"Happy" the Book -
An Innocent is Finally Released
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I have authored the attached Preface to the new Book, "Happy" that will be released in early 2016.

This is a heartwarming story of redemption of a soul and is a faith-based true story even involving a romance for 20 years as Happy's sweetheart waited for him.

In order to build the buzz for the forthcoming book, I am asking everyone I know to publish and send around the attached Preface and invite your friends and neighbors, loved ones and others to read it.

If we are ever going to restore the US Constitution, we must start by liberating the innocent, such as "Happy," from prison.

The Story of Marcos Boyce absolutely proves that the US Department of Justice fictionalizes indictments and criminal charges in order to convict and imprison the innocent to satisfy their own agenda. There is no question now that they do it, the only question is, as a civilized nation that believes in the rule of law, what can be done about this form of tyranny. Some rational suggestions are offered in the attached Preface which might stimulate discussion and lead to positive changes to benefit all Americans.

Blessings to all,

Wes Hoyt

Preface

Marcos Antony Boyce (middle) with local Attorney Michael Trost and wife Rosa

Twenty years ago, in 1995, a terrible mistake was made by the U.S. Department of Justice, or maybe it was expediency; but, either way, an innocent, who should have been set free, went to prison “for life without the possibility of parole.” That should have been irrevocable; meaning never to see daylight or experience liberty or even smell the scent of freedom, something we all take for granted. The innocent person who spent twenty extra years of his life in prison is a gentle, happy soul of 52 at his October 2, 2015 release, who loves sports, holds no grudge, is not bitter and wants no retribution against those responsible.

He earned the nick-name “Happy” for a reason. Orphaned at age six and known as “the boy with the big eyes,” he was raised by his grandmother. His fellow inmates immediately recognized his pleasant demeanor and his handle stuck.

Happy now says that his “whole life” is before him. He has remarked time and time again that, “It’s very liberating to smell freedom, taste ice cream and feel new mowed grass under my feet—just seeing something alive, green and living is amazing,” each of which is an experience he has not had in decades. Like someone out of a time warp, from another era gone by, emerges this man, who in his fifties, feels like he is 30 and ready to start life over again. He stayed in good physical shape, exercising when allowed to do so and lived by faith; the faith of a damned soul who knows that God loves him and that someday He will liberate him.

This is the story of Marcos Antony Boyce, the only man to ever walk out of SuperMax prison, the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” having been saddled with that horrifying sentence of “life without possibility of parole.” How did that happen? Did he walk the “Green Mile” to the place of his release? His discharge from the deepest, darkest, most restrictive dungeon in America was nothing short of a full-on MIRACLE.

The editor of this book and investigative reporter Pat Shannan, himself once a recipient of a similar MIRACLE back in the 1990s, is a true believer and knows that the power of God is greater than anything man can do. What happened to Marcos and how it happened is only part of the narrative. The ‘rest of the story’ is the redemption of a lost soul, who like Jean Valjean, from Les Miserables, was originally sentenced to prison because he was stealing to feed his family. In the early 1980s Marcos, being recently married to his first wife and having no job with children to feed, handed a threatening note to a bank teller. Although he did not carry a weapon, avoiding the classification of an ‘aggravated crime,’ it was still bank robbery to demand that the teller hand over all the cash in the drawer. He might have gotten away with it, but, like most thieves, they can’t resist being a repeat offender. Yup, he did it again and, WHAM-O, he got caught.

Now most rational people would have used the services of an attorney or at least the Public Defender’s Office, who would have turned a 15 year prison sentence into 3 to 5 years. Not Marcos, he reasoned, well, “I did it, so I’m guilty, no reason to deny it, so I will plead guilty,” and that’s exactly what happened in 1985 when he was living in California; and because it was a federal crime, eventually he was housed in the United States Penitentiary (U.S.P.), Atlanta, Georgia which is where he found himself in 1995 as he was about to be released having “done his time” on the bank robbery charge.

