Re: R.I.P. Frank McCoy 1943-2020

[Baal]

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On Fri, 1 May 2020 17:38:41 +0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded said:

>> In alt.sex.stories.d, Baal <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:
>> I recently learned that Frank McCoy died on April 2nd, 2020. I learned
>> this through the prisoner locator website maintained by the Bureau of
>> Prisons (BOP).
>
> Thanks for the update. I note the old birthday list said he was born in
> November 1943, not 1944.

Thanks for the correction -- I was unaware of the birthday list.

> His stories were not to my tastes,

Nor mine -- I think I read a few paragraphs of one of them, and that was
enough.

> but that doesn't mean I wanted him to die in jail.

Me, neither. Where I live, simple possession of any of Frank's materials --
even though they are just text -- constitute a criminal offence, and grounds
for a minimum 2-year jail sentence.

It has long been my view that the state has NO business whatsoever telling
authors what they can write, nor citizens what they can read or view, for
that matter. We have long since lost that battle in this country, and so it
would appear, in yours as well, at least insofar as certain types of erotica
are concerned.

> I'm going to include three things to help people know who he was.
>
> First, quoting from the very long:
>
> Subject: {ASSM} {FAQ} Ole Joe's Guide - UPDATE - v.2003 [1/2]
> From: "Franz Kafka" <franzk...@hotmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 16:10:02 -0500

> ------ cut 8<------
> FRANK MCCOY has a website for his stories and reposts them to the group
> occasionally. All his stories are incestuously related, generally adult
> male/teen-or-pre-teen female. Often includes impregnation. If that turns
> you on, you gotta have them.

[list snipped]

I noticed that you did not include any links to where these materials might
potentially be obtained -- in light of what happened to Frank, this was a
prudent move.

> Second, an old back and forth from this group.
>
> ------ cut 8<------
> From: Jack C Lipton <cupa...@peElMe.cx>
> Subject: {ASSD} More hopper-fodder ....
> Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 13:20:06 GMT
>
> Frank McCoy wrote:
> > I was just getting breakfast in the kitchen where
> > the wife had left a bottle of spaghetti-sauce out
> > for dinner ... likely tomorrow or the next day.
> > I was eating cereal when I noticed the label,
> > "Prego(tm)" and almost spewed milk and raisin-bran
> > all over the counter when I thought, "What if it
> > was true?"
>
> Back in the mists of history, sometime in the late
> 1970s or early 1980s, the TV ads for Prego had a
> woman being asked about the "usual" goodies-- spices
> and the like-- being in the sauce and the woman who
> was holding it proudly in her kitchen announced,
> "it's in there!".
>
> Given the product name *and* that advertising I do
> not think I need to go much further to tell anyone
> what crossed my mind, even back then.
>
> Granted, I think the ads were in the northeast.
>
> ------>8 cut ------

What a character, eh?

> Finally, a six word story challenge he posted:
>
> ------ cut 8<------
> From: Frank McCoy <mcc...@millcomm.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.d
> Subject: Re: {ASSD} Six words
> Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2006 16:35:31 -0600
> Organization: S.F.P.I.A
>
> In alt.sex.stories.d Indiana Joe <india...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > This month's _Wired_ magazine has a piece that features six-word
> >stories by several prominent authors. It got me wondering - can a good
> >sex story be written using just six words?
> >
> > I suppose I should set this up as a challenge or something.
>
> I fucked her. She came too.
>
> --
> _____
> / ' / ™
> ,-/-, __ __. ____ /_
> (_/ / (_(_/|_/ / <_/ <_
>
> ------>8 cut ------

Thanks for posting these samples -- this is the first time I had seen these.

I've been thinking about Frank a lot, and when I got the news, it was like a
punch in the gut. Many of us feared that Frank would die in prison, given his
age and pre-existing health conditions. (Given the date of his death, I find
myself wondering if Covid-19 might have been a precipitating factor, given
that Frank was an insulin-dependent diabetic, and diabetics are at higher-
risk for death from Covid-19; I suppose we'll never know.)

