(This installment was written during the 2.5 weeks Mr. Steele was in solitary confinement, maximum security lock-down. Our best information was that he was being allowed one 15-minute phone call per month. Two days ago, authorities have moved him into the general prison population. His current location is as follows:
Edgar James Steele - #14226-023, FDC Seatac, Federal Detention Center, P.O. Box 13900, Seattle, WA 98198).If I’m Not a Political Prisoner, Judge, Who Is?
by Edgar J. Steele
by Edgar J. Steele
December 10, 2011
“There is an attempt by some to call Mr. Steele’s case a politically-motivated prosecution. That is not true.” Thus spoke the judge at my recent sentencing hearing. Ok, judge – if not true, then why did you feel compelled to deny that I am a political prisoner?
If I’m not a political prisoner, judge, then why did you secretly listen in on my privileged attorney-client discussions during breaks at trial?
If I’m not a political prisoner, then why did you keep my world-class forensic sound experts and linguist from telling the jury how those two recordings clearly were fabrications? (351 anomalies, judge. 351! Just one was enough to put the lie to them.)
If I’m not a political prisoner, judge, why did you deny me a public trial? (29 sidebar conferences, all those secret hearings from which even I was excluded and all those sealed and now disappearing documents!)
If I’m not a political prisoner, then why did you let Federal Prosecutor Whelan use the US Marshals Service secretly to record all my “privileged” attorney-client telephone calls and in-person private conferences, as well as to open my “privileged” legal mail to attorneys?
If I’m not a political prisoner, judge, then why did you sustain virtually every prosecution objection at trial, while denying virtually every defense objection?
If I’m not a political prisoner, then why didn’t you let my trial witnesses testify to much of anything, while granting the prosecution every possible indulgence, with the result that the federal prosecutor’s case took a week and my own defense was forced by you into less than a single day?
If I’m not a political prisoner, judge, then why did you deny my key witness’ testimony by live video feed from outside the US, while allowing the prosecution to play the taped deposition of their foreign witness? Did you forget that the US Constitution reserved the “Right of Confrontation” to criminal defendants, not the government?
If I’m not a political prisoner, judge, then why did you force me to choose between my key witness’ testimony and my Constitutional right to not testify? And, why did you then alter the trial transcript to cover up the evidence of your having done so?
If I’m not a political prisoner, then why did you consistently deny me the right to present evidence and testimony that showed the government, especially the FBI, “in a bad light,” though that excluded virtually all my evidence in this, a case about government misconduct?
If I’m not a political prisoner, then why am I, once again, being held virtually incommunicado, in max-security, full-lockdown, solitary confinement, though I have proven to be the model inmate after 18 months, most of that in solitary, too?
If I’m not a political prisoner, judge, then why did you sentence me to 50 years, despite my age, poor health and the fact that ax murderers routinely walk after 8 years?
Why are there so many other inmates here, in prison and in jail, who consider themselves to be political prisoners?
If I’m not a political prisoner, judge, then why has America’s prison population tripled in the last generation (20 years), now to stand at 6 times that (per capita) of any other nation in the world, far surpassing Russia in the mid-1900s, WWII Germany and modern-day communist China?
If I am not a political prisoner, judge, why did you have to stack the deck against me, then deal from the bottom, anyway?
Simple fairness, judge, is all for which I ever have asked. If I’m not a political prisoner, why couldn’t you have afforded me simple fairness?
Copyright ©2011, Edgar J. Steele
Forward as you wish. Permission is granted to circulate this article and its related audio file among private individuals and groups, post on all Internet sites and publish in full in all not-for-profit publications. Contact author for all other rights, which are reserved.
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