Daily Archives: February 17, 2024

Johnny Cash played his last prison concert on November 6, 1980 at the Louisiana State Penitentiary—more commonly known as “Angola.”

I was there at the time, and very much a part of the activities surrounding that event. I recently watched the Paramount+ documentary “June”—a chronicle of the life story of June Carter Cash, Johnny’s wife. It ushered the memory of that Johnny Cash concert back into my mind. Here is what I recall about that day.

I was co-editor of the prison’s awarding-winning newsmagazine, The Angolite. Wilbert Rideau was the publication’s other co-editor. Rideau and I had been together as the publication’s primary writing team since 1977. With the approval of Louisiana Correction Secretary C. Paul Phelps, we had transformed the publication from a “prison rag” into a national and international acclaimed newsmagazine. We worked under the supervision of Assistant Warden Peggy Gresham who gave us a lot of leeway in how we did our jobs.

Several days before the concert Gresham walked into the office unannounced as she sometimes did.

“Wait till I tell you guys what is next on our agenda,” she said.

“As if we don’t already have enough,” Rideau replied, laughing. “Okay, okay, so what do you have for us?”

“Johnny Cash is doing a concert next week in the rodeo arena for all the inmates,” she said. “And if that is not enough to get your attention, his representative told me that he personally wants to meet “those two convict editors” and have his picture in The Angolite. That’s all he wants for doing this free concert.”

Rideau and I looked at each other.

“Hey, I’m the country music fan,” I said, “I know ‘Walk the Line’ by heart.”

“My only concern,” Gresham interjected, “is whether our black inmates will show up—it’s not like Johnny Cash is their favorite music artist.”

“The brothers will be there,” Rideau assured. “I promise you that. That’s my Joe Namath guarantee.”

Rideau fulfilled the guarantee. He personally spoke to every black leader in the prison urging, even cajoling them to turn out big for Johnny Cash.

“You want me and my lifers to go to some Hee-Haw, shit-kicking concert?” Monroe Green asked incredulously.

“Hell yes,” Rideau answered. “Outside media will be there. The brothers need to show up in force. You owe me, Monroe. Pack the brothers in that arena for me. Hell, you might even get a cultural education out of all this.”

And the black inmates did pack the arena—several thousand of them. The arena was drenched in rain the night before. A mist hung over the overcast day. The stage was set up for the performance when Rideau and I arrived. Chairs had been placed in the middle of the arena for Republican Gov. Dave Treen, his entourage, a large contingent of prison and corrections officials, and several political dignitaries accompanying the governor.

Rideau and I shook hands with Johnny Cash, his band, and a number of other people with the group.

“All I want is my picture in that Angolite,” Cash said, with a hearty smile. “So I expect you fellas to get some good shots of me and that crowd I’m about to make go wild.”

“You got it, Mr. Cash,” I said.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up there guys,” he replied. “Don’t call me mister. I’m no mister to you. I’m Johnny Cash. I’m here for you, because of you two. If there is any mister-calling around here, it will be me calling y’all mister. We on the same page here?”

“Yes, we are, Johnny,” I answered. “In fact, I have an older brother named Johnny.”

“Good,” the singer responded. “You know how to say the name.”

The entire group laughed.

In the meantime, the officials and dignitaries were seated observing the interplay between Rideau and I and the musician with his entourage. Some were obviously agitated having to wait for a performance they believed was being put on for them. The governor’s stare alone said he was not pleased that we were receiving all the interest and favor from Cash. That’s not the way he believed things were suppose to go—two celebrated convicted killers hob-knobbing with a country music legend.

The band slowly gathered on the stage, laughing and chatting as they tested the sound equipment. Cash had his stage manager turn the stage away from the official dignitaries and pointed towards the huge crowd of inmates sitting in the stands behind double razor-wire fences.

The Man in Black then took the stage, facing the inmates.

“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” he announced his trademark opening. “Thanks for coming out today in this lovely weather. I know there are a lot of other things you fellas could be doing—pickin’ cotton, washing clothes, mopping floors … and all those other things they make you do for free.”

The crowd gave a rousing applause.           

“If you notice fellas,” Cash told the inmates, “this stage is directed towards you. I’m here to play for you – not them.”

He pointed toward the dignitaries.

The inmate crowd came to its feet, erupting in a full-throated roar of cheers of approval that could be heard across the entire Main Prison Complex.

“I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rollin ‘round the bend …” Cash opened.

The inmates start clapping, stomping their feet in approval.

They were jubilant, the dignitaries squirmed.

Rideau and I moved about taking pictures of Cash, the band, and the inmates who loved the concert. But I kept an eye on the dignitaries. I occasionally caught glimpses of the governor sitting, arms folded, not pleased. Phelps and Angola Warden Frank Blackburn stood a short distance from the dignitaries. They were both uncomfortable.