What does this say, about a country and its' justice system, that would send
an elderly man (in poor health) to prison for a decade, followed by a further
decade of probation?

I'm convinced that the rationale for this was to silence Frank -- even if he
survived his 10-year sentence, and were released in August 2024, the court
ordered mandatory 10-year probation period would likely have prevented him
going online and expressing himself until he was into his 90s.

Think about the timeline of events, for a moment -- Frank was originally
arrested in 2008, was tried in 2010, and was sentenced in 2013. He then
served about 2 years in prison, after which he was on probation for a further
2 years. Frank was free for less than 6 months, whereupon he was re-arrested,
tried, convicted, and sentenced to 10 years in jail, followed by a further
10 years of probation.

If Frank had survived his jail sentence, and completed the subsequent 10-year
probationary period, this means that the entire period from 2008 to 2034
would have been spent incarcerated, or otherwise under the thumb of the
correctional system. If you add that up, that amounts to some 26 years!

Frank wasn't convicted of murder or manslaughter -- rather, his crime was to
challenge the authorities, in trying to get Miller v. California overturned.

What is truly sad (not to mention ironic) is that the laws that Frank sought
to overturn are now even more firmly cemented into place, after his original
conviction was upheld unanimously on appeal. It would have far been better
for everyone, especially Frank himself, if he had never tried to overturn
the law in the first place.

Frank was bone-headed on this issue; he was absolutely bound and determined
to try to overturn Miller v. California in the courts. I tried to tell him
that it was very unlikely that he would be successful in overturning decades
of settled law, but he simply would not relent. (That said, I hoped he would
be successful, but I think I took a more realistic/cynical view of things
than he did.)

My impression was that Frank put his faith in the Constitution and the
justice system. Very likely that naive faith arose out of a Pollyanna-ish
view of the law, courts and justice system that was fed to Americans of his
generation by the mass-media. Both Frank and I grew up watching episodes of
Perry Mason, in which Mason was always victorious. Many people share this
cartoon-ish view of how the justice system works; it is only when they
themselves (or one of their loved ones) become ensnared in the the clutches
of the 'justice' system that the illusion finally falls-away, and they
realize the truth.

The truth is that the justice system is NOT about truth, justice, or even
fair-play -- rather, it is about processing people through a meat-grinder of
a system with the goal of incarcerating the maximum number of people
possible. It is not for nothing that America, with only 4% of the global
population, nevertheless has 25% of the globe's prisoners.

I have seen references to a study of statistics of the Federal Court system.
This study revealed a remarkable fact: in one-half of the 92 U.S. Federal
Judicial districts, there were NO acquittals whatsoever for the study period:
in other words, there was a 100% conviction rate.

In districts that did report acquittals, they usually numbered no more than
1 or 2 in each district. Each Federal Judicial District handles thousands of
cases per year, and yet the number of acquittals is negligible.

Several years back, there was a piece in the New York Times, where a judge
was interviewed -- he hadn't had a jury trial in the previous 3 years. He
expressed his worry that the right to a jury-trial was becoming endangered.

This is about as far from Perry Mason as one can imagine.


Just look at how far the authorities were willing to go, to put Frank behind
bars:

* They used undercover officers.

* They used a 19th Century law originally designed to criminalize both the
publication and distribution of birth-control information (18 USC §1462)
including links to where such infomation may be found. This is the law
(championed by Anthony Comstock, the 19th Century's most notorious censor)
that was used to convict and imprison Frank for 2 years.

* The Feds both judge-shopped as well as jurisdiction-shopped. They first
tried two judges in McCoy's home state of Minnesota, but both judges
refused to sign an arrest warrant.

They then tried jurisdiction-shopping, trying one of the most conservative
jurisdictions in America: Georgia. Even there, they had to try 3 judges --
the first two, IIRC, refused to sign-off on the arrest warrant.

* The authorities sent a six-person team of U.S. Marshals to effect the
original arrest in January, 2008. Six armed Marshals to arrest one elderly
man in poor health.

