The Unjust "Justice": Getting the Truth Out

By Edward Castle

In his late teens, Henry Carmel was stricken with schizophrenia—a life-altering mental illness characterized by tormenting voices, impaired judgment, and acute paranoia. In 1996, Henry was attacked by a huge dog. Fearing for his life, he panicked and killed the animal. Despite test results and reports supplied by an unbiased veterinary pathologist, the corrupt county veterinarian contradicted the pathologist and aggravated the incident with a false theory.

At the hands of a power-hungry deputy district attorney (DDA), Henry was prosecuted. The jury remained unaware of his illness, so he was sentenced to prison rather than the hospitalization he needed. Expecting acquittal, the defense agreed to the nondisclosure of the illness.

As desired by the DDA, Henry was sentenced to serve an exaggerated prison term. When his sentence was complete, his illness was disclosed. He was certified as a mentally disordered offender (MDO) and kept hospitalized year after year.

In the years after his trial, Henry’s condition improved; however, at annual hearings the DDA and judges ignored Henry’s successes and extended his confinement each year. This was abusive and unjust. No socially accepted rules of ethics were followed.

The Unjust “Justice” is the story of a young man who, because of the social stigma that prevails over individuals plagued with schizophrenia, lost his freedom within an abusive system of injustice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462064588

Edward Castle

Edward Castle holds a master’s degree from the University of California–Berkeley. He has avidly followed the intricacies of mental health and its conflicting relationship with the judicial system for over fifteen years. He currently resides in Southern California.

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The Unjust Justice

-Getting the Truth Out-

Edward Castle

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The Unjust Justice

Getting the Truth Out

Copyright © 2011 by Edward Castle.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

NOTE: This book is based on a true story. However, for protection, the names of characters, and the time and locale of events have all been changed, and any resemblance to actual persons and occasions is unintentional by the author, who is using a pseudonym rather than his or her real name for the same reason. In this book, the author has included striking details of some evil and villainous telephone communications and other evil actions incurred by some members of a judicial system reflected from lack of ethics. Although these details are fictitious, but intended to strongly convey the message of lack of ethics, the author deduced them based on facts.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-6457-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-6458-8 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 07/13/2015

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Preface

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Epilogue

To Henry and all the loved ones who are

mentally ill and have fallen victims to abusive

judicial systems that criminalize them.

This is a case of: Summum Jus, Summa Injuria

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my immense gratitude to the following persons for their valuable review of the initial chapters of this book and for the encouragement they gave me to continue writing.

A special thanks goes to my daughter for her review and support as well as to my niece and my brother for their positive words.

The words of encouragement I received from all of you will never leave my thoughts. Thank you Lori Rodriguez, Patricia Luna, Patty Berger, and Theresa Johnson.

Preface

It is the author’s hope that on a not distant day this book will alert the public and help stop the abuse of power against, and the criminalization of, the mentally ill by certain members of district attorney offices and the judges of their respective courts.

One

One unusually cold and dark night in late November 1994, the autumn chill had started penetrating the flesh toward the bones. Typically, the season in this area was not that cold. Silence reigned in a house in Southern California. The only sound was the harmonious beeping of a video game that a young man in his late teens—Henry Carmel—played avidly in his room while he also sliced fruit on a small dish by the lazy strokes of a long, silver, one-piece kitchen knife he usually kept in his room for that purpose. Suddenly, the silence turned total; no more video game playing, no more beeping. But for Henry, there was no silence! Rather, tormenting sounds were hammering in his brain. He then ran out of his room, passed the kitchen, nervously opened a door, and grabbed a few wooden sticks from the garage. He clumsily carried them to his room and arranged them in front of his body like a barrier or some sort of protection. His father, Edmund Carmel, who had thought that everyone in the house had already gone to bed because of the silence, walked out of his room and noticed his son’s room door half-open and shadows formed from reflection of light inside. Rubbing his face as he lazily paced down the dark hall that led to the living room and the contiguous kitchen, he peeked into his son’s room and saw him covered with long sticks.

