Letters from the Inside, Chris Porco, #4

Dear Kelly,

Sooo feel free to yell, scream, curse, etc. at me for being terrible about writing for lets say the past 2 months or so. I am not even sure when I actually wrote last, but I know it hasn't been recent. There's no great excuse, but there was a perfect storm type deal the past couple of months that may have interfered with correspondence. (Not just with you.) .. I had several school deadlines in November that I came very close to missing. And more importantly my oral arguments for my appeal were on November 30th, and I was basically a wreck leading up to them. Add all that to the time warp bubble of prison, and you get two months without a letter. I'm truly sorry...

So that's my mea culpa. Far from adequate, I suppose, but believe me, I've gotten several heated letters in the past couple of weeks wondering where I am. So I am taking a day or two to catch up with everyone.

I have always wanted to go to Tokyo. It is cool as hell you are headed there soon. I hope you get this before you go, I am not sure of your departure date. Have you done the Craigslist route before when traveling? It sound like you found a great place, Tokyo real estate is definitely not cheap. Have a safe, fun trip, have you been to Japan before? It is on my top ten places I'd like to go.

I have to tell you, I think it is hilarious that you apply for positions/jobs just for the process of it. I don't know you all that well, but it seems to fit your personality perfectly. Clearly you are well read and intelligent. I bet you are qualified for a whole host of positions you haven't tried for yet. How often do you do this? would you consider taking one of the jobs? I am 26, and still not confident that I use semicolons correctly. Just the fact that you would even think of that as a potential lesson says a lot about you. When it is? Any thoughts of doing it full time?

My oral arguments were held in Brooklyn on November 30th. I was anxious as hell for several weeks beforehand, it felt like my trial all over again. I think I usually am fairly even tempered, but I had that knot thing in my stomach, and couldn't stop thinking about it. It is very unsettling to know your life is in someone else's hands, and there isn't much you can do to affect the result. So at present, theree old white men and one woman are deciding if I should be sprung outta here, or rot for 43 more years. Routine for them, but sort of a big moment in my life, you know?

Anyway, it went really well. In general, oral arguments in criminal appeals take five to ten minutes per side; mine took 40 for us and 15 for the DA. (Like the semicolon?) We had requested 20 minutes, but there minutes in the judges started asking my lawyer questions, and didn't stop for the next 40 minutes. They clearly had read everything, and had come up with a lot of things to ask. That isn't as common as you might think... They didn't ask my lawyer anything he couldn't answer, and at times were making comments and asking rhetorical questions that seemed to prove our points for us. It is impossible to tell how things look at this point, but hte lawyers were thrilled with how it went.

My mom went down with a few friends, and I was calling her every hour to check in on the status of everything. Two of my dad's lawyer friends went with her, and they talked to me on the car ride hom about some of the more complicated parts that my mom didn't pick up on. The next morning I talked to my lawyers for an hour or so, and went through it all in detail. A local news station broadcast it live in Albany, (slow news day), and then posted most of it online. So I was able to hear a lot of it over the phone which was nice. There is no court reporter in the appellate courts, so the video is the only record of what happened. My friend works at the station, Capital 9 News, (sort of like NY1 in Albany) , and she is trying to get the full copy for us. If you have interest, it is online somewhere inside capital9news.com

The DA took 15 minutes or so, and clearly was not well prepared. I am a biased party, obviously, but everyone I talked to said he didn't have command of the trial record of the relevant case law. The judges corrected him on things multiple times, and seemed to get frustrated at the amount of repition of points they had already discredited. They admonished him a couple of times to stop quoting irrelevant case law off of note cards. I wish I could have seen that, he is an ass.

Generally the decision take a month or so to come out, but the length of our briefs and the holidays throw a wrench in that timeline. So end of December would be a surprise more likely January some time. We will see, keep your fingers crossed.

There isn't a whole lot else going on here, I have my Latin final tomorrow, I am semi prepared. I almost got in a fight earlier today too. I've been here three years, and only had one other fight, some guy who decided to wave at me, (not with his hands). There can't be any tolerance for things like that in here...Anyway this guy is a former NYPD who thinks he is still a cop. His name is Lau or something, he is here for shooting another cop in a road rage type incident. We found out today that he is keeping written files on people here in the hopes that he can offer information to some DA to get time off his sentence. That does not make you a popular guy, as you can imagine. So he and I were chatting about his behavior, and another guy I am friendly with decided to punch him, so I just sorta watched. The cops, (Correction Officers), were all standing around laughing, they hate the guy too. I am not sure where he is now, either the hospital or protective custody. Lovely, right?

I am about to go outside and work out, so I will end here for now. We had a lot of snow the past couple of days, so it can get a little dicey pushing a lot of weight that is covered in ice. I guess that's why normal people work out indoors in gyms.... Take care, ok? Safe trip. I am jealous, it sounds wonderful. I'll be in touch soon, I promise. And yes, I would love to read more of your writing... Bye!

Chris