WEBVTT
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Hm, I walk straight line.
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Shackle change, Oh weesome, gird, it's calling my name.
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There is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice
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as the Hill Stream game Rainbow three.
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I'm here be.
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By me to die.
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Inside these walls, inside the wild.
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Hadn't went more girls as.
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I Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody Angola, a
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podcast one hundred and forty two years in the making,
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the complete story of America's bloodiest present. I'm Jim Chapman,
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and look, today we are going to discuss a little
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bit of the really dark side of prison. Now, you've
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all heard the saying don't drop the soap when it
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comes to people getting sent to prison. There was even
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a bit that Chris Rock did way back in the day,
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way before or Will Smith slapped the piss out of
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him at the Oscars. And this bit was hilarious and
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it featured a man he termed the tall salad Man.
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So for those of you that aren't familiar, you're in
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for a treat.
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I want you to.
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Listen to this clip from Chris Rock.
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Oh they will rape you in jail, boy.
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See, the whole damn country is so damn conservative now
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everybody's like.
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Jails ain't tough enough. Jails ain't tough enough. We gotta
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have a death pilty. Jails ain't tough enough. Jails are
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fucked up. Okay, don't believe the hype.
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The problem is the reason jails are so crowded because life.
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Is fucked up.
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Coats lot, people.
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Are broke, people are starving, lighte shit, life is catching
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up to jail sit. If you living a whole project,
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new jail, ain't that.
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Bad, y'all watching h y'all have this special on the
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Jail Special a couple of months ago. Now, normally when
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you see a special about jail, it's on regular TV
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and there's a lot of shit they don't show. Oh,
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not the HBO Jail special. Oh, they showed it all
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the interview and the brother and then they said, now, sir,
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when a new inmate comes in and he wants some drugs,
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how do you initiate him?
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The guy goes, well, the first thing I do is make.
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Him toss my salad. The guys they tossed my salad, Well,
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what's that?
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God?
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Well, having your salad toss means having your ass whole
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eating out with jelly or Sir, I for first, sir,
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I gotta thank you this up.
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And then the guy said, why must you go through
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all of that, sir, why not just eorl sex?
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And he goes, well, when a man sucking yo day,
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he could pretend that's something else.
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When he's eating ass.
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He knows this ass.
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I do. We don't need a death bilody.
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We got to.
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Toss solid man. Should have I had a choice right
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now between the electric chairl tossing a.
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Salad, I'd be like, so where.
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Are you plugging in?
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Should not be wat.
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Now?
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Everybody tell old schools.
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Are out of control.
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Oh, they're out of control. We need prayer in the schools.
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We don't need prayer in schools.
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We need to toss solid man in school.
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That was straighten the kids out.
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Hey, Jimmy, you gotta d don't you gotta do?
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No?
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No, I want to talk to silence.
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I love it, Gus, I've a ree I'm a learnery.
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Now.
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When Chris Rock did that bit, like everyone else thought,
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this guy had to be a fictional character, right, it
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was made up for this bit. There's no way this
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guy really exists. However, people started scouring YouTube looking for
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the interview with this guy. Sure enough, the tossed solid
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man was real. Listen to this quick clip.
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First of all, if he's a newcomer, right, I want
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him to suck my ass in jelly. That's what they
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called toss the sound. That's the slang where he tossed
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the sound. It means sucking my ass right.
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With jelly or without jelly.
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Some people use certain I prefer the god to use jelly.
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Right, I would reach my climate, right, I would automatic
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get hard, right, I would you know, come automatically if
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he's sucking my ass for about ten minutes so long ago. Right,
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it's a sensation film.
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It makes you feel real good. Most all gays.
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Do that, you know what I'm saying, like guys to
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suck the ass. It's just like a pussy, right, But
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the only difference is not a push. Right, it's clean,
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the prison is decent, and person know that that's an asshole.
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But in mind he's looking at.
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It as a pussy because he's in prison. So toss
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my cell and let him eat me, you know, we straight.
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That's so as funny as Chris Rock is in that first.
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Clip I played, and as you heard in the second clip,
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this ship really happens it's real and it's right, plain
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and simple. I mean, who could forget this clip from
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the Shawshank Redemption with Bogs and the Sisters as they
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were known on Shawshank Redemption when they got a hold
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of Andy.
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Do frame that's you fight better than me.
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I wish I could tell you that a default the
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good fight and the sisters let him be. I wish
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I could tell you that, But prison is no fairy
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tale world. He never said who did it, but we
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all knew the sisters kept that inference. Sometimes it was
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able to fight him off, sometimes not. And that's how
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it went for Andy. That was his routine. I do
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believe those first two years with a worste Ward, and
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I also believe if things have gone on that way,
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this place would have got the best of it.
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So Morgan Freeman nailed it. When you were most vulnerable
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for this type of thing, it's usually in those first
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few years of prison, and when they get you, it's
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known as turning you out. And today I'm going to
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tell you about a Louisiana State Penitentiary inmate by the
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name of Howard Lee Higginbotham. Now, what is absolutely wild
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about Howard Lee Higginbotham is he turned what was a
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nine year short stant sentence for burglary inside of a
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jail into a life sentence without parole inside Bloody and Gola.
