Letters from Federal Prison: A District Attorney’s Quest for Redemption

By Richard Z. Johnson Jr.

After losing his re-election bid, former Lousiana District Attorney Richard Johnson was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison. While incarcerated, he compiled a diary of daily meditations that he now hopes will serve to glorify God and benefit those who find themselves in a similar situation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543978896

Book preview

2016

Peace Be Still

Psalm 46:12 He says, Be still and know that I am God.

Psalm 37:7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

As a free man and as a district attorney, I led a life that was always busy. There were the pressures of work, preparing for the next murder, drug or sexual assault trial. As a prominent member in the community there were always social functions to attend. As a husband and as a father, there were always familial obligations.

Although I prayed regularly and attended church fairly often where I served as a deacon, in retrospect, I see that I failed to just sit, be still and meditate on the wondrous nature of God. The federal prison camp in Marion, Illinois is surrounded by woods and offers the perfect place to contemplate God’s wonder through nature. You may ask yourself, what exactly is a federal prison camp? It is the lowest form of security in the federal prison system. It is reserved for low level white collar criminals and non-violent, non- sex offender criminals who have less than 10 years left on their sentence. There are no bars, no guns, and no handcuffs. Inmates are housed in a spartan dormitory which is still infinitely better than a prison cell.

Deer can be seen feeding, Raccoons come up to the prison camp to be fed by the inmates, as do duck, geese and birds. Cats have taken up a permanent residence here and are cared for as if they were home pets. In many aspects, the prison camp is our home, especially for those who will be here for up to ten years. However, it is still incarceration and as the popular song says, "You can check in anytime you like, but you can’t check out.

Here I am learning to take the time to appreciate God. The stresses of work and the pressing social engagements are no more. Family is always present in mind, spirit and is always a source of encouragement.

I now take the time to get up every morning and pray. My time of prayer also includes reading The Daily Bread and different inspirational books and pamphlets. After I finish praying and reading, I slowly sip a cup of hot aromatic tea while I look out the window of our common area. I see trees rustling in the winds, see the brightness of the sun or watch the rain fall to the ground.

This is a quiet time where I can be still and show my respect for God. I’m slowly learning that all my blessings come from God in His time, not my time. I yearn to be free but the time of my release is in God’s hands, not mine. I am learning as it says in Psalm 37:7, Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

God is in control, not me. I’ve always known that but now, I’m finally learning to respect it. Psalm 46:12, Be still and know that I am God.

I’m finally starting to get it!

Conflict and Confrontation-The Prison Door

Proverbs 15:18 A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.

Proverbs 29:22 An angry person stirs up conflict and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.

Prison is a place where violence can occur at the drop of a hat and someone is always dropping a hat. The quandary is do I pick up this hat or do I walk away? At my dormitory in the federal prison camp are two doors. One door to the right is used to exit the building. The other door is used to enter the building. However, as a practical matter, most inmates use the same door for entering and exiting the building. As a general course of action, one inmate will wait as another inmate exits the building. He will then enter. This small of courtesy is usually enough to prevent most conflicts......most.

One morning as I was about to enter the building another inmate was about to exit the building. This inmate was angry that I was about to enter through the wrong door and stated to me in an angry and sarcastic tone that there were two doors.

This could have easily turned into a physical confrontation had I insisted on using the door as has been the custom in the past. Although I wanted to give a sarcastic reply in return, I didn’t. I merely stated that I was sorry for the inconvenience and would use the other door in the future.

As stated in Psalm 15:18, he was definitely a hot-headed person who was itching to start a conflict, which could have easily turned into a physical confrontation. However, by being patient, I defused a quarrel. Sometimes, it requires swallowing our pride and being humble to defuse a conflict. Being right is not always important. There are many dead right people who would still be alive today had they backed down from a situation that, in retrospect, was not important at all.

As stated in Proverbs 29:22, a hot-tempered person commits many sins. The consequences of those sins can be family fights, friends parting ways, injury and murders, especially in prison.

Apply this principle to your life even if you are not incarcerated. Be patient, be humble and avoid a quarrel or conflict. Most times, it is simply not worth it.

Al and Traffic Jam

Acts 20:35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: It is more blessed to give than to receive

Al is a wheelchair confined prisoner who was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. He is slight of build, in his mid-sixties, black and has a scraggly beard and mustache. Traffic Jam, so called because he moves so slow, is white, in his mid-sixties and uses a walker. Both are diabetics and require daily insulin shots.

