The justice system, with certain types of police officers - they ought to check themselves out.

I know I’m a bad person in their eyes, but that’s no reason for me to be doing a life bit for something I didn’t do. “Do unto others as you’d want others to do unto you”. I could do the time if I did the crime, but I didn’t do the crime, and I don’t think I should have to do time for it. I’m not a killer. I’ve never been a killer. I’ve been in maximum security prison for seven years and I’ve never had one beef. Now does that sound like a killer to you?

My family suffers. I suffer. My kid grows up without me.

Even the lawyers are with me. It was a hung jury, then the jury was manipulated by the judge to decide guilty. So I got an appeal on it, but I was still convicted.

I just want to see the truth come out.

Prison isn’t that bad. It’s how you do your time. The thing that’s missing here is the man/woman relationship. I’ve been looking at myself a lot. How I look. How I think. You can’t see that stuff on the outside.

If you can do it right you can learn a lot here. Your school - you can really get into it, soak yourself in it.

A lot of people just waste away in here instead of filling their heads with good stuff. If you want you can absorb things - your math, English, drawing, music… easier than you can outside. Because here you have so much time on your hands. There’s nothing else to relate to. You can drown your head in it.

But the man/woman relationship is missing.

Michael Gary Sims
Inmate
Kent Institution

Update: Michael appealed for a retrial on the basis of undue influence by the judge on the jury. He was refused. I found a paper written in 2011 where the author (a lawyer from a notable firm) argued that under the circumstances of the original trial he would have ordered a new trial.