It was at that point I realized that the dignitaries had traveled to the prison thinking Johnny Cash had come to perform for them. Some were furious that one of country music’s most revered entertainers told thousands of inmates he had come to perform for them, not the dignitaries.

Rideau and I became the target of some of their frustration and anger. We had personal access to Johnny Cash, they didn’t. That definitely rubbed Gov. Treen the wrong way—our enjoying that kind of freedom in the state’s most maximum security penal facility. He expressed his displeasure to Phelps and Blackburn about that appearance before leaving the prison.

Phelps dropped by The Angolite office later that afternoon.

“Well, you two certainly outdid yourselves today,” he said. “You managed to piss off the Governor by having Johnny Cash sing directly to the inmates, not to mention that Warden Blackburn had them sitting in the mud while Cash sang and twanged. What else can this prison do to me today?”

“Hold it, Mr. Phelps,” Rideau answered.. “We had nothing to do with that stage arrangement. I heard Johnny Cash tell his stage manager to correct it so he would be playing to the inmates.”

“I know that, Wilbert,” Phelps replied. “But that’s not the perception, and perception is all that matters in the world of those people who sat in the mud. The governor made that clear to me before he left.”

“A perception about us?” I asked.

“Let’s leave it at this—the governor was not pleased with what he saw.”

Phelps got up and walked out of the office.

Rideau and I sat in silence for a moment.

“Well,” Rideau said, after a moment of reflection, “I don’t think Gov. Treen will be attending anymore Johnny Cash concerts.”

“And I don’t think Johnny Cash gives a fuck,” I replied, laughing.

We closed the door on the subject with me saying:

“Wilbert, I will remember this day for all my days, not because I got to meet Johnny Cash, shake his hand, and interview him, but because I got to see that puny little governor dressed in a blue suit whose pants legs were above his ankles wearing those shined black Thom McAn shoes and white socks tippy-toeing through the mud with that mud splotching those pretty shoes and white socks. What other state in all these United States could you find a governor who wears blue suits, black shoes and white socks? That almost equals the country song ‘Rednecks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer.’”

“What do you say,” he proposed, “let’s call it a day … go to the gym and play a little racquetball.”

“Sounds good to me.”

One final anecdote to this story: We interviewed Cash in his tour vehicle. He offered us a cold beer from his small refrigerator. We graciously declined the offer.

“Look, you fellas do not have to worry about The Man while in here with me,” he insisted. “This is my deal in here – screw them out there.”

We still declined.

Cash seemed disappointed.

Seeing him just months before his death at June’s funeral, I looked back on that day and thought, “I should’ve just drank the goddamn beer.”

Adnan Syed murder case in the state of Maryland illustrates the systemic problems in the American criminal justice system.

A March 28, 2023 decision by the Appellate Court of Maryland (previously the Special Court of Appeals of Maryland) continues the horrific saga of injustice that Syed has endured since his arrest for the murder of an 18-year-old high school student, Hae Min Lee, in Baltimore in 1999.

Lee’s body was discovered in a shallow grave on February 9, 1999 in Baltimore’s Leakin Park. A subsequent autopsy revealed she died by strangulation.

17-yeaar-old Adnan Syed became an initial suspect in Lee’s murder because he had dated her through most of 1998.

The police investigation into Syed actually began just three days after Lee’s body was discovered when authorities received an anonymous telephone call informing them that Syed killed Lee because he was “angry” over their romantic breakup.

Syed was arrested for Lee’s murder on February 28, 1999.

The arrest came after detectives accessed Syed’s cell phone records which showed he called two individuals, Jay Wilds and Jennifer Pusateri, after Lee’s disappearance on January 13, 1999.

Police questioned both.

Wilds confessed to detectives that he had helped Syed bury Lee’s body, and Pusateri told detectives that Wilds had confided in her about his role in burying Lee’s body.

Syed was then formally charged with Lee’s murder.

His first trial ended in a mistrial in December 1999 after jurors overheard a remark by the trial judge calling Syed’s defense attorney “a liar.”

A second trial, conducted in February 2000, resulted in Syed being convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and robbery.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment in June of that year.

His automatic direct appeal was denied by the Appellate Court of Maryland in March 2003.

