Jesup for 18 months????

We think Stan will be in Jesup, GA for about 18 months or so, and then he will likely be moved once again. it will be the same as before, with us knowing last minute when he moves, and then us having to wait to get contacted by him when he lands in the next place. -patrick

Stan has been moved to Florida...

I'm not sure if this is part of the classification thing or if he's been remanded to Tallahassee for the duration of his sentence, but they gave him a mailing address so I'm thinking the worst. We were all sort of counting on Ft. Dix which was a military base and meant sort of easier time than a real prison. I'll do some research and talk to Dan and find out what's up... patrick

Stan is on the move: Classification

Stan called just an hour ago to say that he is most likely being transferred tomorrow to the feds evaluation center in either Atlanta, or Oklahoma. There he will spend a few weeks and then be moved on to the prison in the system they decide on. We will have no imput to this but as you know the judge requested he be sent to Fort Dix here in NJ. It is about 1 1/2 hours south of me so that will be easy to visit . BUT, the feds will do as they want so who knows where he will end up. I will, of course, keep you posted.

I hope that all of your families are doing well, your children healthy and happy and your loves loving. Please keep in touch and thank you so very much for your care and concern during our pain.
Love, Gerry

Marjorie McCleave, Rest in Peace, Sep. 2, 2008

This was sent to me by Stan's Mother's Pastor, George Morris, on the morning of September 2, 2008:

I don’t know if you are aware, Stan’s mother died this morning. I’m her pastor. I was with her on Sunday. She was 92 + years of age.

Stan and I served on the Youth Council of the Southern New Jersey Conference of the United Methodist Church. I believe in the 70’s. he was a teen at that time. He was much like his father – G. Stanley McCleave.

I was fortunate to be appointed pastor of Trinity UMC in Ewing, NJ. Stan’s dad built that church and move two inner-city congregations to their new suburban location. He was a pastor to his people. Greatly loved.

Marjorie was an outstanding person. I’ve appreciated my visits with her at Pitman Manor. She still led the choir and did a number of other things. Even Sunday, so very ill, but fully aware. In a whisper she said, “I’m having trouble talking.” We sat together in silence, I updated her about the church. We held hands and shared a prayer. I know she is in God’s presence today.

I’m not too far from Fort Dix. I’m going to follow your blog and when Stan is moved find out how I can visit him.

I will do anything I can to be supportive of him during this time.

My middle son was in prison for four years on an eight year sentence. I visited him every week. What seemed like an eternity, the time went by. I trust Stan understands that what has happened to him does not need to define him. Our “shadow” side sometimes gets the best of us, but is not who we are as persons. With a little help from his friends and by God’s presence with him, he will get through this valley.

What a good friend you are!!

George Morris
Senior Pastor
Haddonfield United Methodist Church

from jack Parker from this Monday (August 25, 2008)

Hey Dan. I've had it on my calendar for a long time but unfortunately a job has come up on Stan's sentencing date. I am not going to be able to be there. I did however get to talk to Stan yesterday in New Tazewell. The one good thing about him being moved is there is no visiting list so I can get in to talk to him.
He's pretty anxious in there with a tougher general population though. The I.Q. and rationality average is much lower in this new jail. As Pat had told us before Stan has fabricated a weapons charges story to protect himself from the other inmates in his cell block. I was able to observe on the video camera the other guys walking around in his block. It reminded me very much of observing animals in the zoo. The guys seem to be wandering about bored and constantly sizing each up in a push for dominance. Stan seemed like a fox in the hyena pen using his brain and caution to ward off the testing looks. They are all in a common room for 12 hours of the day and the visitation screen and camera are in this common room. I could sense the intimidation factor when one of them and then several of them looked over at the screen and were trying to see who Stan was talking to. I stepped out of camera view just to give them nothing to harass him about. He said that two other prisoners charged with sex offenses made the mistake of telling the others of their charges at which point they were beaten to varying degrees and for their protection are now in solitary confinement. Stan was warned upon entering this new jail by a friend whom he had made in Blount county. His friend had arrived earlier than Stan and had seen what happened to the others and caught Stan as soon as he was admitted. All these observations made it clear that it is very real.
On an up note if there is one.. Stan did not seem down or beaten spiritually and seemed to be using his street smarts to stay on top of his new game of survival. He has figured out that to stay on the good side of the more volatile cell mates he has taken the role of a good listener and offers no information about himself. He is staying mentally active by writing down stories of the various people he is in contact with. Reading has been a welcomed respite for him too but the new jail is very loud with the 12 hour group time and he has had a hard time concentrating.
I am hopeful that he will be on the lucky side and only get the 5 yr sentence although it is quite infuriating hearing what sentences some much more violent and destructive inmates have received. This has been a real eye opener.
I intend to go see Stan again if he is put back in a jail where I can get to talk to him.
Thanks for keeping me involved in the information chain.
Jack