* Naturally, Frank appealed his conviction -- he was already out of prison
having completed his sentence, before the appeal decision was handed-down.
The decision to uphold his conviction was unanimous.

* Within a few months of the appeal decision being handed-down, Frank was
re-arrested, and tried as a repeat-offender -- this was used as the reason
that such a harsh sentence/probation conditions were handed-down.

Frank (naively) trusted in the law, and the courts; I, on the other hand,
trust for my safety in the laws of mathematics (i.e. encryption). My personal
security philosophy has always been:

"Better to have it, and not need it, than need it and not have it."

Frank could have very easily used the same email/posting methods that I've
used for decades, which could have prevented everything that he went through,
but he did not wish to do so, based on his incredibly naive trust in the U.S.
legal system.

Frank had the courage of his convictions, I'll give him that, but he paid a
*very* high price for it.

> Elijah

Baal <Ba...@Usenet.org>
PGP Key Fingerprint: 40E4 E9BB D084 22D5 3DE9 66B8 08E3 638C 1E92 C0E8
- --

Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?" -- "Who will watch the Watchmen?"
-- Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347. circa 128 CE

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[Eli the Bearded]

In alt.sex.stories.d, Baal <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:
> It has long been my view that the state has NO business whatsoever telling
> authors what they can write, nor citizens what they can read or view, for
> that matter. We have long since lost that battle in this country, and so it
> would appear, in yours as well, at least insofar as certain types of erotica
> are concerned.

Well, the war has been being fought since at least the sixties (with
Grove Press fighting for _Tropic of Cancer_). Progress has mostly
stalled now, but I don't think it's over.

> Thanks for posting these samples -- this is the first time I had seen these.

There's doubtless more to be found, that's just what I had still handy.

> What does this say, about a country and its' justice system, that would send
> an elderly man (in poor health) to prison for a decade, followed by a further
> decade of probation?

The US has the highest per-capita incareration rate in the world. It's
not unreasonable to say it is a police state. His story is one thread in
a vast quilt of injustice.

> Frank wasn't convicted of murder or manslaughter -- rather, his crime was to
> challenge the authorities, in trying to get Miller v. California overturned.

For the record, that's a different Miller than the one that wrote
_Tropic of Cancer_.

> Frank had the courage of his convictions, I'll give him that, but he paid a
> *very* high price for it.

It's very hard to stand there and push the bulldozer back.

> Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?" -- "Who will watch the Watchmen?"
> -- Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347. circa 128 CE

Indeed.

Elijah
------
had not been prepared for that mountain of a reply

[Baal]

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On Mon, 4 May 2020 03:19:44 +0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:

> In alt.sex.stories.d, Baal <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:
>
>> It has long been my view that the state has NO business whatsoever telling
>> authors what they can write, nor citizens what they can read or view, for
>> that matter. We have long since lost that battle in this country, and so it
>> would appear, in yours as well, at least insofar as certain types of erotica
>> are concerned.
>
> Well, the war has been being fought since at least the sixties (with
> Grove Press fighting for _Tropic of Cancer_). Progress has mostly
> stalled now, but I don't think it's over.

The war has been going on far longer than that. The Comstock Act which was
used to prosecute/jail Frank for the first time, has been in place since
March 3, 1873.

Here is a little historical tidbit that you might be unaware of: it is said
that prior to Anthony Comstock's death, he was approached by a young law
student, who purportedly showed an interest in Comstock's causes and his
investigative methods. The name of that student was John Edgar Hoover.

>> Thanks for posting these samples -- this is the first time I had seen
>> these.
>
> There's doubtless more to be found, that's just what I had still handy.
>
>> What does this say, about a country and its' justice system, that would
>> send an elderly man (in poor health) to prison for a decade, followed by
>> a further decade of probation?
>
> The US has the highest per-capita incareration rate in the world. It's
> not unreasonable to say it is a police state. His story is one thread in
> a vast quilt of injustice.

Indeed.

