Marc Emery: U.S. Federal Prison Blog #5

Free from 21 days of isolation

By Marc Emery

(Marc Emery’s U.S. federal prison blog #5 originally ran here on the Cannabis Culture Web site.)

At 6:00pm on Thursday, June 24th, I was finally released from solitary confinement after three weeks of isolation.

The Disciplinary Hearing Officer was very gracious (in so much as I was in solitary for 21 days) and agreed that the phone use infraction – the podcast to supporters that was never released – was minor in the big picture. He made it a “397” which involves no loss of good time (the discount of 15% a year on my sentence). He also said “Everyone here knows you are famous and it was a shout-out to your supporters that was not harmful, and we know you didn’t criticize the Federal Detention Centre, but you can’t do third-party political lobbying over the phone.” So lesson learned. I don’t have phone access until July 25th, but at least I can “email” Jodie through CorrLinks and have visits in person, instead of the cruel “video visits” they’ve recently designated for inmates in solitary confinement.