Echols vs. Baldwin

[EntreNous]

Steven King does not usually write about his personal life. MOO

stephen king writes far more about himself than most people realize.

 

[Mountain_Kat]

I'm must be a rare bird, because I don't consider Damien and Jason's relationship to be any of my business.

 

[JBounds]

Here's a question. Would Damien have been as creative, motivated, or had the support he had if he hadn't gone to prison? Sometimes life gives lessons even if it throws you to the wolves. Because life just may teach him another lesson for treating Jason wrongly in his book.

 

[MissJ]

I think Jason is by far the better person and shouldn't care what DE thinks of him. Again, if you want privacy don't air your issues on public TV

 

[news247]

i am curious to know how jason and damien 'remained best of friends' while they were in prison. Wasn't damien supposed to be in solitary confinement most of his time in prison? i thought prisoners were not allowed to be in contact with other prisoners (?)
would they have been allowed to write to each other? was visitation allowed? just curious.

 

[Steely Dan]

i am curious to know how jason and damien 'remained best of friends' while they were in prison. Wasn't damien supposed to be in solitary confinement most of his time in prison? i thought prisoners were not allowed to be in contact with other prisoners (?)
would they have been allowed to write to each other? was visitation allowed? just curious.

Yes, they were writing to each other.

 

[Compassionate Reader]

i am curious to know how jason and damien 'remained best of friends' while they were in prison. Wasn't damien supposed to be in solitary confinement most of his time in prison? i thought prisoners were not allowed to be in contact with other prisoners (?)
would they have been allowed to write to each other? was visitation allowed? just curious.

It seems that both Damien and Jason (during some post-conviction interview) described the subterfuge that they used to communicate with each other while in prison. I've forgotten exactly how it worked, but I think Lori took letters to Jason to one of Jason's family members and they reciprocated with letters to Damien. Something like that anyway. Once the guards found out, I think it was stopped.

However, not having a chance to grow up normally, it is understandable that each would still consider the other as his "best friend" given that they wouldn't make best friends with prisoners. Being innocent, I'm sure that they wanted to keep their contact with hardened criminals to the bare minimum. So, the "best friend" that each had upon entering prison remained their best friend throughout their ordeal.

Yes, on Death Row, all inmates are in solitary confinement in that they are in a cell by themselves. However, before being moved to Varner (Super Max), I seem to remember that Damien had some voice contact with other prisoners. IIRC, once he got to Varner, he was much more isolated. I seem to recall him telling in Almost Home about how the guards punished him and "tossed [his] cell" every time he was interviewed by a member of the press.

He was supposed to receive an hour a day "outside" of his cell. However, this wasn't really "outside" but in an enclosure that stank so badly (according to Damien) that the cell was better surroundings. So, IIRC, for most of his sentence (I believe the last ten years), he was in his cell on Death Row in the Varner Super Max unit. He only got out for interviews (and that wasn't "outside" of the prison) and court appearances. Little wonder that his eyes are light sensitive, that he had trouble walking and that his "table manners" suffered from the deprivation as well.

 

[Tricksy]

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/08/21/echols-blasts-baldwin-in-new-book



There's a response from Jason's lawyers at the end of the article, and here's Jason's response..



http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=459598564074948&id=145944238773717

I have just spent the last couple of days reading Damien Echols book. Its true that he does not seem to have much regard for Jason's lawyers, he believes that they stitched him up with the psychiatric report done for the penalty phase and the way in which they tried to distance Jason from him at trial. But he clearly states that Jason knew nothing of this.

When discussing the events surrounding the Alford plea, Damien did write what was quoted in the article in his book, however he added this:

"Over the years Jason had grown to love prison...prison school. Jason had also said previously that he wasn't willing to concede anything to the prosecutors. I understood that with all my heart, and I also knew he still believed that he would be exonerated and walk freely through the prison gates. But his attorneys were not nearly good enough, and the state was too corupt ever to let that happen. In many ways Jason was still the sixteen year old boy he'd been when we first went in".

I think it is really misleading of the newspaper to suggest that he blasted him, when I don't really think that he did.

The only thing that I didn't like with what Echols wrote was the bit that if Jason hadn't taken the plea, he would have been left behind as most of the support was behind exonerating Echols

 

[Nova]

stephen king writes far more about himself than most people realize.

Indeed. He wrote a regular column for Entertainment Weekly for years in which he discussed what he and his family were reading, watching, listening to and playing. I realize that isn't the same as discussing personal problems in print, but Stephen King didn't spend nearly 2 decades on death row.

 

[Mrs G Norris]

Damien's only acts of creativity have been focussed on his only theme - himself. We have yet to see anything from Damien past the end of his own nose. I will be interested to see if he is capable of that. His books are self serving, repetitive and full of lies and exaggerations. He takes no responsibility for his own actions, or very little. Moving to Salem is transparent image creation. I wish people were not as infatuated by him as they seem, it concerns me.

 

[EntreNous]

Damien's only acts of creativity have been focussed on his only theme - himself. We have yet to see anything from Damien past the end of his own nose. I will be interested to see if he is capable of that. His books are self serving, repetitive and full of lies and exaggerations. He takes no responsibility for his own actions, or very little. Moving to Salem is transparent image creation. I wish people were not as infatuated by him as they seem, it concerns me.

perhaps now that he can live in a world that extends past the end of his nose he will have some other experiences to write about.

 

[HastingsChi]

Damien's only acts of creativity have been focussed on his only theme - himself. We have yet to see anything from Damien past the end of his own nose. I will be interested to see if he is capable of that. His books are self serving, repetitive and full of lies and exaggerations. He takes no responsibility for his own actions, or very little. Moving to Salem is transparent image creation. I wish people were not as infatuated by him as they seem, it concerns me.

He's been alone in a cell for years and aside from donations he left jail with nothing. Given the popularity of the Paradise Lost films and the backgrounds of the people who worked hard for the WM3 to be released; he was lucky to have a built in network of professional resources who understood there was a market for the death row to freedom story. I imagine these people helped guide him to agree to the film and book projects to allow him to be financially healthy.

 

[Compassionate Reader]

As I've said elsewhere, I'm not a Damien apologist. However, I believe that it is unfair to criticize him for writing about his life. That's how most great authors begin. Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was autobiographical. Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises and Thomas Wolf's Look Homeward, Angel were at least in part autobiographical. Mark Twain was really writing about his life when he wrote Tom Sawyer. So, I guess Damien's in some pretty impressive company. As others have said, give him a chance to experience other things and perhaps he'll write about them as well, but don't criticize him for writing first about what he knows - his own life.