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Dr. Malachi Z. York

 

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Federal Court Pretrial Transcripts

 

ARTICLES ON ADX FLORENCE COLORADO FEDERAL PRISON

 

I spent this 9-11 anniversary in the most unlikely of places—the so-called "Supermax" federal penitentiary complex in Florence, Colorado. I was part of a small group of journalists who were finally allowed by the Bureau of Prisons and the Justice Department to tour for about 100 minutes a few areas of a 640-acre compound that houses approximately 3,200 prisoners, including some of the best known and most notorious of our time.

No, we did not see Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols or the so-called "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid or the so-called "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski or the so-called "20th Hijacker" Zacarious Moussaoui. We did not see any dank underground cells or other evidence that the men in the "Administrative Maximum Security" portion of the prison are simply left to rot in their cells. But we didn't see a shiny happy place either—it is prison, after all, and it happens to house inmates who for one reason or another were kicked out of their "regular" penitentiaries.

We saw an eerily-quiet, sterile portion of the facility, a place where almost every single inmate was polite, if not particularly talkative, and where federal officials could best show us the vast majority of prisoners at this ADX house aren't big-named convicts or high-profile terrorists—and that they all have a chance to "rehabilitate" themselves enough to warrant being placed back in a prison population somewhere. We saw what they wanted us to see, and only that, in an environment of control that extended to when we were allowed to sit down inside the "briefing room."

We saw cement desks and bed frames and stainless steel toilets and sinks. We saw cages—straight out of the circus—where inmates who are going along with the warden's "program" are allowed to "recreate" outside for about 10 hours a week. We saw that the windows in the cells are only a few inches wide and all look inward toward the other windows of other cells. No one has a view of the beautiful Rocky Mountains which surround the facility in the southern portion of Colorado.


(DAEMMRICH/AFP/Getty)

 

We were allowed to tour—the first ever formal media visit we were told—to help prison officials "destroy" some of those public "myths" and many others that have cropped up about the prison since the most-sensitive portion of the place opened in 1994. "Today is about education," said ADX Warden Ron Wiley, who looks like a cross between Texas Rangers' manager Ron Washington and comedian Eddie Murphy. "Ninety percent of the ADX mission is inmates taken out of other institutions," he said, and the "20 or 30 inmates" who we would consider high-profile are "not my major mission."

Warden Wiley told us that he speaks personally with every single inmate in his facility at least once a week. So what does Terry Nichols talk about? What does the Unabomber have to say? All Wiley would tell us is that their requests are more practical than philosophical in nature. The high-profile prisoners, he said, are actually among the best behaved in the facility. "It is super quiet" where they are confined, he said, "and they exhibit a lot of discipline and respect for authority."

They'll ask about when their Special Administrative Measures (the extra security precautions imposed by the Justice Department) are going to be reviewed, Wiley said, or if they can get a certain kind of magazine. Will these people ever be able to satisfy the misty "test" imposed by the Bureau of Prisons in determining whether a Supermax prisoner is worthy of going into the general prison population? They are all eligible, Wiley said proudly, before immediately conceding that some of the truly high-profile convicts probably would never stay alive and well in a general population because of the nature of their crimes.

So don't look for Nichols in Leavenworth or Kaczynski in Marion anytime soon. And don't look upon "Supermax" as this particularly foreboding or sinister place. It may be a high-tech, super-secure prison but it is still a prison, where men will live and die in 68-square-foot cells. And despite Warden Wiley's central-casting demeanor and attitude, it is still a place that can generate the occasional doubt of drama. When we were listening to one prison official drone on about yoga I suddenly saw two corrections officers race down the hallway past our window and then saw two others, who were part of our tour, immediately bolt us into the room.

Lockdown? No, just a false alarm.

 

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From Terry Frieden
CNN Washington Bureau

CNN justice producer Terry Frieden was part of the first-ever media tour of the U.S. Bureau of Prison's Administrative Maximum prison -- also known as "Supermax." What follows is Frieden's account of his experience.


A file photo of the SuperMax prison taken when the facility opened 13 years ago.

