Shane Crum – Victim of Injustice

On Wednesday, my Mother got some bad news. She went to the doctors and was diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctors scheduled her for something like 3 or 4 tests, and an operation within two weeks. I think they caught it early.

My Mother has been my strength throughout my incarceration. She has kept me centered. The thing I look forward to the most when I finally get out, is spending time with her. Taking care of her. My life is something of a train wreck, and it has had nothing but a bad impact on my Mother’s life. She deserves some peace in life.

She would lose one son and see another permanently scarred for life in the house fire I was in at age 3. In some ways, I think this caused my Mom some pain and stress throughout her life. Every time my life would take a turn for the worse, Mom was right there picking up pieces and strengthening me. She has always stood by me no matter what.

When I would be accused of molesting my own daughter, she would look through the evidence files. Once she saw for herself that I was innocent, she stood by me these past 25 years. Mom would spend everything she has, lose her house, and go into debt trying to fund my legal defense. She did it without thought.

The Bible says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends.” Love is selfless.

Mom is the manifestation of this verse. I really wish my life would not have had such a bad impact on my Mother’s life. She should not have had to go through all of that because of me. If I could change all of that for her, I would without thought. I would do anything to have kept my Mother from going through this because of me.

Now, Mom is going through this diagnosis. I would rather be there for her. She does not deserve any of this. She deserves so much better. She is the strongest person I have ever known. She is the most loving. The most loyal. The most understanding. The most perceptive. They always say that the son will try to marry a woman like their mothers. I doubt very seriously that I will find anyone like my Mother. I suspect that if it is possible, I would have already met them. They just do not raise girls into women like they did back then. Then too, I have never met another woman like my Grandma Vie. Yet another great woman in my family, she may be the reason my Mother is the way she is.

If the worst happens to my Mother, I know I will not be consolable. I will lose my compass. I would ask that everyone send her well wishes. Let her know that many people are standing behind her. Help bring her spirits up so it will be easier for her to go through this. Strengthen her. Give her hope. Do not do it for me, do it for her. Show her that a life full of love and loyalty is the most admirable.

A few days ago, JPay sent out a mass e-mail to all the inmates here at M.C.I. I do not know if this e-mail was sent to all O.D.R.C. inmates in the state of Ohio. The e-mail was a threat. It stated something to the effect that inmates are not allowed to send messages of any kind that end up on social media platforms like Tiktok, Facebook, or YouTube. That doing so violates O.D.R.C. policies pertaining to outgoing mail. They went on to say something like we could get kicked off JPay and face disciplinary sanctions from our perspective institutions.

This is an arbitrary threat at best. An unenforceable one at that. You see, inmates are not responsible for what third parties do. We cannot control the actions of people who are free. Moreover, we cannot be punished for the things other people in the free world decide to do. There is precedent case law about this very issue.

O.D.R.C. and JPay may attempt to tell the inmate that they are to stop writing to someone who posts such things on social media, and that is the inmates responsibility. O.D.R.C. and JPay are not judges and cannot order inmates to stop writing someone under any circumstances. It takes a court order for that.

What this is about, is that the Department of Retribution and Coercion does not want inmates to inform the masses of what really goes on in prison. They were severely embarrassed by their handling of Covid here at Marion. They do not want society to see what they feed us, how they treat us, and the crap they put us through. They have a real fear of transparency for good cause. So, what if an inmate does a dance that ends up on Tiktok or some other platform? What do they really have to fear about it? Why the threat?

A few years ago, O.D.R.C. issues every inmate a GTL tablet for us to make calls on. Prior to this, inmates would have to get in line, and call on a wall phone. Corrections Officers, known as COs, that use to say some derogatory things to us, suddenly had to watch how they spoke to inmates. The reason. They do not know if any inmate in the area is on one of these tablets and speaking to their family. I cannot begin to tell you how many times a CO would start saying something completely out of line to an inmate and suddenly stop themselves, look around, and say,” wait, is there someone on the phone right now?”

This so called “ban on social media posts” is an attempt to prevent similar things from getting out. They want to control who we speak to, when, how often, and the content of what we are saying. An inmates punishment is coming to prison. That does not give the staff at any institution the right to treat us in a cruel and inhumane manner. But they do, and they do not want you to know about it. The bigger issues they have is that it does not matter what they do. They cannot stop this type of information from getting to the public. Nor should they attempt to make restrictions for that purpose.