How do two such men survive in federal prison? Do their fellow inmates prey on them? No, they survive because their fellow inmates help the weak. Street toughened drug dealers willingly push Al’s wheelchair to where he needs to go. Inmates, both black and white, have no problem with taking Al’s and Traffic Jam’s food trays from the serving line to their dinner table so that the two won’t have to negotiate a wheelchair or a walker while carrying food.

When the two are finished eating, these hardened felons will, without hesitation, whisk away Al and Traffic Jam’s food trays and take them up to be cleaned. These are small acts of kindness but they illustrate Jesus’ message to help the weak. Their fellow inmates perform these acts expecting nothing in return and knowing that once they leave here, they will likely never see Al or Traffic Jam ever again.

Whether consciously or unconsciously, these inmates follow Jesus’ adage to help the weak. They realize that it is more blessed to give than to receive. We should strive to help the weak in our everyday lives. It doesn’t take much. Opening the door for someone, letting someone into traffic or even a friendly greeting to someone who looks lonely or sad. When we do so, we feel good and and instinctively know that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy or Being a Raccoon ain’t half bad!

Matthew 6:25-27 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Four to five raccoons come to our dormitory patio everyday. They expect to be fed. They don’t appear to worry about it. They know that they will receive food. Before and after their arrival, inmates will lay out a veritable feast for the raccoons. They receive left-overs from dinner such as bread, cakes, apples and oranges. Some are so used to humans that they will take the food from our hands.

The raccoons aren’t the only ones to benefit from the generosity of the inmates. Birds fly down to share in the banquet and a cat or two will come to join in the festivities. One inmate, Groundhog, in particular, takes a great joy in feeding the raccoons. Every day he ensures that they are fed. Unfortunately, he is to be freed in a couple of months. Fortunate for him and unfortunate for the raccoons, I assume!

I said to Groundhog one day, I feel sorry for those raccoons once you leave. His reply was, Don’t worry about the raccoons, somebody will always feed them. They were being fed before I came here and they will be fed once I leave here.

In God’s world, we are more than the raccoons. Each day He feeds us, He clothes us and He takes care of us. If He takes care of the raccoons, the birds and the cats, He will take care of us. They don’t worry and nor should we. Our Heavenly Father loves us. Worry does not make us live longer. It does not add a single day to our lives.

Don’t worry, Be Happy!

An Ever-Present Help in Time of Need

Psalm 142:6-7

Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate Need; Rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me. Set me free from prison, that I may praise your name. That the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me.

Psalm 142 is a prayer by David during a dark time in his life. It is a time when he was being pursued by his relentless enemies and was in fear of his life. He was being pursued by enemies that he knew were too strong for him to defeat on his own. David’s back was against the wall and he called to God, his ever-present help in time of need.

In prison we feel the same way. Whether rightfully or wrongly, the federal government has pursued us. We ask that we be set free from our physical prison. In many ways, many of us, although not in a physical prison, are still in prison. It may be a prison of debt, a prison of self-pity, a prison of heartbreak and sorrow or a prison of deep depression. It may even be a prison of grave illness.

Whatever our prison is, there is a God that hears all, a God that loves us, a God that will protect us just as he did David. David cried to the Lord because he was in desperate need of help. We should cry to God for help when we are in prison or on the run from trouble.

We need God in the best of times and we need Him in the worst of times. In the worst of times when we are in our greatest need, God is there. In the best of times when we feel that we are on top of the world, we need Him just as much. He is our ever-present help in our time of need and we need him all the time.

The Prayer Circle

Matthew 18:20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with you.

Every night at 9:00 in our prison camp, approximately ten of us gather together for prayer. Each night a different man leads our prayer circle. The leader asks who has praises or prayer requests. Each person in the Circle will then give praises or prayers that God has answered or submit prayer requests. The prayers can be for themselves, fellow inmates, family members, friends or even the CO’s (correctional officers) or for the prison staff.

We sincerely believe that God is with us as we gather in His name. Even though many in the outside world may vilify us as hardened felons, there is no doubt in our mind that God hears all prayers without exception and that he hears our prayers.