FLORENCE, Colorado (CNN) -- Visiting Supermax, the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," reveals nothing so much as an astonishing and eerie quiet.

It's not what one would expect of a place that houses 473 notorious terrorists, vicious murderers and violent, disruptive escape-prone inmates brought in from other federal penitentiaries.

I've visited noisy, boisterous state and federal prisons, where inmates scream for a visitor's attention or proclaim their innocence.

But at Supermax -- officially called "Administrative Maximum," or ADX -- everything is very tightly controlled, with nothing left to chance, so there is no particular sense of a threat, no feeling of vulnerability. View an explainer of Supermax's security »

Corrections officials were blunt in explaining their reason for finally inviting reporters, albeit without cameras, to peek behind the heavy metal gates for the first time since the penitentiary opened 13 years ago.

"This is about dispelling myths and rumors," said Warden Ron Wiley.

Myths that particularly rile prison officials are reports that Supermax, southwest of Colorado Springs, is a dungeon where inmates are cast aside to rot and die, and that the prison is underground, which it obviously is not. View a map of Supermax's location »

The first hint of the level of control throughout Supermax is the cumbersome, time-consuming security procedures we visitors (already cleared for admittance) were subjected to.

I expect metal detectors these days, but despite possessing my Justice Department-issued photo ID, I still had to be photographed by the Bureau of Prisons, which is part of the Justice Department. Even Bureau of Prisons executives had to display their credentials to guards time and time again.

Prison officials also have been bugged by rumors that the penitentiary was not entirely safe and secure, and that the lack of adequate staffing and a perimeter fence were potential problems to the community.

Bureau officials insist allegations of inadequate security were fueled by corrections labor unions wanting more staffing, but complaints caught the attention of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Colorado Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard, all of whom visited.

In the end, it was agreed that a $10 million perimeter fence wasn't needed.

The handful of journalists allowed in were not allowed to see the headline-grabbing terrorists isolated under specially designed procedures. We didn't get a glimpse of Zacharias Moussaoui, Ramzi Yousef, Richard Reid, Theodore Kaczynski or Terry Nichols. But we've seen them in court, and they're not the guys you'd most fear.

All the attention paid to the few most infamous prisoners distorts the reality of ADX, officials insist.

"They're like the premier players of the NBA. They get all the attention," Wiley complained.

Bureau of Prisons officials stressed that 95 percent of the Supermax prisoners are the most violent, disruptive and escape-prone inmates from other federal prisons, and they were transferred to ADX to help control those other facilities. At ADX, every prisoner has his own 86-square-foot cell.

Despite the brutal nature and violent history of most of the inmates, not a single major assault against a corrections officer has occurred since the first inmates arrived in 1994.

The one-on-one killers who slashed or strangled other inmates, earning a trip to Supermax, are the inmates one would most worry about. Contact with others comes only after the inmates have adhered to a strict program for group recreation. Two inmate-on-inmate homicides have led to even tighter restrictions.

I was allowed to briefly talk at random to a few of the inmates. One man who identified himself as Jack Stancell of South Carolina told me he's doing time because, among other things, he'd stabbed somebody and murdered somebody else. He's been in prison for 33 of his 65 years. He says Supermax is actually better than some places he's been.

"You get used to it," he says without emotion.

As I walk into the outdoor recreation area, it's evident that virtually every possibility in combating the criminal mind has been considered. Large cables are strung above the basketball courts and track for no apparent reason.

"Those are helicopter deterrents," a corrections official explains. "We are not really worried about a chopper escape attempt, but you've got to be prepared."

In the prison library, where inmates most ask for Westerns and romance novels, employees scour pages of returned books just to make sure there's not a message or code that could be passed along to another inmate. Nothing's left to chance.


And apparently so as not to fuel inner terrorist fires, the newspapers from September 11 that will eventually reach the al Qaeda members and sympathizers imprisoned here will be altered. It will be 30 days before they finally have access to the 9/11 papers, and then they will find that all articles dealing with the anniversary or terrorism will have been excised.

It may well take more than a two-hour visit by a handful of reporters to begin erasing myths about Supermax. But it's a start.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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