>> Frank wasn't convicted of murder or manslaughter -- rather, his crime was

>> challenge the authorities, in trying to get Miller v. California overturned.
>
> For the record, that's a different Miller than the one that wrote
> _Tropic of Cancer_.

Indeed. Arthur Miller wrote Tropic of Cancer in the 1930s, in Paris; Marvin
Miller ran a California-based mail-order business in the 1970s specializing
in pornographic films and books.

>> Frank had the courage of his convictions, I'll give him that, but he
>> paid a *very* high price for it.
>
> It's very hard to stand there and push the bulldozer back.

Indeed. I would argue that the first duty of an activist to survive. That
means _NOT_ placing yourself in a position (i.e. in front of the bulldozer)
where you will be crushed and utterly destroyed, as Frank was.

Rather, I think there is a good argument to be made that living well (or at
least surviving) is the best revenge. If Frank had taken appropriate steps
to protect himself, he could have remained free and continued to publish as
he saw fit for another decade or so.

> Elijah
> ------
> had not been prepared for that mountain of a reply

Sorry about that... I tend to be rather long-winded.

Baal <Ba...@Usenet.org>
PGP Key: http://zimmermann.mayfirst.org/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0x1e92c0e8&fingerprint=on

PGP Key Fingerprint: 40E4 E9BB D084 22D5 3DE9 66B8 08E3 638C 1E92 C0E8
- --

Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?" -- "Who will watch the Watchmen?"
-- Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347. circa 128 CE

If you accept that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to
have to defend the indefensible. -- Neil Gaiman

"We learned during the McCarthy era that when the State gets behind a moral
panic, no one is safe." -- Bob Chatelle

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[Baal]

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Some further information has come to light on the circumstances of Frank's
death in custody this past April. It turns out that FCI Elkton, the prison
in Ohio where Frank was incarcerated, was one of three Covid-19 hotspots in
the entire U.S. Bureau of Prisons-run institutions. The situation was /so/
bad in these institutions that even the Attorney-General, Bill Barr himself
singled-out FCI Elkton as one of the worst of these institutions.

I stumbled across a news story on Commondreams.org, which mentioned FCI
Elkton -- this was the facility that housed the late Frank McCoy.

ACLU Asks Supreme Court to Deny Bureau of Prisons Request to
Block Order That Will Save Lives

BOP has failed to effectuate judge-mandated reduction of
population at Elkton Prison.

WASHINGTON - This morning, the American Civil Liberties Union
and the ACLU of Ohio filed an opposition brief with the U.S.
Supreme Court, asking the court to deny the government's request
to stay the preliminary injunction — ordered by United States
District Judge James S. Gwin last month — at Elkton Federal
Correction Institution. This is the first time the Trump
administration has asked the Supreme Court to block an order
that would protect prisoners from COVID-19.

In a rebuke this week, Judge Gwin noted that one in four people
tested at Elkton had tested positive for COVID-19, and that the
BOP was required to expedite the transfer and release of the 837
members of the medically-vulnerable subclass to home confinement
and compassionate release. Nine people have died at the prison,
making it one of the more deadly BOP-run prisons during this
pandemic.

The ACLU's brief made reference to prisoner deaths and, in particular,
mentioned 3 prisoners by name, one of whom was Frank McCoy. Here are some
excerpts from that ACLU brief:

1 INTRODUCTION

In few places is the deadly threat of COVID-19 more amplified
than in the cramped, overcrowded environment of prisons. And
among federal prisons, the Attorney General himself has singled
out the facility at Elkton, Ohio, as one of the worst.

[...]

2 Congress has provided the Federal Bureau of Prisons with a
collection of tools to attempt to ameliorate situations like
Elkton's, including recently expanded authority to move prisoners
to home confinement.