Son, said Edmund, why are you covering yourself with those sticks? Is there anything wrong? What’s happening? Are you recreating or imagining some kind of a video-game action?

Dad! answered Henry in a loud, shaky, and tenebrous voice. There are some people out there hitting the front door, violently banging it and trying to knock it down! They are assaulting us, Dad! We must shelter ourselves from those attackers! They intend to take everything of value that we have, and worse, they will hurt us! Henry added with a clamorous voice.

*     *     *

Years earlier in September 1967, Edmund had left his native country, Aruba, for England, where he worked in an engineering work program. He later came to the United States from that country in late autumn of 1969, landed at J. F. Kennedy Airport in New York, and continued to Los Angeles by land via Greyhound. He briefly visited the Grand Canyon on his way to the West Coast. Edmund was a somewhat shy man, or perhaps he was better described as quiet, math—or science—oriented, educated; however, he was not quick enough to always have an answer ready to a question posed to him. He needed time to find the answer. He was white, short, and thin, with shaggy eyebrows when he forgot to trim them, but they were not as bad as Rasputin’s. At first, one of his sisters, Luisa, helped him with short-term accommodation. Luisa was fifteen years older than Edmund. She was then working for a bank. She was also short, but not too short for a woman. She had a round face. For some reason, some people sometimes thought she was Chinese. Less than a month later, brother and sister moved together to a small apartment on Figueroa Street in the southern part of downtown Los Angeles. This move was also intended to be temporary because Edmund’s plan was to move to Berkeley in the fall of 1970.

The apartment building was three stories tall, very old, possibly more than forty years, with ugly, dark brick exterior walls upon which time had taken its toll, the walls having terracotta cornices hinting a structure of long-faded past elegance. At some spots, bricks had been painted over with dark red paint, which enhanced the building’s ugliness. The lobby was large, rectangular, and dim; its walls were lined with dark wooden panels, inspiring fear like a haunted house does. There was a pungent odor of disinfectant. At the end of the lobby there was a staircase opposite the entrance from the street. A cracked panel with buttons, presumably used for paging the apartments in the past, and a blank, grid paper glued up on a wall— intended for listing of tenants’ names—were both placed nearest the bottom step of the staircase.

One morning on February 9, 1970, when Edmund and Luisa were still sleeping in their apartment, a strong earthquake rattled the California Southland at 6:00 a.m.

Hey, Sister! Wake up! What the hell is going on? Oh, boy! Jesus Christ, my bed is being lifted… . Gosh, honestly! About an inch in the air and then dropped back. Each time—like right now—I land hard, back on the beeeeed! This is scary! An earthquake is hitting this crappy, old building and making a big bang underground! This big bunch of… old bricks is going to break up in pieces, and we’ll die! Let’s run and stand under the kitchen door’s header! Edmund screamed with a scratchy, frightening voice.

At the same time, a large chunk of plaster detached from a wall in the kitchen and landed on the top burners of the gas range, which made such a loud noise that increased Edmund’s and Luisa’s fears. Both stood there for about thirty seconds until they made sure the tremor would not cause another big chunk of wall, or the whole wall, or something else to land on their heads. As their fear lessened, they calmly went back to sleep when the shaking stopped. After all, earthquakes didn’t bother them that much. At least Luisa was used to them.

Luisa and Edmund were not alone in that cheap apartment. They had company. Nasty roaches also made it their home. There was an infestation of those bugs.

Luisa, do you know that a single roach—just one—gives birth to tens of them each time? said Edmund. Then he added, I’ll show you. He detached a disgusting larva from a roach’s rear that it was dragging it along the floor, split it in half with a razor blade, and showed it to Luisa. Then he said, Do you see what I mean? I can easily count fifty of these sickening ‘baby’ creatures in this single larva. Let’s get some roach killer or traps like those boxes where the bugs get inside and eat poison or whatever gets rid of them. For now, let’s smack them with sneakers or slippers. How about that, Sister?

