Justice is supposed to be fair and equally applied.
The major "burden" I am dealing with is my last chance to get my NY sentence, which would start once I leave here in November 2004, removed.
If not, I would then have an additional five to fifteen years to serve in NY. That means I could be on parole as early as five years, but odds are it would be closer to seven to nine years!
At that point one almost has to wonder if life would be worth anything. Pushing 60, having spent the last seven to nine years in a solitary cell, yeah life is great.
It is not really all that simple from a psychological point and that is what will be hard to impart to you. The mechanics are very simple: "one day at a time". The mental cost to deal with the low side of my existence is unlike any other pressure I have ever had to deal with.
On the one hand, at its most simple level, the legal argument is: NY State has a legislative policy of not subjecting a person to punishment twice for the same crime. As you may learn, unfortunately no legal issue is ever that simple and therein lies the emotional roller coaster!
The point is that justice is supposed to be fair and equally applied; the fact is it is not, and therein lies the problem. But, hey, it is true that life is not fair.
Well, I hope I did not dump too much on you. You have no idea how hard it is to even write these words, and not just because it may seem that I am whining. It is a hurt that will keep me up for the next several hours, make me think of all the "could of, should of" etc.
I am not a man at ease with himself.
But I am going to make it, and your letters and friendship is very important and valuable to me.