they wanted me to do was die in the street that night. So I walked back into the hospital and asked to see the doctor who had talked to me, and I told her what parole had done, released me outside with nothing except dangerously high blood pressure. She appeared to be appalled and offered to talk to hospital staff about resources for me. At that point, the parole agents walked back in and took me back into custody. Curious.
The parole agents drive me to Vista Jail, in the eponymous northern suburb of San Diego but still run by the San Diego County Sheriffs and part of the same jail system. Vista Jail accepted me, based on the fact that my blood pressure was marginally lower than it had been downtown. That is how I got into jail four months ago.
This time, they did not offer or consider taking me to Vista. I don’t know what my blood pressure reading was. The nurse didn’t tell me and my back was to the machine. The arresting deputy, Ms. Kane, nicest woman in the world, made a bunch of phone calls to her superiors, called my parole officer, and at the end, told me they could not accept me. She told me I could turn myself in to the Court, and they would figure out what to do. But it is Friday night by now. Court doesn’t open until Monday morning.
The absurdity of this is not on the Sheriff’s deputies. They didn’t make this rule. I’ve spent nearly two years in their custody and the Sheriff’s Deputies who work custody are almost all friendly and professional if you show them the appropriate respect. I really like some of them. What I’ve done is find a flaw in the system, but one that exposes the entire absurdity of my current predicament. It’s a crime for me to leave the state or the country. But when I tried to turn myself in for the crime of being in the city but just not reporting, they wouldn’t take me to jail when I WANTED to go! Yes, I could have accepted their offer to take me to the hospital to take some blood pressure medication, but I’m standing by my principle—I’ll take that medication again when I really have something to live for again. I’m not afraid to die-I’m afraid to go on living like this.
But what kept running through my head through all of this, and what has run through my head repeatedly over the last seven years, is a fact that should never be forgotten, and it tells a big part of what is wrong with our legal system: All of this is about a misdemeanor arrest from seven years ago where many of the factual details alleged do not square easily with reality. As a result, we’ve had about three dozen court sessions, hours and hours of work by district attorneys and public defenders, hours and hours of work by police and sheriffs, hours and hours of work by parole officers, and nearly two thousand days of space being occupied in our overcrowded jails and prisons by me when there have probably been MILLIONS of criminals more dangerous than me on the streets. And as I detailed in an earlier post, this has cost society MILLIONS of dollars already. But it's all my fault, right?
I’ve been against running, but after this? I don’t know. My social security check should come in about 12 days, and that’s enough to flee. But the main thing stopping from doing that is that I want to live a public, above-ground life. I want to be a writer. I want to travel freely. I want to get to know some of these awesome talented girls I’ve been talking about. I can’t do any of that if I run. I’ll be stuck in the underworld forever. I have to fight through to daylight.
I’ve got $16. I would have $141 but two relatively cheap hotels that I’ve already checked out of (one I checked out of over two days ago!) are still holding a combined $125 in deposits. I guess it is another night sleeping here in the park. I don’t know how I’m going to make $16 last until Monday. Maybe the deposits will charge back tomorrow, but probably not on weekend. What a weekend this is going to be!
There is the old saying, “My kingdom for a horse.”. In my case, it’s my kingdom for a good lawyer. I still maintain that if a good lawyer sat down with me for a day, and we talked through the details if my case, they could walk in the San Diego District Attorney’s Office and get it overturned in a hour if I agreed not to sue. And I would agree. I don’t need their money. I just need my freedom. But man, if I die out here in the streets, the one that’s going to come for them after me won’t be so benevolent.
But it doesn’t seem there are any good defense attorneys left. I knew a lot of people being represented by a guy who is supposed to be one of the best and they all went to prison, and I wasn’t impressed by what they told me his strategies were. There are plenty of great patent lawyers—I worked for many. There are plenty of great corporate lawyers. Plenty of great personal injury lawyers. But defense law is dead. I blame the OJ Simpson case. White America was so mad at OJ’s lawyers for doing their job and getting him acquitted that a defense lawyer has become a shameful thing to be, and we’ve forgotten why we really need them. Maybe everybody needs to read To Kill A Mockingbird again...or go watch A Few Good Men.
I’m just surprised there aren’t even any lawyers GREEDY enough to do great defense work. My case is rich in opportunities for publicity and money for the lawyer willing to do a little bit of pro bono work, but nobody seems to want it. But hey, if there are any great lawyers out there who want to prove me wrong, send me an e-mail at michaeldavidboyd@gmail.com. One catch though—female lawyers only! Well, I’ll let a male lawyer work for me only if a woman I can trust says you’re cool and she and you assure me you won’t try to use my case to hurt the cause of protecting women. Even after all I’ve been through, I still won’t do that.
It’s now a little after 9pm and starting to get cold. It feels like it is going to be colder than my last night homeless. I bought a bus pass today, but still I’ve walked almost six miles on my aching feet. A few more now, as I’m going to trek down to McDonald’s and spend three of my last sixteen dollars on two McDouble sandwiches. Then I’ll come back to my alcove and try to pass the night. Maybe tomorrow I’ll know better what to do. At least now I don’t really have to worry about being arrested!
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