Joanna Saul, Director
Corrections Institution Inspection Committee
Riffe Center, l5th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, Ohio 43215
May 18, 2016
“Those who make nonviolent change impossible, make violent change
inevitable.”
-RFK, a Famous Dead Guy
Dear Director Saul:
I enclose copies of the Ohio Administrative Code Sections that irregularly and selectively do not apply to me.
OAC S5120-9-04 does not apply to me as I may be subjected to irregular punishments without so much as accusations of misconduct. That is, I may be harassed absent any accusation of misconduct. The ODRC gives itself permission to skip the entire disciplinary process and get to the fun part, sticking it to me. OAC SS5120-9-07 and 5120-9-08 do not apply to me as the disciplinary process is not employed before imposing punishments.
OAC S5120-9-15 does not apply to me as visitors were purged from my approved visitation list without so much as an accusation of having violated prison visitation rules. OAC S5120-9-17 does not apply to me as I am not permitted email communication despite having spent over $700 on a device and music and email that I am not permitted to access, without accusation of any misconduct.
OAC S5120-9-18 does not apply to me as my outgoing mail is opened and read, used as the basis for pretextual rule violations when no misconduct has actually occurred. OAC S5120-9-20 does not apply to me, as I am not afforded phone use for hiring counsel and I am denied confidentialattorney-client calls.
Recently, my pending civil actions in the Court of Claims were dismissed on the basis that the ODRC has no obligation to follow the Ohio Administrative Code. That means that harassment and discrimination prohibited by OAC Section 5120-9-04 is not really prohibited.
The Court of Claims directed me to file in federal court as a civil rights action. The problem, of course, is that I already attempted to do that and the ODRC responded by completely
obstructing my communications with my lawyer until I faced a deadline we could not meet and I was forced to dismiss the federal action due to that obstruction. So, I have been told by the Court of Claims to go to federal court, where I am prevented from effectively litigating due to illegalities committed by the same fascists you will not put in check.
I am now attempting to hire counsel to go to federal court, which proves impossible when my outgoing mail is plausibly-deniably tossed into the trashcan and I am forbidden from calling attorneys like everyone else at my security level. I cannot sue the fascists for impeding my phone communication because I cannot hire counsel to sue them, because their impediment prevents the hiring of counsel.
Most recently, Trevor Clark, an attorney, advised that if he makes it impossible for me to hire counsel to sue him, I can always sue him pro se (and lose).
So, this is where I am at: I have attempted to get prison officials to abide by the rule of law and provide me the basic and fundamental recognition of rights and privileges as they provide to everyone else whose “ideology” they do not find offensive, and they refuse. I have attempted to get others in authority to compel prison officials to abide by the rule of law and no one has done so. I have appealed to the state courts and state courts told me to go to federal courts. I have attempted to go to federal courts only to be obstructed and prevented from prosecuting the case. I have gone out of my way to do everything possible to secure counsel with existing funds but my efforts have been deliberately foreclosed by the very criminal officials I intend to sue.
I think I have effectively developed the defense of “necessity.” With all other avenues for redress foreclosed, I am left no other option but to take the law into my own hands, as I have nowhere else to go, no one else to whom I can appeal. That is, I am now able to pursue even illegal and criminal action and, when the charges are brought against me, I will be able to present the defense of necessity. I will be able to document and prove this long train of usurpations, this deliberate effort to drive me out of existence, to destroy me in fundamental ways. I will be able to show a jury of my peers that I had no other choice but to do very desperate things in order to get in front of them, with the eyes of the world watching, so everyone can know what I have endured- for having “thoughts,” “ideas,” an “ideology.” That is the only avenue left available to me.
So, it seems to me, as an observation here and nothing else, that while prison officials say they want their addresses removed from blastblog.noblogs.org and while they say they do not want anything to happen to themselves or their property or loved ones, their extraordinary efforts in every regard to foreclose on my every remedy for redress- and their absolute intransigence in refusing to ever so much as consider any reasonable or practical resolution to this escalating conflict speaks louder than their words; not only do they want me to advocate for violence against them, and not only do they want me to provoke or inspire others to undertake that violence, but they are deliberately making it impossible for me to do anything else. I a suggesting to you that prison officials, contrary to what they say, have been involved for several years in dragging me, kicking and screaming, to a course of action I really, really do not want to undertake. They have, for years, done everything in their power to foreclose upon every remedy I have attempted to undertake in order to address their illegalities, forcing me by process of elimination to undertake direct action (the very direct action they assert they want to prevent).
What I am saying is, they are doing everything possible to turn me into a full-blown terrorist against my will. In the process, I have done everything in my power to avoid that outcome, attempting to employ anything and everything available to me. I am now convinced that it is the deliberate plan of prison officials to provoke me to action against them, that they would celebrate if this situation ends with their homes and cars burned to the ground.
That is what they really want. In fact, they are doing everything they can to bring about that end result while I have demonstrably done everything I can to avoid it. I care more about their cars and houses and personal well- being than they do. I am running out of practical and moral justifications for caring more about them than they do. I am running out of excuses for not giving them exactly what they demand of me.
Enclosed you will find the Ohio Administrative Code sections that are highlighted, so that you can see the portions that the ODRC’s actions have declared not to apply to me selectively, as described above. Also enclosed is the JP4 player that I purchased and for which I have invested over $700; it has been useless to me since the suspension of my kiosk access without any accusation of misconduct on or about September 1, 2015. Please keep this on your desk as a reminder of everything your office did not do, for when you wax reminiscent about the Sean Swain who was full of rainbows and bunny rabbits, the one who was a non-criminal.
You can use it as a paperweight after my elderly parents bury their only child.
Freedom or Death,
Anarchist Prisoner Sean Swain
The Wretched of the Earth
I was born in freedom’s graveyard
Neath a tombstone where my name scarred
The edifice, stone-cold and bone-hard-
Wrapped was I in burning flag.
An empty stomach, angry, held tight,
Another fist to clutch the long night,
Just one more head fixed twixt the gun sight-
Just one more toe to tag.
Raised by ashes in dirt and dust
Cutting teeth then flesh on rust
They come to teach me what is “just”-
The oppressors’ fists to kiss me.
So when I taste their awful wrath,
Kicked down that darkly-chosen path,
I’ll see it boils down to math-
How many I take with me.
*Consider: My communications mediums were suspended without so much as an accusation of misconduct, which means I was, de facto, punished for following the rules. Thereafter, Trevor Clark told me that I would have to earn back privileges that were taken from me when I was following the rules. At the same time, the privileges taken from me for following the rules were granted to death row prisoners on level 5 who have been accused of starting a riot, taking over a prison, and killing staff… indicating that the ODRC wants me to start a riot and take over a prison and kill staff in order to earn back privileges taken from me for following the rules.