Matthew 18:20 doesn’t specify where two or three have to gather in His name for him to be there. Peter, Paul and many of the other disciples prayed to God while in prison. We know that Jesus will hear our prayers, even behind prison bars.

A prayer circle to praise God or send up prayer requests can take place anywhere. It can take place behind prison bars, at home, at work, in the car or in the parking lot at a hospital. Wherever that prayer circle takes place, He is there to hear our prayers and our praises.

Let us take time today and gather with other believers and praise and pray to God. He will be there!

You’ve Got Mail

Joshua 8:34 Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the Law-the blessings and the curses-just as it is written in the Book of the Law.

For all inmates, contact with the outside world is precious, whether it be by telephone call, personal visitation or by email. Although we don’t have internet access, we are allowed to send and receive e-mail from a limited number of people. Each e-mail I receive is met with great anticipation and is read and re-read with loving care. I examine every nuance in the e-mail and I dwell on the love that I receive from the one that sent the e-mail.

The Bible is our e-mail from God. Do we give it the same attention that inmates give to their email that they receive from wives, children, siblings or parents? The Bible, even more so than the personal emails, symbolizes the great love that God has for us.

In the Bible, He tells the true story of how He sent his only beloved Son to die for our sins. The Bible is Good News, it is even better news than the e-mails that we inmates receive from our loved ones. When we read the Bible, we should meet it with the same anticipation that we meet an e-mail from a loved one. We should read and re-read the Bible with the same loving care that we read an e-mail or hand-written letter from a loved one.

The Bible is the Good News, the Greatest News and we receive it from the greatest loved One of all, our Heavenly Father.

The Vegetable Garden, Message One

Genesis 3:17-19

17. To Adam he said, Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you. You must not eat from it." Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

18. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

19. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food.

The federal prison system allows the inmates at the prison camp to grow a garden every year. A large plot of land is tilled and divided into sections that may be farmed by an individual or by a group of inmates who desire to garden together. Gardening is hard work. Working the fields, planting the tomatoes, bell peppers, squash and cantaloupe, pulling weeds and watering the plants is hard labor, not to mention being on constant vigilance from invaders such as raccoons and deer.

Every time I work that garden, I’m reminded of Adam’s willful disobedience to God and its devastating consequences to all mankind. However, in the same garden, I see God’s goodness.

Despite our mistakes in life, God can still bring forth goodness......nice ripe green peppers, big juicy red tomatoes, succulent squash and sweet cantelopes. Even in the midst of our troubles, He still brings forth a blessing. Even though the work is back-breaking and hard, the sun is hot and the rain sporadic, God still provides for us, His children. The amazing thing is that he provides for us even though we brought these troubles upon ourselves. He has no duty to provide for us. He does it because He wants too. We are cared for by a great God who does not abandon us even when we cause our own trials and tribulations. How can we not worship and praise such a good God!

Traffic Jam is Sick

Psalm 41:3

The Lord sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.

Traffic Jam is sick......again. He was taken to the hospital several days ago. He has been ill since he arrived in prison and some days are better than other days. This is his second stint in the hospital for heart problems. The heart problems are probably the reason for his nickname......he moves so slowly. The first time he was taken to the hospital was because he passed out on the floor of his cubicle. Naturally, the inmates are all concerned about his health. There are murmurs amongst the inmates about a heartless Bureau of Prisons system that refuses to send a gravely ill person home.

However, the Lord is the ultimate physician. He has the ability and wherewithal to sustain us no matter where we are, even behind prison walls. Even though Traffic Jam is gravely ill, the Lord sustains him on his sickbed and will restore him from his bed of illness. At the risk of being morbid, I’m not necessarily saying that the Lord will restore Traffic Jam to physical health.

The Lord’s ways, methods and means are beyond our understanding. His idea of sustaining Traffic Jam on his sickbed and restoring him from his bed of illness may very well be giving him a new body in a Heavenly home! After all, how many of us would love to trade our fifteen-year-old jalopy for a brand new, shiny superior car. Leaving our earthly bodies for a heavenly body is a million times better! The new body is designed to last throughout all eternity.

I know that whatever the Lord decides, Traffic Jam will be alright. One way or the other, the Lord will sustain him on his sickbed and restore him from his illness.

Al and Traffic Jam’s Wheelchair Ramp

Matthew 25: 36 ........I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

The good news is that Traffic Jam is out of the hospital and is now back in the dormitory. The bad news is that he is now wheelchair bound. However, the bad news only gets worse.

