3/31/08  I was released from Dwight Maximum Security Correctional Center in Illinois after serving 6 mo of a 2 year sentence for class 3 felony aggravated Battery of a Correctional Officer (ramming him with my wheelchair on the 6th day of a dry hunger strike - "skinning his shin" and then raising my partially paralyzed right leg and kicking him in the chest causing him to be thrown against a door and causing "chest soreness" - all of which my neurologist and cardiologist testified were impossible for me to do [the State had no rebuttal witnesses against them]). I am appealing the conviction.

In Illinois you are automatically granted day for day good time credit except in certain crimes with extreme injuries or death, aggravated sexual crimes, etc. - then the Wardens usually grant 6 mo special good time credit in addition.

I am technically in the custody still of the IDOC for the next 18 mo (two year sentence minus time served). The parole agent will appear at my home in the next 48 hrs.

I was kept in solitary confinement for the entire six months, classified as a maximum security (really super max) prisoner, with extremely high escape risk for the first month and then medium escape risk after that. This is despite the fact I had no criminal record, I am a non-violent pacifist, and I am disabled - the things they put me through changed my physical condition from walking with difficulty with a cane and leg brace to the point that I am now using a wheelchair. I hope in a month or so to regain enough strength and health to use a walker for at least short distances.

In Illinois max sec women prisoners are housed in only three places - a 50 or so bed max security unit, death row (overflow may go there) or the health care unit which also house extremely psychotic and max aggressive classified inmates in addition to those of all classifications with serious illnesses. I was housed in the health care unit (really an infirmary) if you can call the malpractice and abuse there even that.

I lost about 35% of my body weight (at 5' 9" and 178 lbs in 9/07) and now weigh around 130 lbs or less. I was severely dehydrated and immediately taken to an emergency room by a friend, but first on the way they gave me a liter of soup, water, tea to help keep me from passing out. I was carried out of the prison by my friends.

The ER checked my blood and the electrolytes were abnormal and I was severely dehydrated. They gave me the necessary medications and 2 liters IV fluid. They wanted to admit me, but there were no beds, and since I could walk a few feet with a walker and others could move me around with a wheelchair without passing out they sent me home with instructions to come back to the hospital clinics over the next days to be evaluated by general medicine, and my specialists in cardiology, neurology, GI, and pulmonary medicine - plus nutrition and allergy as I developed new life-threatening reactions to food and couldn't eat much at Dwight without risking death in Russian Roulette by guessing what I could eat - the grossly negligent doctor refused to change my diet or consult an allergist or send me to a university hospital - Dwight is out in the boonies and there are only a few nurses around - life threatening illnesses are Russian Roulette because the guards may ignore you and not tell the nurse to come and only 1/2 the nurses are competent enough to keep you alive for 30 min until they can get a Life Flight helicopter to take you to their referral center the U. of Illinois! . I am in the process of getting all these evaluations and treatments ASAP from the same referral center and doctors that they refused to call and that have been caring for me for years.

I will be writing much about all this in the coming weeks. There were days I was denied even water, toilet paper, soap, clothing -even though I was disabled, unable to get up to the toilet and having diarrhea all over myself. I was extremely medically neglected and abused, as well as denied access to the courts including never allowed to call my attorney, falsely classified, and constantly berated and punished for pointing out that they were violating every law concerning rights of prisoners, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Bill of Rights, State statutes on prisoner's rights, and the United Nations treaties on human rights and treatments of prisoners, etc.

A professor in Illinois stated "patronage breeds corruption, like garbage breeds flies." This is soooo true. It also breeds the lowest level of competence in those that are hired, a herd mentality of brutality, and so much more injustice, evil, unethical behavior, and brutality that I can barely write about it right now - I need to decompress and recover first.

This is a serious abuse of power, a totalitarian police state, run by King (former 16 yr governor Jim Thompson) and his Lords, the corrupt Daleys, Madigans, Burkes, Judges, State's Attorney - Richard Devine and Strogers.

I must rest now - more later.

Thank you who wrote, who donated a little money (I need to raise a lot more - any donations should be sent to my attorney - Nicolas Albukerk and labeled "For Shelton Legal Fund", 3025 W 26th Street, 2nd floor, Chicago, IL 60453, USA), and who kept me in your prayers. I have never paid a lot of attention to making money or raising funds - Please if any one can volunteer to help advise me I am in desperate need of raising a lot - $100,000 for legal issues!

My faith and years of practice at meditation along Buddhist lines, along with the 23rd psalm and Martin Luther King's last speech, along with the knowledge that everything I ever had and have came from the labors and sacrifices of so many who came before me and my philosophy that I hope to give to society more than I have received, kept me going. I have never really considered myself as important as everyone else although I do have really very high self confidence and self esteem.

I will continue the fight more than ever now as so many in prison need our help, so many mentally and physically challenged persons without voices (especially children) need our help, etc., and we deserve to restore our Jeffersonian Republic! God bless America - and help restore it to justice! Think of others and don't just talk - ACT! The vast majority of Americans have been silent for too long!

Linda

I will never kneel to corruption and this evil and I did not in prison.