I have never been intimidated by a bully of any kind. That includes one that tries to use their position of authority, job title, or political status as a weapon. I will say this, should they try to silence me, I would like to call on all of you to stand up for me. Can I count on all of you?

I do not think my posts are what they had in mind, but some overzealous CO make take that little announcement and run with it just because it gives them the appearance of authority to stop someone like me.

The funny thing about the very rules O.D.R.C. invents, the staff are incapable of understanding them. They do not have any discernable form of comprehension when it comes to how the rules apply to them. They are unable to perceive where and when to apply the rules.

The staff here will walk past an inmate smoking a drug called tune but will harass inmates who are trying to get to their school classes. They clearly worry about the wrong things.

Recently, I had someone I consider a very close friend look at the posts I place on this very blog. He disagreed with much of what I had been saying, because he believes that society is much more likely to believe someone who claims to be innocent when the evidence bears that out, that people are tired of sloppy police work, and jurors require real proof of a person’s guilt to convict. I have not been out in the free world in over 25 years and cannot speak to some of his arguments. Nevertheless, the one thing he said to me that really stuck with me is, “many TV shows depicting innocent people being exonerated show that those prisoners who are upbeat, optimistic, and willing to forgive get much more attention and are more likely to be released than those who are consumed by anger and recrimination. I would prefer to think it is not a person’s attitude, but rather the facts of each case that persuades the public to help free innocent inmates. My Mother even says I have become increasingly more negative over the years. I suppose my posts are apparently negative as well.

I will never make an excuse for speaking on what I have experienced. Prior to being incarcerated, I believed in this country. I believed in its people. I truly believed in our justice system. From the time of my arrest, I would have each of these beliefs tested time and time again. Each time, I would have those beliefs shattered. It is not anger or recrimination I feel. It is cynicism and confusion. I have been forsaken by most of my friends and family. The justice system has let me down repeatedly. Each time I have reached out from behind these walls, I have had people judge me not on my character, nor the evidence of my case, but on the charges themselves. I am baffled by the idea that the things I held such strong beliefs in are not what I believed them to be. One thing for a certainty, I have never lost hope. I never believed I would die in prison. I never believed I would not be able to prove my innocence. I have always had one eye on a future after prison. A life I have yet to live. I do not feel any more nor less negative these days than I have in times past. I have lost some of my immediate trust in people. I have seen our judicial system fail over and over. I have even seen this great country make mistake after mistake. Call me a fool, but despite all I have gone through, I still fundamentally believe in all these things. Albeit none of them have come through for me yet.

My cynicism and confusion do not mean I have lost hope. Hope, after all, is the fundamental basis for all optimism and good dispositions. I have routinely stated that a person is truly beaten only when they believe they have been. My hope compels me to keep reaching out. It forces me to keep trying. My words may not reflect my hope, but my actions declare I have not given up.

My blog posts are not intended to insult anyone. I am merely writing about the things I have experienced. I want people to think about what I am saying. My life is not the only one that depends upon people seeing the truth. I would like to know what everyone thinks about this subject. Do you think the upbeat inmates get more attention, or is it those who can show their innocence? If the positive inmate gets more attention, should we be asking why that might be? I justice truly about optimism? Let me know what you think.

I am thinking people do not really want to hear what an inmate has to say. I do not think it matters if the inmate claims to be innocent or not. People just do not want to hear it. The shows on T.V. seem to back this up. Any show based upon the premise that people get wrongfully convicted usually gets cancelled quickly. Not enough ratings. Shows that depict the police always getting the right person, and putting them in prison, seems to have staying power.

With the deaths of several black men at the hands of the police, networks began pulling some of these shows, including Cops. Networks are bringing some of these shows back, and Cops is back on the air. If you want to talk about an actual systemic problem, I suggest we start with this idea that the judicial system is not fallible. The very notion that the police, prosecutors, and the courts always get it right. It has gotten to the point that most of our society will not even begin to entertain the idea that innocent people are in prison across this country. They do not want to hear about the thousands of people who have proven their innocence and have been released. They certainly do not want to consider there are tens of thousands of inmates in prison who are actually innocent of the crimes they were charged with.

