(To be submitted in person to disciplinary team at disciplinary hearing)
On February 9th, 2007 I was informed that I have been written a disciplinary report for alleged violation of “0914 – Mail Violations” because of a personal profile about me on an Internet site called “MySpace.” I would plea “Not Guilty” to this alleged infraction and submit this written statement in my own behalf. Attached to this written statement is a printed copy of the website “Southern Injustice” (located in the Internet at www.southerninjustice.com), which I request be formally placed on the record as evidence along with this instant written statement.
This disciplinary report alleges that the “myspace.com” profile on me violates FAC/DOC § 33-210.101(9), which in relevant part prohibits any form of “ads soliciting pen pals.” The myspace.com profile in question does not in any conceivable form ask for or encourage anyone to correspond with me. This profile exists exclusively to draw attention to my web page “Southern Injustice,” which as shown by the attached printout is solely about my claim of innocence of the crime in which I have been wrongfully convicted and condemned to death. Nothing on the myspace.com profile or this “Southern Injustice” web page in anyway attempts to solicit pen pals.
In fact as is plainly self-evident by the evidence provided, specifically, the printout of the myspace.com profile and the attached printout of the “Southern Injustice” web page, I do not even provide my DOC Inmate Number or address in which to write me. Pursuant to applicable rules governing all incoming mail, unless I provide my DOC Number and institutional address even if a person reading this myspace.com profile wanted to write me, they could not. Nothing in this myspace.com profile, or the referred to web page “Southern Injustice” even suggests that I want anybody to contact, or otherwise correspond with me whatsoever. This clearly is not any form of ad soliciting pen pals thus is clearly not a violation of FAC/DOC Rule 33-210.101(9).
Because this action has been brought against me, in the event that I am unjustifiably subjected to disciplinary punishment even though I clearly am not in violation of FAC/DOC Rule 33-210.101(9), for the purpose of exhausting the necessary administrative remedies relevant to this improper action, I would respectfully submit the following:
(a) I would respectfully submit that this unjustified disciplinary action is clearly motivated by an intent to retaliate against me and subject me to retaliatory disciplinary action because of my attempt to publicize my claim of actual innocence of the crime that I have been wrongfully convicted and condemned to death for. I have a protected Constitutional right to publicly advocate my innocence without being subjected to retaliatory punitive actions by any agent of the State, including the Department of Correction’s employees.
(b) Additionally, I would now move to challenge the Constitutionality of FAC/DOC Rule 33-210.101(9), which prohibits soliciting pen pals, as this rule is clearly unconstitutional as evidenced by this instant disciplinary action. The language of the rule is ambiguous and open to arbitrary and subjective interpretation that allows for the malicious abuse of the rule by individuals motivated to illegally retaliate against individual persons who attempt to exercise their protected right to free speech. This attempt to now expand application of FAC/DOC Rule 33-210.101(9) to the circumstances reflected within this action now establishes that this rule’s true intent is to coerce and intimidate silence of inmates illegally and does not serve any legitimate penological purpose. Thus, for the purpose of exhausting administrative remedies, I do now challenge the Constitutionality of this rule (33-210/101(9) as a defense to this disciplinary action.
In conclusion, I again respectfully reiterate that I plea “Not Guilty” to this clearly unfounded disciplinary report. Under no reasonable interpretation can it be said that I am in any conceivable manner attempting to “solicit pen pals” in violation of FAC/DOC Rule 33-210.101(9). The MySpace profile in question explicitly only seeks friends to join my web page – nothing more – and the web page “Southern Injustice” clearly is focused exclusively upon an attempt to publicly advocate my claim of actual innocence. On neither that myspace.com profile nor the attached “Southern Injustice” web page do I in any conceivable manner ask or encourage anyone to correspond with me and I do not even provide my DOC inmate number or institutional address, so nobody reading this content can use this to contact or write me even if they wanted. I would respectfully request that this disciplinary team find me “not guilty” of this alleged infraction.
Michael Lambrix
Feb 14th, 2007