With a gesture of disgust on her face, Luisa replied, For now, let’s use slippers; and also, let’s get those traps soon! Early today with no delay!

Edmund got little jobs here and there that were unrelated to engineering until a transportation engineering company employed him. The offices were far away, located on the west side of Beverly Hills, so he had to move to a studio apartment in Santa Monica to be closer to the office, that only was about six blocks away from the famous Santa Monica beach. Edmund’s duties included performing travel-time surveys in Pasadena, the results of which were used for synchronizing duration time of green lights between contiguous traffic signals. Luisa moved back to her rented room, where she stayed for a while.

Luisa had once worked in Aruba as a draftsperson for an oil company and had decided to leave the country in the mid-1960s to find work in California. She was not really happy with her job in the California’s bank. She had said it was too stressful and that the management personnel were inconsiderate people. After she moved back to her rented room, she found a different job, this time as an assistant teacher for first and second grade in a public elementary school.

In September 1970, Edmund quit his job in Beverly Hills, vacated his studio apartment, and drove to Berkeley from Santa Monica. Before he had come to California, Edmund had applied for a US resident visa in London in 1968 and had enrolled in the master’s program in geotechnical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, which started in the fall quarter of 1970. With his savings from his work in England and a small loan from a bank, he was able to devote full time to graduate work, completed his master’s program, and graduated in June 1971. Then he worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Redlands, Southern California, completing about a year in both jobs combined.

In the summer of 1972, Edmund drove with a friend named Rudy from Los Angeles to Panama via the Pan American Highway. It took twenty-five days to reach Panama City. On the way, they picked up a hitchhiker, a French and rather shy student named Nicole. They stayed at friends’ homes in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama. They had previously met these friends at Berkeley. They had a great time during their journey. They visited Acapulco and enjoyed dancing at wild discos. Rudy stayed in Panama and kept the car there, and Edmund boarded a plane to his country of Aruba.

In Aruba, in search for female relationships or companionship, Edmund went out with a few girls, including a young lady named Pamela, whom he met in December 1973, a woman who would become his second wife many years later. Pamela was twenty-three when they met. She was a quite pleasant and attractive young woman with a sculptural and voluptuous body. She wore sensually tight jeans, which were fashionable at the time, and her movements when she danced were so delicate that Edmund felt that he was dancing with the finest possible silk.

At about the same time that Edmund was driving with his friend to Panama, a young woman by the name of Isabella was returning to Aruba from Spain, where she had spent a number of years. Shortly thereafter, early in 1974, she and Edmund met in Aruba. She was a very pretty, sensual twenty three-year-old woman, talkative—perhaps a little bit too proud of herself—with soft skin, blue eyes, and long, brownish blond hair.

Isabella’s mother, who was a friend of one of Edmund’s sisters, had introduced the couple. Isabella felt that she had gained extra weight because of the rich food in Spain. Consequently, she started a diet. No long after they had met, Edmund was hit with a sickness, commonly caused in tropical, humid countries by an amoeba—a unicellular animal or parasite that adheres to the walls of a patient’s intestine—that was so strong that he was admitted for a short stay at a local hospital. This event distracted Edmund, which caused both of them to lose interest in each other; but less than a month later, they met again during a theatrical play performed by a local cultural group. Edmund regained his attraction to her. He was now more intrigued by her, and he better noted her feminine posture and how she radiated glamour, self-esteem, and elegance, which made him lift his thick eyebrows. Her movements were harmonious and suggestive when she wore fashionable skirts and tall leather boots. Mutual love struck and a few months later Edmund and Isabella got married in 1974. She became Edmund’s first wife. As a result of this union, Henry was born in July 1975; he was their first child.