The famous character Sherlock Holmes said, “Remove the impossible, and whatever remains no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Is it possible to commit a crime that leaves absolutely no physical evidence? Is it possible to rape a 4-year-old child, without leaving any scaring, bruising, or taring? Is it possible to rape that same child and leave the hymen intact? Is it possible to do all of this, and leave no physical evidence and no seamen? If it is not possible, then the crime never took place. So, what is left?

Is it probable that the parents went through a bad break up? Is it probable that the mother coached the child to make false claims against the father? Is it probable that a mother could use her own child this way to remove the father from the child’s life? Is it probable that an overzealous detective, and prosecutor ignored the fact there was no evidence to secure a conviction? Is it probable that a jury was so shocked by the allegations, they too ignored the lack of evidence, and convicted an innocent person?

This is what the evidence says in my case. So many people wanted to get the bad child molester off the street, the complete absence of evidence did not matter. A Mother was so willing to rid herself of the child’s father, that she was willing to put her child through a host of examinations, interviews, and the public spectacle of a trial. Causing her daughter to identify herself as a victim forever. I wonder if anyone has done a study on how that would affect a person?

If people refuse to consider innocent people are in prison, society will continue to incarcerate innocent people. If we are unable to listen to their stories, we will never know how this can happen nor the ways to stop it. The innocent people in prison did not slip through a crack. They were locked up intentionally, with purpose, and the knowledge they were innocent. I just hope you or someone you love is not next.

What happened to Justice in America? I have spent the past 25 years in prison for a crime that never even occurred. Almost everyone who takes the time to look at the evidence in my case say they believe me to be innocent. Yet, the courts routinely deny my appeals for some of the littlest excuses they can find. Has everyone who works in the judicial system become so cynical that they just dismiss a claim of actual innocence out of hand? Are they really so afraid to release people from prison?

Shortly after getting sentenced, I did as most innocent people do, and I began to pour through any legal journal I could find. In the legal precedence on actual innocence, I kept coming across the phrase, “In the interest of justice”. I kept thinking,” surely a system that uses this verbiage would at least consider my claims.” I mean, our justice system should be concerned about the potential of incarcerating innocent people. “Right?”

What I learned is, the court system is more concerned about keeping their procedures intact than having innocent people spend decades in prison. My appeals and the court responses are loaded on my website. You can look to see what their rulings are for yourself. Here is a synopsis of some of the decisions they made. We filed stating the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense, the court ruled that had my attorney been more diligent he could have located the statements before trial. We said that there has never been any physical evidence, the court said that does not matter as long as they have people saying it happened. We claimed the prosecutions expert witnesses should never have been qualified to testify as experts based upon their expertise and the opinions they gave, the court said nurse practitioners are experienced enough and giving an opinion not based in the physical findings was sufficient. We actually had something like 14 points of error that we filed, and the court knocked them all down using the smallest reason they could find. Of course, all in the interest of justice.

This is what justice looks like in America today. I should also tell you I have learned one other really important detail. The innocent people who eventually get released from prison only do so when they get support from enough people who all band together. It does not appear that truth, evidence, nor any other noble notion has anything to do with it. It simply comes down to having enough people demanding justice for the individual. Enough voices screaming to be heard. Only then will a court consider there may be something to the prisoners claims of actual innocence. I am not sure if it has something to do with the court thinking, “how can so many people be wrong?”, or if they are thinking about the next election? You will have to decide that for yourselves. What I can tell you is, if you believe in someone’s innocence, let your voice be heard. Do not sit back and think to yourself that it will all work itself out. It will not. Your voice could be the one that gets an innocent person set free.

How many times have you ever been accused of doing something you know you did not do? When that accusation comes, don’t you vehemently deny it? Have you noticed that the more serious the false allegation against you, the more forceful the denial? The most serious and disgusting allegations invoke anger.

I have been told there are two major differences between those who are guilty, and those who are innocent, in prison. The first is to say that the innocent are always angry. Angry because both the system has failed them in a colossal way, and the accusation remains with them the entire time they are in prison. If it angers you to be falsely accused, then think what it must be like to have that same false allegation pointed at you daily. The second difference is that those who are guilty sleep at night, and those who are innocent do not. Try to imagine being trapped in a nightmare you can not get away from even while you are awake. Your mind will not let things rest, and therefore you do not rest.

