Murder in the First- Any Resemblance to Any Person Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental

Murder in the First is a film about a prisoner held in solitary confinement for more than three years. Driven insane by inhumane treatment, the prisoner, Henry Young, commits a murder immediately following his release from solitary. While based on a true story, many facts were changed and dramatized in the movie version. On a completely unrelated note, since 2001, the United States government has detained 775 people in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and many more prisoners in numerous other facilities around the world.

Henry Young was kept in a cramped cell, beaten, cut, and isolated from the world for three years. When word of Young's treatment became public, Alcatraz officials were punished for their actions. Numerous accusations from numerous sources including the UN, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, FBI agents, and former detainees have leaved charges including sleep deprivation, beatings, and confinement in cramped or painful positions for lengthy periods of time. The Eight Amendment of the Constitution bars the use of "cruel and unusual punishments," an unfortunate conjunction as it appears that cruel punishments are permissible as long as they are done frequently.

Henry Young was originally sent to Alcatraz for stealing $5, which even in 1938, was hardly a crime worthy incarceration in the toughest prison in the country. However, he was still more guilty than the many Gitmo detainees, according to Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson who in a sworn statement said that the majority of detainees initially sent there were innocent and that top officials including the President were aware of that fact.

As the trial swung in Young's favor, he wanted to accept a guilty plea and the death penalty rather than returning to Alcatraz to serve out time for a lesser charge. In 2005, a number of hunger striking detainees were force fed through feeding tubes. One of the prisoners sued to have the feeding tube removed so he could be allowed to die.

After being convicted on a lesser charge, Henry Young returns to Alcatraz only to mysteriously die a short time later. Similar mystery surrounds the deaths of three Gitmo detainees in 2006.

You may believe that all of this is in the past, but in March of this year President Obama formalized the "legal" practice of indefinite detention without charges and in December the Senate passed 93-7 a bill which included a prevision allowing indefinite detention without charges of prisoners arrested on American soil, including American citizens. [Update: That's a law now.] And the Patriot Act has only expanded under the Obama administration. The day that the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments became meaningless is the day we lost the War on Terror.

Henry Young was held indefinitely in inhumane conditions and was only released from them because another prison official began to ask questions and would not let the issue rest. Since the election of President Obama, who promised to close the facility by the end of 2009, the issue of indefinite detention has been largely ignored. However, as of May 2011, 171 prisoners remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay and Secretary of Defense Gates has stated that "the prospects of closing [the facility] are at best very, very low." It is long past time that we stand up for human rights and demand closure of US secret prisons. We must not continue to ignore this issue.