97 Months in Ft. Dix

Today Stan was sentenced to 97 months at Fort Dix, an Army base in NJ that also has a minimum/medium security prison on site. So, it's a good news-bad news deal. The bad is that the judge in his case could have sentenced him to five years, or 60 months. The good news is that he's headed for a base where he will be able to get outside on a regular basis, exercise daily, and have access to a real library. He may even be able to further his education while there. His brother and sister-in-law are both attorneys in AL and spoke eloquently on Stan's behalf. Stan was taken into custody months ago, looking like we all knew him to be: neat, in a nice suit, showing meticulous personal hygiene and wearing an awkward embarrassed smile as he tried to hold back his tears. Today, he arrived in stripes complete with chains around his ankles, wrists, and torso. His fingernails hadn't been cut in 8 weeks until finally one of the US Marshals relented and allowed us to give him the clippers. Today he looked older, very tired, and deeply depressed and sad. Even his brother Dan commented that he looked ten years older.

At the end of the sentencing, we walked out of the Federal Courthouse all pretty devistated. But we walked out into a courtyard filled with trees and flowers while Stan was lead back to a holding cell made of concrete and steel. None of us can imagine what it would be like to be in his shoes. Now more than ever, we need to show Stan that we care for him and love him. As far as we know, Stan will return to the Claiborne Co. Jail and will be allowed visitors each Monday. New Jersey is a long ways away, so if in the next few weeks you could take the time to visit him, it will give him good memories for a long time.

Here is a link to Fort Dix where he'll be in a few weeks from now: http://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/ftd/index.jsp

1st Visit with Stan in Claiborn Co.

Last Monday I ran up to Stan's new digs in New Tazwell, TN. It's a really nice drive and mostly two-lane all the way. It's exactly 39 miles from Halls (North Knoxville) and took me about 35 minutes. The jail up there allows visitors only on Mondays from 9-noon and then from 1pm-3pm, but you have to arrive prior to when you want to see him. Since it's the only day, for all visitation, it's crowded up there sometimes and you have to wait your turn. They use video monitors up there so you don't get to see him in person, but on a wall mounted camera thingamabob that works OK but there is a lot of noise for both parties.

In the past when he was in Blount Co., it was only possible for three people to be on a list to see him. Now, anyone can visit him but only on Mondays and within the above stated time constraints. Since we don't know where Stan will be placed after his sentencing, this might be the last chance for many of us to visit him in the State of TN. Please try to go up there as he's pretty nervous about his sentencing and feels great when people actually come to see him. He has it in his head that no one will come and see him now that he's so far away.

Here is the link on google maps to find your way up there... It's very simple, just straight up Broadway and then a Right hand turn and you're there:

just copy and paste this into your browser:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=claiborn+county+jail+tn&ie=UTF8&ll=36.186659,-84.210205&spn=3.404711,3.262939&z=8&iwloc=A

Stan is in with the heavy felons now so he's asked us all to pray for his safety as well as for the upcoming sentencing on the 28th.

Stan is finding out who his friends are now; please write him up there and if possible, go to see him for sure...

thanks, Deacon Patrick :)

Stan has Been Moved:

We just found out that Stan has been moved up to New Tazwell, which is about 45 minutes North of Knoxville up Broadway. We are all hoping that this move will be a good thing for Stan as opposed to a bad one. He'll get a total change of scenery, different food (we hope), and new faces to get to know. Boredom is the main killer when you incarcerated. the fact that Stan hasn't had the benefit of new books as of late has been especially worrisome to me. I'll call the administrator tomorrow when they open and get some more information on visitation for both myself as well as others. Pray that Stan has seen all this as a good thing... I can't wait to talk to him about the ride from maryville to New Tazwell; it should have been an awesome thing for him to see the rolling hills of Tennessee after staring at concrete block for the last 120 days.... deacon patrick

Please Come and Show Stan Support on August 28th

Stan will be sentenced in the Federal Courthouse (old Whittle bldg.) on August 28th. When we get a little closer to that date, I'll post the time, directions, etc... This will be the last time Stan will be in Knoxville for maybe many years. I know many of you are frustrated by not being able to see him in jail so this might be a good opportunity to give him a little wave, smile, and pray for justice in the sentence that will come from the Judge. Please consider doing this small thing for Stan; let him know there are many of us out there who remember all the good he has done and for his friendship we've enjoyed through the years. On behalf of Stan, thanks for considering this... patrick

3rd Visit, July 21st, Day 83

My visit to Stan last Monday was the best ever. He was filled with stories, "from the inside," as he calls it. He still looks pretty much like he did wen he went in, albeit a little pale from lack of sunshine. The jail is filled with characters. Some are mentally ill, most are very poor, almost none are educated, and Stan sees all this with great sadness. He told me that some of the guys he's in there with should be in a hospital rather than in jail.