The wheelchair lift that moves the wheelchairs of Al and Traffic Jam is now broken. As a result, if they are to get down the stairs, they have to get out or be lifted out of their wheelchairs by a fellow inmate. They then crawl down the staircase where they await someone to bring their wheelchair down the staircase to them. They reverse the process to return to their cubicles.

This adversely affects their ability to eat at the cafeteria, get medication or go to the recreational areas. Because of the difficulty in negotiating the staircase, they are reluctant to leave their cubicles because of safety considerations. Al and Traffic Jam are missing meals and both are diabetics. Needless to say, their health suffers as a result of the broken wheelchair lift. They are unable to participate in recreational activities such as watching television, playing pool, cards, dominoes or watching a softball game.

The wheelchair ramp has been broken for over two weeks this time and was broken once before less than a month ago.

God mandates that we take care of the less fortunate. If a person is sick and in prison, there is a spiritual obligation, not just a legal one, to take care of them.

Matthew 25: 39-40 says, When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you. The King will reply, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

When we refuse to take care of those such as Al or Traffic Jam, it is the same as if we personally mistreated Christ. Those prison authorities in charge have a spiritual, moral, ethical and legal obligation to take care of those who are entrusted to their care. A prison sentence does not give authorities the right to treat an inmate as less than human.

God’s law requires that we treat all human beings, no matter their social status, with dignity and kindness. To do otherwise means risking the displeasure and wrath of God.

UPDATE: Less than a week before a major inspection, the wheelchair ramp was repaired. The prison passed the inspection with flying colors.

Our Own Personal Earthly Temple

1 Cor. 6:19 Do you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Every morning I head to the asphalt running track at the camp. It is old and cracked but it serves its purpose. I slowly and methodically walk five miles, step by step, lap by lap and mile by mile.

Even though it’s early in the morning, the sun beams down on my head and sweat pours down my brow. My t-shirt is soon soaking wet. Looking down, I see all the cracks in the sidewalk that I have memorized over the months of walking.

I do this to improve my body, the spiritual temple that God has loaned me and that I have sadly neglected over the years. As a good steward, we should always take good care of those items loaned to us. The same applies to our physical bodies, a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us.

Some days I don’t want to walk but then I think of two role models who never gave up. One is my mother and the other is my grandson. An ancestor and a descendant. My mother bravely fought diabetes the last few years of her life and it is a battle that I also fight daily. Even after she was sent to a rehabilitation center, she never gave up on trying to improve her health. To the day she died, she was about the business of trying to regain her ability to walk.

My grandson was born with a severe liver disease which resulted in him having to get a liver transplant when he was less than eighteen months old. From the time that he was born until the day he received his liver transplant, he instinctively fought for his life every day. He thrives today.

My mother and her great-grandson both fought valiantly to preserve the spiritual temples that God had given them, their body. My mother fought and lost her battle, but she now has an improved body with Christ. My grandson won his fight and still maintains his earthly temple of the Holy Spirit.

So every day I get up and I trudge my five miles. I have to take care of and improve my temple to the Holy Spirit. I think of my mother and grandmother who never gave up. For me to give up would be to dishonor them. But more so, taking care of this earthly temple of the Holy Spirit glorifies and honors God.

Fighting Sin-Lessons from the Vegetable Garden

Psalm 51:3-4 For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.

This prayer was written by David after the prophet, Nathan, informed him that God was displeased with his adulterous affair with Bathsheba. That affair resulted in the death of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, and the death of David’s own child. David recognized that his sin was not against man but against God himself.

However, the question that looms before me is, How do we fight sin? How do we prevent it from happening? Perhaps some lessons can be taken from the prison vegetable garden.

Growing a garden consists of many tasks. The object is for the plants to grow big and strong and produce delicious, juicy fruits and vegetables. Let’s think of the plants as being our spiritual lives and the fruits and vegetables the produce of that spiritual life. In order to produce a spiritual life we must plant it in the rich fertile soil of a love for God and His word. We water the spiritual plant by reading the Bible, the Holy Word of God. We fertilize this spiritual plant by not only reading the Bible but by doing His Holy Word. We must be doers and not just readers of the word. By reading and doing His word, our life bears the fruits of our labor and God’s blessings.

