-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: Loud and Clear Lake Headly and William Hoffman�1990 Henry Holt and Company 115 W. 18th St. New York, NY 10011 ISBN 0-8050-1138-2 272 pps � out-of-print/one edition --[13]-- 13 Robison's Way I made one of my regular visits on March 1, 1979, to Max and Jim at the Arizona State Prison. I spent the morning explaining to Max new developments in the investigation, answering questions about his family, and taking personal messages to deliver to his wife and children. Every new piece of information delighted this optimist, raising in his mind hopes that vindication was near, and I found myself walking a fine line of trying not to temper his enthusiasm-which, kept him going-while reminding him that courts weren't usually known for their speed. As had been true for some weeks, I looked forward more to the afternoon discussion with Jim Robison, who I knew possessed more information than he'd told me. He had, after all, been very close to John Adamson. I sensed from the first time we met that I would have to invest a lot of trust-building time in this man before he opened up to me. Well, more than three months of cultivating that trust had been time enough. Sitting in the cemetery that day, munching a sandwich from my brown bag lunch, I had decided to confront Robison, tell him I needed to be steered in a direction. But when I faced him in that tiny interview room, I found out he'd made the decision to steer himself. "Lake," he said when we sat down, "I've decided to take control of my life. I feel the appeal is hopeless, and they're gonna execute me. It will be a long time coming, but it will happen. So, I'm gonna take the time I have left and compress it. Make it shorter. Lessen this torture." Robison didn't want me to interrupt. It was his play, so I didn't say a word. Steady, serious, determined, but most of all relieved that he had made a decision he felt capable of carrying through, he got right to the point. "I've decided to starve myself to death," he said matter-of-factly. "I got the idea from that IRA guy Bobby Sands. I've been in my program two weeks already. No solid food. Nothing that will sustain life. I figure I can last another seventy-five to ninety days. It's indicative of the disregard they have for us here: no one's made anything of my not having eaten for fourteen days." "Why are you doing this, Jim?" "First, I want to know that you won't interfere. In fact, I'm going to ask your help." "It's your business. You tell me your life is unacceptable. Who am I to say you're wrong? But will you explain why?" "Yes. It's to take control of my life in the only way left open to me. If I slash my wrists or try to hang myself; they'll probably catch me before I succeed and stop me from trying again. All I'd accomplish would be to hurt myself. Funny, huh? They'd save my life to take it away at their convenience. My way I have some time left, but not much. I want you to tape record what I think. I don't want my thoughts lost forever. To help somebody else would be fine-so much the better if that results. But believe me, Lake, I'm doing this mostly for me. This is a miserable existence, as you can see, and you're probably tired of hearing me complain. My way is better than theirs. I've told you time and again, the judge didn't mention torture in my sentence, and that's what this is." I didn't doubt his sincerity, and sensed steel behind the softspoken words. Nor did I argue. He had answers to anything I could say. Jim considered me a hopelessly misguided romantic, thinking I could beat the system. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. "When they bother to notice, they'll try to force-feed me. I want you to stop them." "How can I do that?" "Put up a fight. Get a court order." "I'll try," I said, and stopped before adding that I didn't think it would work. "I'm concerned about Max," Robison said. "What I do with my life is my business, but I have no right to hurt him. There are things I've figured out, other things that I know, and I need to share them with you." I'd been waiting for this moment for Robison to point me in a direction, and it didn't surprise me that he did it more for Max Dunlap than for himself. "Remember this name: Ralph Clark. He runs a bar near downtown Phoenix. He's a friend of mine. Find Clark. Tell him who you are. Say I sent you." I lotted the name down and waited. "This filthy hole isn't a good place for thinking," Robison continued, "but I haven't had anything else to do. It's clear to me how they managed to put Max and me here. Don't forget, the Arizona legislature set a precedent when it appropriated one hundred thousand dollars to investigate Don Bolles's murder. Those legislators wanted to see results. And there was all that pressure, from the media and the public, to solve the case quickly. The police had John Adamson, and when Neal Roberts came along with his theory, Jon Sellers grabbed it hook, line, and sinker. Not because he bought Roberts's story, since Sellers had to know this homicide led to some very high places that he was better off not searching. Christ, look at what you've discovered just from reading the police's own investigation." I agreed. Even extreme incompetence couldn't explain interviewing Bradley Funk for less than one minute. Or granting immunity to Neal Roberts, Mr. Loud and Clear. Or three stolen vehicles on the day of the murder. Or so many other things overlooked, all red flags that would have alerted the most dumbwitted investigator to the fact that he was walking the wrong road. "Sellers," Robison said, "orchestrated Roberts's theory. Remember, Roberts didn't name me. He fingered Dunlap, Kemper Marley, and somebody named Jimmy. That Jimmy, I think, was Jimmy Frattiano, but he could hardly say that, could he? I got plugged into the killing because I knew Adamson." "Also they were pretty sure you wouldn't have an alibi," I said Innocuously, to keep him talking. "Right. But I had an alibi. They just ran roughshod over it. Anyway, they plugged me in, hoping for corroboration of Adamson, and corroboration is a strange aspect of the law. Because of the Adamson Act, his testimony was sufficient to convict Max and me, but not Kemper Marley. If he said Max or me told him that Kemper Marley told us to kill Bolles, that's hearsay. To convict Marley, they needed Max or me to corroborate Adamson. We wouldn't tell that lie for them." "How many times were you offered a deal?" "Dozens. My attorney told the jury about them. Getting me here didn't end the offers. I was told I could walk off death row in a heartbeat if I'd corroborate Adamson. They said: 'Be smart. Look at the deal Adamson got. We'll give you the same thing, only better. We realize you're older than Adamson, and twenty years might not seem too attractive to you. But when this blows over, we're sure even the twenty years could be. negotiated.' "You blame Sellers the most for this?" "Hell no. Sellers only does what his instincts say are expected of him." "But you just said that Sellers orchestrated Roberts's theory." "That's what I think. But I don't know. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I believe Sellers has good instincts, except when it comes to understanding people like Max and me. See, Jon Sellers had worked twenty years with snitches and criminals, slime like John Adamson, and he naturally assumed smart Mr. Robison and frightened Mr. Dunlap wouldn't take the pressure of prison; they'd fold up and grab any deal offered. Hell, hardened criminals crack, Robison and Dunlap should be easy. Lake, the prosecution had run out of alternatives. They told Bruce Babbitt and the press, 'This deal with Adamson is going to work; we'll get Marley and clear this whole thing up.' But their plan collapsed because Max and I refused to lie for them. Still, they have to keep trying. They've got almost three years and a lot of taxpayer money invested in this, and it's not possible for them to admit to the public, 'Hey, we were wrong all along.' Christ, no cop or prosecutor would do that." "You told me on an earlier visit that you didn't think they wanted to execute you. But that's changed? Now they want to do it? "Right. There's no statute of limitations on murder. The only way the prosecution can claim the Bolles murder has been cleared up is for Max and me to lie, which we won't do, or for us to die. Then they can say, 'Well, Marley was the brains, we know it, we solved the case, but there's nothing we can do to get Marley.'" "Don't you think your suicide will play into the prosecution's hands?" "Goddammit!" Robison flared, "you don't understand. Max and I will never lie, so the only people suffering through this are us. And Kemper Marley, who can't be safe from a murder charge until we're gone. Now, I respect Max's right to do what he wants, but I'm going to follow my own lights. Another thing: I don't want you ever calling this a suicide. I don't consider it suicide. I think we all begin to die the moment we're born. What I'm doing is compressing the time I have left because the reality of existence is worse than dying. My home for twenty-four hours a day is a windowless, vermin-infested latrine." Much as I wanted to throw Robison a lifeline, I respected his wishes and didn't try. He was an adult, intelligent and thoughtful, and- I believed his life was his own to do with as he wanted. However, since he'd requested my assistance, I asked him to put into writing his exact intentions. What ensued is the following statement: This is March first, approximately 2:00. My name is James Robison and the statements I will be making are strictly my own and had no influence from anyone else. I've come to the decisions and the planning that I intend to carry out strictly on my own, and I have developed and devised a plan that can be best entitled Operation Termination, or anything along those lines. What I intend to do and fully intend to carry out is stop the intake of food until such time as my life-support systems fail. I am of sound body and of sound mind. I'm not some kind of a nut. I'm doing this with total purpose. I am not considering this as suicide, because to me suicide is a stupid senseless act and has no purpose except to the perpetrator. What basically I'm doing is that rather than live like an animal in a subhuman environment such as I am in at this time, I choose to take what time is left to me here on Earth and compress it into a smaller time for me. My purposes for doing this are many. First, benefit to myself, naturally, because it will put me beyond the reach of the people that have subjugated me to this type of treatment.... To my best calculations, this plan should culminate in a period of seventy-five to ninety-five days. Today's the fourteenth day that I have not had a bit of food, and it's a sad commentary, also, on the system, that no one in the system is even aware of this. But, as my physical condition deteriorates, it will be something that somewhere down the road the establishment will have to recognize. The only one qualified to argue whether I'm doing right or wrong, I feel, is myself, because without going through what I've gone through and seeing what I've seen and coming to the conclusions that I've come to, there's absolutely no one on Earth qualified to argue the right of what I'm doing or my right to do it. I cannot anticipate what interference might be placed in the way of my plan, but the basic plan is something that I fully intend, 100%, to carry through to termination.... Because the plan is mine and I will implement it, I've chosen Lake Headley to represent me as far as anyone or any statements that I might make in regard to the information that I have. I will not talk to any newspaper people, any media people, or anyone else without first talking to Lake and ... discussing it and getting his advice on who I should talk to or if I should talk to anyone else. At first, I don't expect anyone to really take me too serious, but as I approach the termination date and approach a demise, I fully expect or anticipate that I will be taken seriously before I'm finished. When I rose to leave that afternoon, Robison said, "I'm carrying this all the way. I'd never throw a saddle on this horse if I didn't intend to ride it to the end." What Robison embarked on didn't change the purpose of my job: obtaining justice for him and Max. Nor had the means of achieving that goal changed -informing the public about the facts of the case. The prosecution's version of events had gone unchallenged too long. Playboy's Bill Helmer came to Arizona. Together with David Derickson, Robison's attorney, I arranged to get Helmer into the prison for an interview, not an easy feat. I also contacted Molly Ivins, the Denver, Colorado, bureau chief of The New York Times. Molly said she'd be happy to come down to Arizona and study the evidence. I was delighted, too, to learn at a meeting with Dunlap Committee members that they had contacted Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes." Wallace had expressed interest in coming to Phoenix to look over what we'd discovered. Playboy. The New York Times. "60 Minutes." With these names rolling across Carolyn Robinson's desk at the Arizona State Prison, I confidently hoped that from there they'd gain the attention of everyone in the Arizona establishment. I wanted to make this cliquish crowd uncomfortable enough to question the value of their coverup in the Bolles murder. Robison had told me to look up a bar owner named Ralph Clark, but before I could carry through with that lead, I got diverted onto the trail of a person who would become the prime witness in our investigation. pps. 133-140 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