He seems to be better off these days in terms of his own mental health. I don't mean to imply that he's happy in there, however, and he's very nervous about the sentencing that is coming up on August 28th. He constantly hears about what other offenders have been given in terms of time for violent crimes and then is quick to tell me about the more harsh sentences for sex offenders. He points out that people convicted of manslaughter can often make parole in half the time or even less than what he might receive.

He continues to be clean shaven with his hair in good shape each time I come. This is in spite of the fact that he is allowed to shower only twice per week. We've spoken about shaving before, and in Stan's mind, he wants to keep up with any practice that allows him to remain human. He also goes outside each time they allow it. Last week, they called for the guys that wanted to to go outside and he was the only one that wanted to go. It was his first time alone since going into jail eighty three days ago.

One bad thing that has happened is the jail lost the preacher guy who used to move the book cart through the jail. The people with Stan haven't been able to get a book for the last four weeks, which is really hard on Stan, as reading is a great solace to him. Please pray that the jail will appoint some new person to this task so the guys can get new material to read.

All in all, I think he is resigned to be locked up for a long time. He seems to be slowly accepting that fact and is much more even now, with his emotions more under control during our visits. He told me once that the nights are the worst, and so I always try to see him at night. Since I can go anytime, I also try to keep my visits away from Saturdays when he can be seen by others on the regular visiting day.

If you are reading this and consider yourself a friend to Stan, your greatest gifts that you can give him right now are twofold.

First, your thinking about him and praying for him are of real importance to him. Your prayers will be heard by God who is with Stan while in jail. Stan feels support from many of you in this regard and talks often about how many of the men he's incarcerated with have no one that cares for him on the outside. Don't kid yourself into thinking that your simple prayers to God asking for Stan's protection, safety, and good mental health are doing nothing. they mean everything to him so please think of Stan often and ask God to make His presence known to Stan all the time.

Second, the greatest currency for Stan at this point, comes not from what's in his account at the commissary, but rather what comes in the mail each day. Stan LOVES to get letters and since none of us can call him and only five people can visit him (including his lawyer), receiving mail is the highlight of each and every day. Each new person that writes him will let him know that another person cares for him in his old life and doesn't think of him as a monster. But the greatest gift in that act won't be your letter to him, but rather his letter to you. Stan is an awesome writer. He tells hilarious stories that ring sad after a few days. His diction is tremendous and he can turn words with the best of them. His insights about jail life, the people he spends time with, his thoughts about his future, and his ebb and flow of depression and hope, are excellent. I'm encouraging him to think about writing something serious about his experiences. But I guarantee that he will not disappoint. His letters are worth keeping and re-reading. Stan has a real gift in his writing that will replace photography for a long time, but the same creative muscles are in use, so if you enjoyed his photos, wait till you see what he can do with a letter!

Last, on the letter writing front... Time passes for us a lightning speed. I can't believe how long it had been since my last visit. Time for Stan is forever. It creeps along at 1/10th of our normal slow motion. Our letters to him provide Stan much needed respite from his reality; please don't blow this off. When you write to him, seal the envelope as normal and then add a few pieces of scotch tape, one on top of each other making maybe three layers. They don't allow normal pens in jail as they can be sharpened and used as a shank, so they remove the hard plastic barrel and give the prisoners only the floppy ink tube and the very bottom of the pen. Stan can use the tape to wrap around the ink-tube and make it more comfortable to use.

2nd Visit: May 23rd, 2008 Day 19

Today was a GREAT visit. While it still is a bummer to be stuck in jail, Stan was much better. We had a good visit for over two hours and laughed a lot as we talked about what life is like inside cell-block C. Stan writes letters with a BIC pen with the hard plastic barrel removed. It's tough to write with what's left which is a floppy thin plastic ink-tube. So he has to roll-up pieces of paper to make a new barrel so as to be able to write to you all.