Sin can be compared to those things that seek to destroy the plants. Bugs, insects, raccoons and deer just to name a few. The best way to fight pests and to fight sin is to stop them before they hit the plant or spiritual life. Put up barriers to sin.

We put up fences to protect our crops from the raccoons and deer. Put up fences of prayer to protect yourself from sin. Pray to God to strengthen you from sin. Don’t place yourself in situations where sin is prevalent or may make temptation hard to resist.

Spraying your garden with weed and bug killer helps plants to grow healthier. We don’t have weed or bug killer for our plants. But we have prayer for our spiritual lives. Spraying our spiritual lives with prayer and the Word of God will help destroy the pests of sin and allow our spiritual lives to grow healthier.

Constant vigilance is required. Beating back a pest or sin one day does not mean that it will not try to invade our garden or spiritual life another day. Sin will come on a regular basis to attempt to breach our defenses and destroy our spiritual lives. We have to remain on constant guard to combat it.

When we love the Lord, when we water our spiritual lives with the words of prayer and the reading and doing of His Holy Word, we produce the fruits and vegetables of spirituality and please the Lord.

Slim’s Cell Phone or God of Second Chances

Acts 10:43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sin through his name.

Slim had been sent to the hole. The technical name is the SHU-Segregated Housing Unit and pronounced the shoe. His sin-possessing a cell phone, something that is totally verboten at the federal prison camp. The warden, who is new, emphatically stated that anyone discovered with a cell phone would get a new zip code. That is, anyone discovered with a cell phone would be summarily dismissed from the prison camp and sent to a prison with a higher security classification such as a medium security prison. Such a move would place the inmate behind real bars and cause a loss of many privileges that we in the camp tend to take for granted.

The shoe is rumored to be bitterly cold in the winter and burning hot in the summer. The threat of the shoe is designed to engender fear and discipline. Poor Slim was immediately scooped up and transported across to the shoe. There he would remain for over two months. Inmates came and went to the shoe and came back to the camp stating that they had seen Ol Slim and that he was still in the shoe.

Until two days ago, when Slim magically appeared back in the camp, we assumed that the warden had made good on her promise and that Slim would never be back. We thought that once his pound of flesh was exacted from him at the shoe, he would be shipped to a sinister prison in another zip code.

Slim was wrong, one hundred percent, unequivocally wrong. But yet the warden, despite her dire warnings, gave Slim a second chance. She did this despite the fact that Slim was eminently guilty.

How much greater is our God who not only gives us second chances but third, fourth and even more chances? The warden, I’m sure, would not give Slim third or fourth chances. But yet, God forgives us for more serious sins. Not only does He forgive us, he gives us multiple chances when we are imminently guilty of violating his commandments. Murder-Forgiven! Ask Moses. Adultery-Forgiven! Ask David. Lying-Forgiven! All we have to do is ask and sincerely believe and repent and God will forgive us. We are all Slims, in one way or the other. He is truly a God of second chances.

Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven, Feed Me till I Want No More

John 6:32-35

Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world.

Sir, they said, always give us this bread. Then Jesus declared. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

The raccoons are sleek, fat, with a shiny fur and never seem to get full. Every evening, without fail, they gather around our dormitory and await their evening meal of brown bread and other scraps. This bread is the leftover bread from dinner. Although we don’t want it, this bread nourishes the raccoons. We sit there and watch them happily munching away. They pick the bread up with their little paws and move it to their mouths where they daintily eat it. Some sit on all fours and eat their bread while others sit on their hind legs as if they were in their favorite recliner and savor every bite. However they eat it, they come, they partake and they are the better for it.

I ask you. ‘Do we have the sense of a raccoon?" Can and do we feed on the spiritual bread that is being furnished to us? Jesus is telling us that our Father in Heaven is furnishing a bread to us. This bread does not feed our physical bodies, but instead, feeds something infinitely more valuable, our eternal spiritual body.

Jesus is the Bread. Guess what? Just like the raccoons, we get this bread free. We don’t pay a single penny for it. It is a gift that is eternally valuable and worth more than all the tea in China.

When we eat of this bread of life, we are the better for it. When we eat this bread, we become full of the Holy Spirit, we become fat with the gift of eternal life and our fur shines with the Light of the World.

Be a raccoon. Partake of Jesus, the bread of life. You’ll be spiritually healthier