The following is a timeline of the post-conviction events that have taken place in the Syed case:

• In May 2010, Syed filed a post-conviction application with nine claims challenging the legality of his conviction in the Baltimore trial court.
• After conducting a two-day evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied all nine claims for post-conviction relief in January 2014.
• Syed timely sought leave to appeal the post-conviction denial to the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland which was granted in February 2015.
• The appeals court remanded the case in May 2015 for further proceedings based on an affidavit Asia McClain, a potential alibi witness.
• Pursuant to that remand order, the trial court conducted a five-day evidentiary hearing in February 2016 after which it granted Syed a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel.
• In August 2016, the State filed a timely notice of appeal in the Court of Special Appeals seeking review of the new trial order. The appeals court agreed to hear the state’s appeal.
• In March 2018, appeals court adopted the trial court’s finding that Syed was entitled to a new trial.
• In March 2019, the Court of Appeals of Maryland, in a 4-3 decision,  reversed the appeals court’s new trial order and reinstated Syed’s conviction, even though the court found that Syed had received ineffective assistance but was not “prejudiced” by it.
• That same month—March 2019—HBO began to air a four-part series, “The Case Against Adnan Syed.” That documentary offered the finding that DNA tests conducted at the request of Syed’s new attorneys did not find anyone else’s DNA on Lee’s body or her personal belongings.
• In November 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the Court of appeals’ narrow decision.

That did not end the Syed case’s demand for justice.

The Adnan Syed case drew national and international media attention as evidence of his innocence continued to mount. Syed’s attorney—Erica Suter with the Baltimore Public Defenders’ Office and the Baltimore University’s Innocence Project—convinced the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office in 2021 to reopen the case on the issue of “actual innocence.”

While that combined year-long investigation did not conclusively reach an actual innocence finding, it did uncover serious Brady violations in the prosecution of Syed, as well as significant new information about two other individuals’ involvement in Lee’s murder. Further, the investigation developed serious reliability issues concerning critical pieces of evidence used to prosecute Syed.

These serious factual findings and prosecutorial flaws was enough for the State’s Attorney’s Office to file a motion on September 14, 2022 to vacate Syed’s conviction.  The motion stated that “the interests of justice and fairness” demanded a new trial, especially since the State’s Attorney’s Office had lost “confidence in the integrity of [Syed’s] conviction.”

Five days later Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Melissa M. Phinn granted the state’s motion and ordered a new trial in the case.

Adnan Syed walked out of the courthouse on a personal recognizance bond.

The following month, October 11, the State’s Attorney’s Office dismissed all charges against Syed following a one-minute court hearing. He was effectively a free man.

It was at this point that the Syed case took one of the most bizarre turns in the annals of law.

Young Lee, Hae Min Lee’s brother, immediately filed motions in both trial court and the Appellate Court of Appeals permissible under Maryland law to stay any further proceedings in the case because he had not been given “adequate notice” to appear at the September 14, 2022 hearing to speak against the motion to dismiss.

What governmental interest is served by letting a crime victim’s relative have a voice in a legal proceeding in which serious constitutional violations are at issue is beyond normal comprehension. The September 14 hearing had nothing to do with either the victim or her relatives. The legal purpose of that hearing was to put in the trial record compelling evidence that the State of Maryland had engaged in serious prosecutorial misconduct to convict Adnan Syed for Hae Min Lee’s murder.

After some preliminary procedural wrangling, the Appellate Court of Maryland ruled that Young Lee’s victims’ rights had been violated in the trial court proceedings which led to the reversal of Syed’s convictions for constitutional violations. The appeals court specifically held:

“Therefore, we vacate the circuit court’s order vacating Mr. Syed’s convictions and sentence, which results in the reinstatement of the original convictions and sentence. We remand for a new, legally compliant, transparent hearing on the motion to vacate, where Mr. Lee is given notice of the hearing that is sufficient to allow him to attend in person, evidence supporting the motion to vacate is presented, and the court states its reasons in support of its decision.”

It is reasonable for crime victims should be kept apprised of all legal proceedings prior to the trial of an offender, and they should have a voice at sentencing hearings, but, with all due respect to the Maryland legislature and its constitutional protection of victims’ rights, the family of a crime victim should not have any voice at a hearing to determine whether an offender’s fundamental constitutional rights have been violated.

The constitutional Rule of Law is more important—dare it be said more sacred—than any revenge-seeking interests a crime victim or a crime victim’s survivor may have in determining how the Rule of Law should be applied.

The police cannot beat or torture a confession out of a guilty offender; the police cannot seize incriminating evidence from a guilty offender’s home without a warrant; and the prosecution cannot lie, cheat, suppress evidence, or use perjured testimony. The U.S. Constitution safeguards the rights of all people, guilty or innocent.

That is the essence of the Rule of Law.

Crime victims and/or their survivors, as a rule, do not care if these constitutional violations take place. They have one interest: convict the wrongdoer at any cost and punish them to the fullest extent of the law.

Whether or not Adnan Syed killed Hae Min Lee is not the issue anymore. The issue, and the only issue now, is whether or not the Rule of Law was violated by the State of Maryland in convicting him.

Adnan Syed’s conviction is now on hold as the Maryland Supreme Court decides whether to uphold the lower ruling.

Whatever the outcome in the Syed case, Young Lee’s revenge should not play a role in it.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article previously appeared in the August 9, 2023 The Crime Report.