Notes
~ from Jason's sister
Updates
~ CCE Report - a former chief of police and an expert witness on Interrogations takes apart the interrogation of Jeremy Jason Mann
~ Iowa Wrongful Convictions Unit - is reviewing whether or not they can help in Jason's case
Notes
As of the beginning of this year (2024) Jason was in the Clarinda correctional center. He'd been there for a little over 6 months after being transferred across state - literally - from the Anamosa prison. He has been transferred so many times in the last 33 years that even he can't remember anymore.
In March I got a call from the Clarinda prison, from a guard informing me that they were taking him to the hospital - it was nothing, he said, just a bump on the head. That was all he was required to tell and that all he would. It was almost two days of calling everywhere and leaving messages that I finally found out he'd taken back across state, checked into IMCC and then taken to the Iowa University Hospital in Cedar Rapids. I was finally contacted by a doctor there who said they were doing surgery on his retina - a bit more than a bump on the head. After the surgery they ended up intubating Jason because he wasn't recovering normally. Without finding anything conclusive for lower than normal oxygen levels other than sleep apnea (documented for the first time) - he was finally released and sent back to the prison with a Bi Pap machine. The next day IMCC found him on the floor and by the time he was in the ambulance he had no pulse. They used the defibrillators and restarted his heart. For almost a week, Jason had wires everywhere, tubes down his throat - but he was conscious and just tickled to have family standing around his bed. He kept trying so hard to talk, he'd start choking on the tubes. With still no further clue as to what happened, he was finally released with instructions that he had to be on that Bi Pap every time he sleeps. It was two more trips to the hospital, before he was given a diagnosis of OHS - Pickwickian Syndrome. This diagnosis I learned from the prison nurse who called me in June, and I've yet to get his medical records to find out what tests were done. But from the last doctor I spoke with, the Bi Pap was absolutely necessary to draw out the carbon dioxide that was building up in his system while he slept.
Now, the call I received was out of the blue. Up untl then, finding out anything about his condition was becoming a nightmare. Even tho I was Jason's emergency contact, he'd never signed a medical release as he'd always been healthy. But they had him sign one the beginning of June, and I got the call. She told me that Jason was not using his Bi Pap when he slept and that they believed he would be back in the hospital shortly, and if he survived - on a continual basis. This was just shortly after his last trip to the hospital, and the first time Jason was put on continual oxygen. The reason for the call, though, was they wanted me to fill out a form called an IPOST.
Jason may have learned to cope over the years with his situation and how they treat him, but now, he may not live through it. They don't want him and they won't let him go. He's paid a price that never be compensated. Iowa has taken his life and now they want to speed up his death. There will be no one there to hold his hand at the end, he will die just as he's lived his life - alone.
I just hope by then some of that never-ending ability to forgive of his - has somehow rubbed off on me.
~ Video Visits ~
is an absolutely wonderful human being. If you show him kindness, that's what you get back. Even after well over 30 years of being treated as less than human in the prison system, his life shattered by small-minded cops in a small-minded town and a mother who could have qualified as one of Hitlers' right-hand men - if not his daughter. When he was young he was very easy-goiing, so much so that he would say whatever it took to keep you happy - or get you off his back (ie. the intrrogation). And he still is in many ways - though you would be hard-pressed to get to admit to something he didn't do now. He doesn't have great social skills, but I don't know that's solely because of his disability, but more to do with the woman who raised him. On the other hand, if someone were to seek out his friendship, he would be there. Unforetunately, in prison and mostly segregated from the general population, that has never happened. He's never had a close friend, and he's faced every day of the majority of his life alone. The prisons in Iowa don't have any assistance for IDD prisonors - and they certainly have never staffed anyone to work with them, even the couselors there seem to be lacking in training. In prison, inmates are spoken down to by the guards and staff, communcation and instruction is harsh and often yelled. For someone like Jason that is the worst combination possible - when you speak to him that way, it's like the light in his mind shuts off and there is no understanding. So the end result is that Jason spends more time in lock-up/solitary confinement than the average prisoner, in fact, way too much time than most people could endure without developing problems. Jason does get angry about it though, and many times dring a visit he'll spend a great while getting it out of his system. While he does you can see his frustration, his neck is stiff and he'll go over each humilating thing they've done to him - like handcuffing him, yelling at him and locking him up. And because he knows that his ever move and word is monitored, I know I've never heard the worst of what happens to him in there. But just when you think they've broke him - suddenly he's spewed the last of his anger from his system and he's smiling again. And somehow it seems to light up the world when he smiles.