Nearly two months ago, Attorney General William Barr exhorted
the wardens of the BOP’s three worst COVID-19 hotspots, including
Elkton, to use these tools "with dispatch" to move as many people
as possible to safety. But the Government did not do so. By the
time this case was filed, on April 13, three Elkton prisoners were
dead. By the end of this case's first week, the death toll had
doubled.[2] By May 8, it grew to 9. Now, 20 more people are
hospitalized and 8 intubated. And nearly 1 in 4 prisoners (of
those who have been tested) are infected.

Recognizing that the unmitigated deadly risks to Elkton prisoners
warrant relief, the District Court crafted a carefully circumscribed
preliminary injunction to implement the habeas remedy of enlargement,
affording substantial discretion to prison officials, using nothing
but countermeasures already available to the Government. On April 22,
the District Court ordered the Government to identify members of the
subclass of medically vulnerable prisoners, and to "evaluate each
subclass member's eligibility for transfer within two weeks [by May 6],
prioritizing the most medically vulnerable inmates. It ordered the
Government to evaluate their eligibility for home confinement,
compassionate release, furloughs, or a transfer to a safer facility.
Where the Government determined that prisoners were, in fact, eligible
for relief, the court ordered them to provide it. This was no mass
release order; indeed, the District Court repeatedly stressed that
it was not ordering the release of anyone...

[...]

7.On Monday March 30th prisoners at FCI Elkton, a low security male
prison, began testing positive for COVID-19. As of April 12, 2020,
Elkton has 35 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 24 prisoner and
11 staff diagnoses. The FBOP released consecutive memos on 4/2/20,
4/3/20,7 and 4/4/20,8 announcing the deaths of Elkton prisoners
Woodrow Taylor (53 y/o), Margarito Garcia-Fragoso (65 y/o), and Frank
McCoy (76 y/o), respectively. The medically established progression of
COVID-19, combined with the pre-existing health conditions of all 3
men, makes it likely these individuals suffered tremendously leading
up to their deaths.

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/opposition_brief.pdf


The BOP press-release announcing Frank McCoy's death reads as follows:

U.S. Department of Justice - Federal Bureau of Prisons
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Office of Public Affairs - 202-514-6551

April 4, 2020

Inmate Death at FCI Elkton

WASHINGTON, D.C.: On Thursday, March 26, 2020, inmate Frank McCoy
reported to the Health Services Department at the Federal Satellite
Low Institution (FSL) Elkton, in Lisbon, Ohio.

Mr. McCoy was evaluated by institutional medical staff and transported
to a local hospital for further treatment and evaluation due to the
inability to maintain oxygen saturation. While at the local hospital,
Mr. McCoy tested positive for COVID-19, his condition declined and he
was placed on a ventilator.

On Thursday, April 2, 2020, Mr. McCoy, who had long-term, pre-existing
medical conditions which the CDC lists as risk factors for developing
more severe COVID-19 disease, was pronounced dead by hospital staff.

Mr. McCoy was a 76 year-old male serving a 121 month sentence for
Possession of Child Pornography. He had been in custody at FSL Elkton
since September 6, 2017.

FCI Elkton is a low security facility that currently houses 2040 male
offenders, with an adjacent Federal Satellite Low which currently houses
417 low security male offenders.

The Bureau will continue to provide daily updates and information on
actions related to COVID-19 at www.bop.gov/coronavirus/index.jsp.

Additional information about the Federal Bureau of Prisons can be found
at www.bop.gov.

###

https://www.bop.gov/resources/news/pdfs/20200404_press_release_elk.pdf


Baal <Ba...@Usenet.org>
PGP Key: http://zimmermann.mayfirst.org/pks/lookup?search=0x40E4E9BBD08422D53DE966B808E3638C1E92C0E8&fingerprint=on&op=vindex

PGP Key Fingerprint: 40E4 E9BB D084 22D5 3DE9 66B8 08E3 638C 1E92 C0E8
- --

Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?" -- "Who will watch the Watchmen?"
-- Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347. circa 128 CE

If you accept that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to
have to defend the indefensible. -- Neil Gaiman

"We learned during the McCarthy era that when the State gets behind a moral
panic, no one is safe." -- Bob Chatelle

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression.
-- Thomas Paine
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