Edmund had been working in Aruba on hydroelectric projects for a local engineering company for the last three years. When he ran out of work, he flew back to California at the end of December 1975, about eight months before Isabella and Henry, who was now six months old, in order to secure their legal residency in the United States. In Redlands, a lady from Aruba named Josephine who was married to a university professor felt that Edmund was feeling lonely without his wife and son and suggested that Edmund befriend a US Air Force sergeant by the name of Gilbert Vergara, who was married to a thin Japanese woman living in San Bernardino. Edmund met Gilbert and Luis, Gilbert’s friend, and from time to time, they went out to have pizza and some beers to kill time. Edmund, however, used to drink very little, but he nonetheless enjoyed the time he spent with his new friends.

Isabella and their toddler, Henry, finally arrived in Redlands in September 1976. Henry was fourteen months old by then. Edmund had rented an apartment for the family. For several months, Isabella put her little son in his stroller each day for a long walk to a park, where she sat on a cast-iron bench by an old kiosk and read a book while Henry played or slept, sheltered from the sun by the little awning on the stroller. Later, he started climbing the high steps of the kiosk.

In July 1977, Edmund got a better job. The family purchased a house in Old Mission City (in Orange County) and moved there. The house was almost new and had elegant, cathedral ceilings. Once in the new house, just after his second birthday, Henry experienced a tantrum of impatience when he could not put together the parts of a toy. He cried and cried and cried. He cried nonstop for about half an hour to the point that the neighbors thought his parents were physically abusing him, even though they were making every effort to show him how to build the toy. To Edmund and Isabella’s surprise, the neighbors called the authorities. The police came over, interrogated the parents, examined the child, and left when they realized there was no evidence of abuse to the little boy.

At the time of Henry’s tantrum, Isabella was pregnant. The couple had wanted another baby. In September 1977, Isabella gave birth to a second child in Old Mission City, a pretty and cute baby girl who was baptized Anita. This time, at Edmund’s request, the doctor let the father stay in the room, where Anita was going to show up in this world, so that he could observe the delivery; however, the doctor ordered Edmund to stand at a certain location in the room for some reason. Edmund could not see anything at all because the doctor’s back completely covered the delivery. Edmund was furious at the doctor but said nothing to him. The baby was born with a purplish color, possibly due to blood congestion, because the nurse, who, Edmund suspected was an idiot, postponed the delivery and didn’t call the doctor to start for about thirteen hours. For so many hours, she said to Isabella, Hang in there. The baby is not ready yet. Poor Anita and her mother Isabella, they were in the hands of an incompetent nurse. Anita wanted to get out of there sooner, but the nurse wouldn’t let her. The next day, when the hospital staff allowed him, Edmund held Anita in his arms the same way he had held Henry when his son had been born. He sensed her warm body and noticed her tiny, curled fingers, her chunky little feet with tiny wrinkles, and her puffy eyes. To her parents’ relief, the pediatrician said that there was no harm done and that the baby’s blood congestion would go away. It took several months for her to change color and finally show her true color and features. She ended up with a more Caucasian, American-like complexion and a few scattered, light-colored, hardly noticeable freckles.

The family continued living in Orange County and raising their children. For a few years before he turned five, Henry practically liked only two toys: a white, stuffed, small—slightly bigger than a man’s hand—plush dog, and a rattling small toy truck. He used to take them almost everywhere he went. When he walked through the corridors of a shopping mall, Henry held onto his mother’s hand and bent his elbow so that he could carry his companion, Doggie as he called it, under his left armpit. With his right hand, he pulled his truck with a string, making so much rattling that the noise caused an echo that made people look at him and smile. Doggie soon got so dirty that it turned light brown. As a result, his mother washed it, but that caused a little problem, because Henry preferred Doggie dirty. Doggie was never washed again. Many years later, Doggie was found in a box, still dirty.