I have been in more physical fights than I can count in prison. The parole board even commented on this fact. I really hate to fight. I do. I just want to be left alone while I try to find a way to prove my innocence. Yet, both staff and inmates alike seem to think that I am some sort of coward, and a weak man because of the charges against me. I try to tell them I am innocent, but they do not want to hear that. Mostly, they want someone they can point a finger at so no one is looking at what they have done. However, this also means I am not the weak coward they have come to believe me to be. So, when they start in with calling me a child molester, or thinking they can just run over me, I push back, and they get seriously confused. The anger of being falsely accused yet again causes me to react fiercely, and pushing things too far.

I do not know if you can understand what it is like to be talked to as though you are a second class citizen every moment of every day. To have people thinking they can actually take food right out of your hands. Having them believing they can do whatever they want to you, whenever they want, and you will not do anything about it. They keep coming.

I was raised to stand up for myself. To be courteous and kind to others, but to not take crap either. Mom taught me that I should not be rude nor impolite. It does not seem that most of the people in our country were raised the same way. I am not sure where these people get this false sense of entitlement. I do not owe you anything, and I work for what I get. So, do not get confused when I stand up for myself.

Granted, the anger of my false conviction surfaces when pushed, and I try to deal with that personally. Maybe, just maybe, you should worry more about your own reason for being in prison instead of pointing fingers and pushing someone else. If you think for a moment that you do not have any responsibility in the outcome when you get to pushing me, you are definitely wrong. If you spent time worrying more about yourself, and leaving me alone, we would not be in this mess.

Prison is a truly miserable place to be. We are kept away from family and friends. Isolated from society in general. Most of our freedoms stripped from us. Yet, it does not have to be as miserable as we make. Most of the crap that goes on in prison is due to the choices the inmates make. You can choose to leave other people alone, to mind your own business, and to be kind and polite. The fact that you choose chaos, anarchy, and violence demonstrates the very reasons why you are in prison in the first place, and how you were raised. I can not understand how you can sleep soundly knowing these facts.

I am wondering what the word, “lonely” means to all of you? For me, it takes much more of a surreal meaning. It breeds feelings of emotional pain, anxiety, and desperation. I am sure you are saying you feel these things as well. So, let me enlighten you as to what I am really talking about.

There was a time when I would get to feeling lonely, I would simply find family or a friend to talk to. I would go to their house, call them on the phone, or sometimes they would just show up. I was with people I greatly cared for. All of those feelings would slip away into some place in the back of my mind. Just waiting for the next opportunity to present themselves. Keeping in mind, the internet was not as prevalent in our society when I was a free man as it is now. Social media was in its infancy. From what I can tell, social media has not helped us build our social skills. A cold computer screen does not convey things like, tone of voice, facial and body expressions, or other body language that can express so much more than any written word can. That is another subject I suppose.

Anyway, I am in prison now. When I get to feeling those pangs of loneliness, there is no way to escape them. The people around you are not your friends. They will prove that to you at the first opportunity. They will throw you under the bus, or sell you out as soon as the situation is beneficial to them. You can not tell them anything personal. It will be used against you. Your biggest concerns and secrets must be closely guarded. Emotions are signs of weakness. Shed a tear for others to see, and the predators come out from every corner. I can not remember the last time I had the chance to show someone who I really am. I do not remember the last time I felt comfortable enough with someone I could just open up to them, and say whatever is on my mind. I would never have believed that feeling lonely would eventually condition me to close myself off to others.

You see, when I get to feeling lonely, I can not just reach out to people. There are specific times I can call home, and those are not always convenient for the people I am calling. Never mind the cost associated with contacting loved ones from prison. I can not just Skype or get a video visit whenever I want one. Everything must be scheduled. Worse still is the fact that all of my communications are monitored. That includes this posting. I have to be mindful of what I am saying so my “privileges” of staying in contact with loved ones does not get taken away. Although, I have a tendency to say some things anyway. Bob has warned me on several occasions as to what I am saying. I get tired of kowtowing to these people. I should never have to fear speaking the truth. Nevertheless, these people will use every little thing you say against you, and completely out of context in which it used in the first place.

Loneliness breeds loneliness in prison. It creates distrust, anxiety, and depression. It really wears on your confidence. Not just the confidence in yourself, but also the confidence in your relationships, and your confidence in your communications with others. I guess social media does less in destroying a persons ability to interact with society than does prison. It leaves inmates socially awkward at best. A social pariah at its worst.