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n fact, the Compassionate Release program was slightly revised in 2013, one of those changes being the lowering of the age-bar. In order to be eligible, among other things, an inmate needs to be 65 or older. Also, according to a report released in May by the Justice Department Office of the Inspector general, between August 2013 and September of 2014 exactly 2 of the 348 inmates who applied for release under the revised program were released.
Among the unlucky 348 was Jim Wesley Davis. Although Texas prison officials agreed that they were unable to adequately treat his complex medical condition, the BOP feels otherwise. According to Davis, they denied his request for compassionate released based on the assumption that he’s not 51 percent or more disabled, and because he’s not 65 or older. (He’s 64.)
“Hell man, I’ve had nine kidney infections in ten months, I’m confined to my bed nearly 16 hours a day every day, and even the prison doctor has admitted on paper that I require special care beyond his expertise,” David says. Through medical records provided to Gorilla Convict, we were able to confirm these claims.
“If I’m not a perfect candidate for this, then who is?” Davis wonders.
James Roland Clark is another federal inmate housed in the same prison as Davis who was also denied a compassionate release. A convicted bank robber serving a 30-year sentence, Clark claims that he never got into trouble with the law until he was in his 50s.
“I was a good man all my life,” Clark claims.
What exactly turned Clark into a criminal is unclear. Now 83 years old ( he is 83), according to his jailhouse lawyer, Clark suffers from extreme blood pressure fluctuations, heart problems that have landed him in and out of the hospital, and dementia.
“When they denied old man Clark a compassionate release I knew that they weren’t serious about changing anything,” the jailhouse lawyer who put together Clark’s petition told Gorilla Convict. “The guy doesn’t know where he’s at half the time, he’s gotta be costing the BOP millions of dollars a year in medical expenses, and I’ve seen his medical records and looked over his entire criminal file and I’m not even convinced the guy’s guilty. It’s a shame they can keep a guy like that in prison.”
When Gorilla Convict asked Clark if he intends to re-file for compassionate release, he looked confused and said, “I know Obama’s gonna let a lot of these black boys out. But I’m white and he ain’t gonna do it.”
Because inmates such as Clark and Davis have been denied early release in spite of the fact that they have serious medical conditions, inmate Leonard Estes tells Gorilla Convict that he wont file for a compassionate release—because he doesn’t want to give prison officials the satisfaction of denying his request.
“If they let me go blind and didn’t give a shit, then why would they let me go home now?” he reasoned.
With a “mobility stick” in his hand and a pair of dark glasses covering his eyes, Estes eagerly tells his story. Sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for being an Armed Career Criminal in 2006, Estes recalls the day at FCI Oakdale in Louisiana when he realized something with his left eye was terribly wrong.
“I was in a Vo-Tech ( Vocational Training, a sewing class to be exact) class learning how to sew, then all of a sudden I couldn’t see the line,” he says. “So I went to my boss and told her what was up and she sent me to medical.”