They needed to do some kind of maintenance in the pod a couple days ago and they all got to go outside for about an hour. Stan LOVED being in the sunshine. All of the light that he lives in now is sodium vapor (nasty orange light) and fluorescent (turns deep green under daylight film) so an hour in the sun was awesome and lifted his spirits. Stan got some weird looks from some of the other prisoners as he started to do sprints in the yard while the rest of them walked around in a daze. He actually fell down, sliding on the asphalt and skinned his knee up, which greatly entertained the rest of them. He showed me the scab which is already healing; he was not seriously hurt. He also started working out with a couple of the guys by lifting their body weight in between the bunks in each cell. There are pushups and sit-ups as well.

Another thing that has improved his outlook was the delivery of a radio from his first commissary box. He is now listening to jazz at night and NPR news during the day. He knew about the cost of gas and of the situation in Myanmar and in China. He explained to me that there is a constant level of noise in jail and it's often very loud. Being able to listen to music has enabled him to close out all other noise and this has had a profound impact on his peace at times. The radio is a great thing!

At night when they turn the lights off, they only go down 50% in intensity. Stan has learned to wrap a T-shirt around his head to block out that light and get some Z's. He's been reading books very fast. One author he mentioned that he likes is a Christian guy named Max Lucado. He's read two of his books so far and is encouraged by what he has to say.

My overall sense is that Stan is settling in for the long haul. I think his horizon is shrinking and that he is mentally steeling himself for what lays ahead in the coming years. Stan is a super intelligent guy and you can converse with him at a very high level. He has tons of time to think about things in there, and so I would encourage you to write heavy when you write to him. What I mean is that he probably doesn't want to talk about the weather. He needs some meat to chew on as the educational mean of the other guys in his pod is probably no where near his IQ level. We need to feed him with good conversation, concepts, and encouragement.

After speaking with Dan the other day, I spoke with Stan about filling out his visitation list tonight. His visiting time is Saturday evenings at 6pm EST, but as of today there is no one on his list. He promised me today at 5pm that he would fill this out and put four people on it. He was touched that "Ronnie" had tried to see him without success. I think he's ready to see some others now... so we'll see what happens.

We prayed the "Our Father" together again a the end of our time together, which always seems appropriate for a Methodist and a Catholic trying to find God's will, respectively. Please pray for Stan, that he might not be discouraged and lose hope on his journey. He will feel better if we stick by him through our letters and prayers. We must show him God's mercy and forgiveness in our contact with him; we must be the face of Christ for him until he can see through us to God Himself.

1st Visit: May 16, 2008 Day 12

My first visit found Stan in a sort of shell-shock. He'd been in jail for the prior 12 days, and had been sleeping on a thin permacell matt on the concrete floor outside the restroom. He complained of soreness of his shoulders and knees from being on such a hard flat surface. One of the other inmates had shown him how to make a pillow from a towel wrapped around a hardcover book so as to get his head off the ground. He described his headspace at the time as feeling "confused and abandoned." He shared these feelings freely with me, and was moved to tears often. It seemed crazy that this was the same guy that we shared a great afternoon with on the porch of his lovely home just a month prior. To see Stan visibly upset was incongruous to the person I knew who was always laughing and making light of every situation. Rather than having a conversation standing in his kitchen with him sipping herbal tea, we were separated by bulletproof glass lined with steel wire and were speaking through a telephone bolted to a steel countertop. Talk about weird...

One of the saddest things that he told me was about mail call. They often rouse his pod at 4:30am to do mail call. He shared with me that he hates when they call his name out. He's afraid that someone will hear his name and know what he'd plead guilty to. With tears streaming down his face, he told me he was ashamed of hearing his own name. This was a tough thing to share with Dan, his brother. Stan was at a low point that day and had been effectively alone for 12 days away from family and friends. I asked him why I was the only person who had been to see him other than his lawyer, and he'd not put put his 4 names down on the visitation list. I asked him why, and he replied that he didn't want anyone to see him like that (in jail). I begged him to reconsider this and he said he'd think about it.

The last thing he described was the slit windows in the jail. They are thin windows common to jails and prisons; they are vertical-- about 4" wide and maybe 3' tall. The exterior side of the window has frosted plexiglass so you can't see outside, other than to see if it's night or day. But one window in his pod has a broken piece on the bottom of it, and if you sit at a certain angle and smash your face up against the window, you can see a tiny slice of the outside world. Sadly for Stan, that only window outside looks directly at the college where he used to work. It's a beautiful campus filled with mature trees, formal grounds, and older brick buildings. As Stan lay on the floor night after night, he was less than a mile from his comfortable craftsman styled home. It must be a lot to try to take in...

Our visit ended with us praying the "Our Father" together. The last thing Stan asked me is to get people to write him. Please contact me directly for his address, and I'll be happy to send it to you. Deacon Pat