Isabella prepared meals and took care of the kids at home and drove them to school while Edmund worked. She was good at cooking beefsteak; it was so delicious and tender. Isabella and Edmund frequently read children’s stories like Ferdinand the Bull, the Little Red Riding Hood, and many others to their kids. Edmund played a great deal with them in the evenings and weekends. Most playing was physical, such as elephants rocking on the spiderweb, Edmund jumping crazily like a wild horse with a kid on his back until the kid fell down on the carpet, Edmund acting like an oil pump going up and down with a kid holding on the lower part of his legs, Edmund picking up and carefully rotating a kid in the air and putting he/she on his shoulder as a heavy sack of potatoes. Little Henry also happily helped his father with the best of his limited strength, decorating—with pretty, glued-on rocks—the exterior of a rustic masonry barbecue grill that Edmund had built in the backyard. Some years later, Edmund played other physical games with them, such as making a sandwich with a kid between huge cushions from India or wrestling with them in such a way that while Edmund was standing, the kids tried to bring him down by holding and pulling his legs.

Henry and Anita were both smart and did well in school. On one vacation when the children were still little, their parents drove with them from Orange County all the way to Washington State to watch the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. What a spectacular sight that was! It was sad, though, that the eruption caused so much destruction. On the way, they visited the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and drove through the beautiful, green landscape of Oregon. A photo of Isabella with little Anita wearing a red riding hood like the one in the children’s book was taken during that time, that also showed the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

Two

The hostile economic environment that hit the private sector in the United States in the eighties affected Edmund, and as a consequence, he lost his job. In 1982, after about eighteen months of unemployment, Edmund resumed work, and the couple wanted to start a business for Isabella to manage. She decided that a children’s clothing store was the best fit for her skills; the store, named Children’s Elegance, opened in a brand new, beautiful, Mediterranean-style shopping center next to a lake in Old Mission City. Unfortunately, sales were slow, and the business demanded expenses, much more than what Edmund was able to handle after he covered a high mortgage payment for the house, property taxes, and living costs to maintain the family. The store had to be closed down after less than a year of operation, resulting in a penalized breach of contract, and merchandise and racks were almost given away at sixty cents on the dollar.

After the failure of the store when Henry was about eight years old and Anita was six, Isabella flew to Aruba with the kids to stay there for a few weeks on another vacation in 1984. Edmund was too busy at the time and could not join them on the journey.

After their return from Aruba, Edmund was still very busy at his job and had to fly extensively to the San Francisco Bay Area. Sometimes, he stayed there for a full week. Work and travel were too demanding, and many nights Edmund had to work there until 2:00 a.m. and then get up at 6:00 a.m., sleeping only four hours. Edmund’s excessive workload made Isabella feel unattended and abandoned by her husband, and she started losing her love for him. The trips to the Bay Area triggered serious problems in their marriage, which ultimately caused their divorce at the end of 1985. Isabella thought that her husband was having an affair when she once called Edmund’s hotel at 1:00 a.m. and Edmund was not there. He was working at the time.

She then started going out with a young, Filipino lady named Violet who was married to an old man, and they befriended some men at a bowling alley on a military base. When Edmund found out about these friends of Isabella and Violet, he then confronted Isabella. As he looked straight at her eyes, he said, I know you are having fun with some guys! Isabella, with a challenging posture, replied, Yes, I and Violet need to have some kind of entertainment like bowling. You know Violet, don’t you? Then Isabella surprisingly added, I’m sorry, Edmund, but I don’t love you any more.

Edmund, hurt by such a sudden blow, lowered his head and said in a rather low voice, Well, I feel really bad about it. What have I done to lose your love?

You are having an affair in the Bay Area! I called you at the hotel in the early hours of the morning, actually at one o’clock, still dark. You were not in your room! Isabella loudly responded.

I am not having any affair! said Edmund. I’ve been working nonstop, actually with very little time to sleep.

Really? Hard to believe! I’m not a fool, said Isabella. Can’t you hear? I don’t love you anymore!

This is quite sad. Why don’t we try some marriage counseling? said Edmund. Isabella accepted.