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And that's what we're gonna discuss today. So in September
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of nineteen seventy seven, Howard Lee Higginbotham, he gets arrested,
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then charged, then convicted of simple burglary. He actually with
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an accomplice, they pulled off some kind of burglary of
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a hardware store. And this was in Awatchitah Parish, Louisiana,
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which y'all is in the far north of Louisiana almost
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to the Arkansas line. Now, for this conviction, Howard Lee Higginbotham,
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he gets sentenced to nine years in the Awatchitaw Parish jail.
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It's a relatively short stint in prison. If you keep
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your nose clean, you may actually get out in less
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than six years. But old Howard he can't do that.
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He can't keep his nose clean, apparently, because the very
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same year, as a matter of fact, in December of
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nineteen seventy seven, just three months into that nine year sentence,
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Higginbotham does something that turns that nine year stint into
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life in prison without parole. So what did he do well?
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And keep in mind that at this time in nineteen
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seventy seven, Higginbotham is thirty seven years old, old enough
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to know better, right, So, as seventeen year old kid,
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he gets put in a cell with five other inmates.
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Don't ask me, Obviously, that sentence alone should raise a
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ton of red flags. I have no idea why this
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kid got thrown in a cell with five other inmates,
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but that's what happened. Higginbotham being one of those inmates.
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In over an eight day time period, he Higginbotham in
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the other four inmates beat and rape this kid over
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and over and over again. As a matter of fact,
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Howard Lee Higginbotham, he was charged with raping this boy
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three times. He had three counts of rape crimes against nature,
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which means anally during that eight day time period. So
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he goes to trial for those three counts of aggravated
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rape and he is sentenced to life inside of bloody
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Angola without the possibility of parole. Now we're going to
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fast forward a little bit, actually quite a bit, to
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July of twenty twenty five, just a few months ago,
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and Howard Lee Higginbotham, he goes in front of the
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clemency board for hearing. And what this clemency board will
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determine is if the now eighty five year old inmate
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qualifies for clemency. If he does, if they feel like
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they're comfortable in recommending him for clemency, they're going to
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send that recommendation to the governor. The governor then would
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either sign off and approve it or he would deny it.
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So this is Higginbotham's chance to get out of prison
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after forty five plus years. So the hearing only lasted
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about ten minutes, but you gotta listen to this. It's
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pretty shocking. In this hearing, Higginbotham does discuss whether or
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not he actually committed that crime, and in addition to that,
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he also discusses his version of why he committed it.
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You gotta hear this.
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My name is I would leave higginbottom eighty eight one
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one six.
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All right, mister Higbotham, let me just read some information
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into the record. You're classified as a fourth felony offender.
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You're seeking a convers you're seeking a commutation of your sentence.
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You were sentenced December nineteen seventy seven for three counts
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of aggravated you received a life sentence. You have a
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prior sentencing date which was in September of nineteen seventy
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seven for two counts of simple barbary and you received
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ninet years on that is convictions?
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Is that right? Yeah?
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Right?
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So I'm just going to turn it.
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Over to mister Prayer because your case has been assigned
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to him this morning, this afternoon.
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Yes, sir, how are you today, mister higg and.
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Baba oh fending? Pretty good?
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Okay, wait, remember what you did to get yourself there
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and to what have you done since to make us
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believe that you are needing to be out?
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But you can be safe to let you out?
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Well, I worked at the processing place, did you where
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the process food? I worked there at ten years and
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I worked a fence around the fence. After that that
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when the last time I took my heart started barbing
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and the last place I worked was the process and
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they closed it down and where they used to process
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all the.
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Food, and that's the journey.
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Then after that I worked the dormitory around the fences.
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All of the jart group.
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I think I think he wants you to tell him
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about your crime you committed. How'd you get here? I'll
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get there?
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You go that the crime, yeah, aggravated rapist, say, and the.
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Paths Yeah, I'd done it, which is.
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Then that's what I want to know about it. Okay,
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you were arrested in nineteen.
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Seventy seven for simple burglary and you got put in
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jail and Washington Parish.
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Is that correct, yes, sir?
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And while you're putting jail, while you were in jail
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waiting to get out, they put a seventeen year old
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in the sale with you.
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Is that correct, yes.
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Sir, And you and some other inmates be and it's
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that seventeen year old for eight days?
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Is that right?
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Yes, sir? Ken why'd you do that? What gave you
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the right to think that you could do that in.
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Any normal world?
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Well, by when they had that game stuff, if you
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didn't do this, we do this to you. And so
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you know how they into jail, the path he got
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the groups and I you know, and I was I
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was thirty seven years old, and another do old than
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I was. They had been there ain't golden to so
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if I didn't do nothing, what they've done they gonna
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do it to me, you know, and that's the way
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it was gone at the past.
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Are you the least been sorry for what you did?
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I'm sorry. Yeah, I know it. When I got older,
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you know, I realized I was wrong. You know I
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got older, you realized he's wrong.