~ Free-Jason website
A few years after my mom died, Jason's father shipped all the case files that the last attorney (Dean Stowers) had given him. He said that Stowers told him and my mom that there was nothing further he could do for Jason (after the habeas was reversed) and that he was going to throw away the files if they weren't wanted. Jason's father took them and put them in a closet, and there they sat for over 20 years - nearly all the copies of court files, exhibits, notes, video tapes and more that Stowers had gathered during his 10 years of post conviction work.
For years , I am ashamed to admit, I avoided ever researching anything regarding the case. I guess I assumed that from a legal standpoint that anything that could be done - had been done by the attorney. I kept in contact with Jason, have never doubted his innocence - but I never knew what actually went on back there in Iowa.
When I first started reading the files, I began to think I was losing my mind - how could this all happen and he still be in prison? How could the most obvious evidence of his innocence pass by judge after judge and no one have stopped this madness? Granted, I'd already developed a huge distrust for police and judges because of the fact that Jason's life was thrown away so carelessly - but I never realized just how indifferent almost everyone in the justice system is. I've learned a lot since I picked up that first deposition and read it - and the more I learn, the more outraged I become at the country we live in. So many times I let the overwhelming odds of being able to do anything get the best of me. But once a week, on my video visits with Jason, I look into those pleading eyes and I realize I have to keep trying. He has no one else - the world has failed him. All his hopes and dreams stripped 33 years ago before he even began his last year of high school. There are so many things that he has never seen or had a chance to experience. On one visit recently, I told him about a drone I had bought, and in trying to figure out how to navigate it, I parked it in a tree. His eyes lit up with fascination and for awhile that weather-beaten look of hopelessness disappeared from his face. The only thing better than seeing my brother smile, would be taking his hand and walking him permanently out of that godforsaken place.
So this website has been just another step in a process of banging my head against a wall as I try to find yet another way to help. As I write these words, I hold no illusion that they'll ever be read, because it's a really big world out there. More days than not, the words don't come anyway as I let the insurmountable odds overwhelm me again. But than the weekend comes, I spend my once-a-week allotted visit with Jason, and I know I can never stop. I started the website just shortly before Jason's first trip to the hospital with a "noble" idea of trying to get him exonerated. Now, facing the possibility that Jason might not have much time left on this earth - my goals have changed to trying to find a way just to somehow make his life a little better. And wouldn't you know, for someone in prison - the odds of doing that are just as unlikely. It's been even more of a scary ride - most days feel like I'm standing in a dark place screaming to an empty world. It can be really hard at times to find the strength to call another lawyer just to hear that there's nothing that can be done, or sit and email off another request for representation. But I keep hoping that magic will happen - and one day I will dial the right number and find someone who thinks outside the box and say "Hey, let try this....". And I'll tell you what, my little brother deserves a little magic.
So if by some chance you are reading this, my imaginary friend, and can help or even have an idea of help - please reach out and contact us. Help me find a way to bring my brother home to Oregon so I can at last see his face light up when he sees the ocean for the first time. I want to see him sitting there on the beach, with a couple of new drones beside him and hear him laugh as he sends his first one airborne.
June 2024 ~ IMCC and the IPOST- 3rd times a charm
June 2024 ~ Iowa Wrongful Convictions Unit - is reviewing whether or not they can help in Jason's case
May 2024 ~ A Weekend In Iowa - my visit with Jason
April 2024 ~ CCE Report - Brian Leslie, former chief of police and an expert witness on Interrogations takes apart the interrogation of Jeremy Jason Mann