Edmund inquired about psychologists. Then counseling took place for several weekly sessions given by a mediator from the county and two psychologists who specialized in marriage counseling, but it was fruitless. Isabella continued believing that Edmund had been unfaithful to her and frankly kept saying that she did not love Edmund any longer. Edmund then decided to file for divorce and calmly said to Isabella, Knowing that you lost your love to me and constantly accusing me of something I did not do—let’s divorce. I’ll file for the divorce this week. Isabella did not openly object; she just kept silent.

Sometime later, when the divorce process was ongoing, Edmund’s employer mailed a letter from management addressed to a specific list of engineers and other staff, thanking and congratulating them for the hard work and long hours they had devoted to the important project in the Bay Area. Edmund was on the list, and he showed the letter to Isabella. It was too late. Isabella quite frankly said, Maybe you can withdraw the divorce papers, and we can keep going with our marriage. Without loving you, I do not think I can live with you in a normal way. You are free to enjoy your life with other women, and I need to do the same with men. We can live separate lives because I frankly do not love you any longer, but we can stay together for the sake of the children. Edmund realized that Isabella was quite sincere and gave her credit and respect for not hiding her feelings.

"This wouldn’t really be healthy for the children, and I wouldn’t be able to live that way, my dear. The divorce papers stay on file," Edmund replied.

To make things worse on Isabella’s mind, it was unfortunate that she also had imagined that Edmund had had an affair a couple of years earlier with his brother’s wife—a very decent woman—during the cleaning of a condominium in Alhambra that they had purchased as a rental business. For Edmund, it was unthinkable to be unfaithful to Isabella and also do anything like that to his own brother. He felt that Isabella’s mind was way off just for thinking such a thing—that he could do that to his own brother? No! Edmund got very disturbed about Isabella’s irrational judgment.

After an initial legal battle for the custody of the young children, Isabella felt that because she did not have a precise profession, she would not have enough income to properly take care of them, even though she was going to receive spousal support money. At the end of the process in December 1985, she decided to relinquish the children to Edmund, who was awarded their physical custody. The legal custody was given to both and spousal support and visitation rights extended to Isabella. The divorce agreement stipulated the sale of the house, which was sold relatively soon, essentially at a loss. Edmund and his children then moved to an apartment, where they stayed until about September 1986. From there, they moved to Venice County, where Edmund had gotten a new job. Because Venice was too far from Old Mission City, where Isabella stayed, Edmund offered, as a kind gesture, that Isabella pick up the children on Friday nights, and then Edmund would drive to Old Mission City on Sunday evenings to return the children to their home in Venice. On some Fridays, close-by neighbors—the Valeros—happened to drive to Orange County and kindly offered to take to Old Mission City with them Henry and Anita and drop them off at their mother’s. This saved Isabella many trips to Venice County, and at the same time, the Valeros’ boy, Johnny, played with the Carmels’ children during the trip. Edmund continued picking up Henry and Anita in Old Mission City on Sunday evenings and returning them to Venice.

*     *     *

Back to Edmund’s sister—Luisa—at the end of 1971, she had started a string of marriages. She married her first husband, Tom, a writer of short-story collections about love, an extravagant man who enjoyed wearing a dressy neck scarf and clothes like a Hollywood movie director of years back. Luisa and Tom were very happy together. Their happiness was prone to end abruptly because Tom was an extremely heavy smoker and the effects from nicotine and tar blocked his lungs and killed him.

In 1974, Luisa married Jim—her second husband—a tall, handsome, real estate agent. In 1976, Luisa purchased a house in San Vicente for which she paid cash, investing her life savings. Jim served as her real estate agent for the purchase. At the end of 1976 and in 1977, Edmund, Isabella, and young Henry sometimes visited Jim and Luisa in their home. Henry, being a very young kid, loved hose baths in their back lawn and eating sweet oranges from the yard’s tree. In September of 1977, domestic problems disrupted Luisa and Jim’s marriage, love, and stability, and their union ended abruptly. Luisa then left for Aruba for a short visit.

In November 1977, after her visit and return from Aruba, Luisa married Ray Stewards, an old friend who for several years had laid his eyes on her and whose handicapped wife, a woman also