Only months before he thought he was on his way home from 10 years of hard time, an odyssey began that literally took away twenty more years of his life, incarcerating him in various federal institutions, giving him some amazing experiences shared with the reader in this book. Part of which includes the experience of being accused of ordering a 1994 murder just as he was about to be released from USP Atlanta. Marcos was cleared of any murder involvement by the initial investigation in 1994; but, as luck would have it, his innocence mattered little when the federal government needed a “fall-guy” to help take the rap and insure a conviction of the real murderer who had gotten off because of a 1994 hung-jury.

(Names of those involved in the murder have been changed to avoid legal entanglements, however, for anyone truly
interested, all details are verifiable through the Atlanta Federal District Court records in case No. 94 cv 387.)

At the time of the crime, Marcos was in his individual cell, literally minding his own business, planning to play a baseball tournament game when the murder occurred. When the real murderer was not convicted at the first trial and the authorities needed an accomplice to share the blame, the FBI case-agent and prosecutors pointed to Marcos. In the first trial the verdict was lost against the cold blooded killer, a racist named Clint White. White, or “Snowball” as he was called in prison, as he was running a little protection racket: “Have your family pay $5,000 to the person I designate on the outside and I’ll protect you from the other horribly-bad inmates as long as you are in prison. Or, if not, I’ll simply kill you.” (So who was the horribly-bad inmate anyway?)

“I don’t have any money,” came the reply from the Asian born Restaurant owner, himself caught in a drug trafficking ring that wound him up in USP Atlanta in 1994. “No money, well then you’ll just have to die;” and he meant it. White’s profile included other murders on the outside, especially racially motivated crimes of violence, but this was his first “in-prison” killing. Of course, White was a ‘white-supremacist’ and believed all other races were inferior to Caucasians.

In his 2014 confession, White, took full responsibility for the murder of the Asian Restaurant Owner and cleared Marcos Boyce of any involvement. White stated, “I did not take orders from Marcos Boyce because he’s Hispanic and I do not take orders from a member of an inferior race.”

Mr. White was quite clever in the means employed in this 1994 murder. Yes, he was in prison, but, no, he was not without resources. In fact, one item secretly manufactured in every prison with inmate labor is the “shank,” a highly polished, razor-sharp knife, or ice pick type blade as a cutting or puncturing instrument, to be fashioned from any surplus material, such as a bed spring or scrap metal or even a piece of strong plastic. What else does a ‘body’ have to do with his/her time but, carefully sharpen a knife so they might be able to protect themselves or offer “protection” to others? White said he was two floors below the murder scene when the killing occurred and that there were several eye witnesses placing him on the third level at the time the murder happened on the fifth level, of a huge cell block. In that part of the facility, all three, Boyce, White and the victim (along with 500 other inmates) were housed.

One juror, in the first murder trial of Mr. White, could not agree that he was guilty “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt;” and there is logic to this decision. If White was “Presumed Innocent” and three or four witnesses swore he was two floors away from the crime scene when the murder occurred, then, wasn’t there reasonable doubt? In his 2014 confession, White admitted he committed the murder and said it literally took him 15 seconds to run up two flights of stairs, stab his victim three times, each in a critical place, any run back down to his cell. Just one of the stab wounds would have produced rapid death (medical facilities were far enough away, through double locked doors.) Guards would have to be called, the likelihood of a deep stab wound being treated in time to prevent the victim from bleeding-out was effectively zero. The first trial resulted in a hung jury, with one juror holding out because of the reasonable doubt.

The prosecutor, realizing that he would not likely improve the result in a second trial, decided to present the same evidence to a new jury, by upping the ante a bit.

The FBI case-agent in charge needed a so-called “cooperating witness,” who was literally a professional liar, who would say that this murder was ordered by the hapless Marcos Boyce. It did not matter that another district court judge in the Atlanta Federal Courthouse at that very time said this confidential informant was a pathological liar and ordered him to submit to a psychological exam in another pending case.

No, the liar was portrayed by the prosecution in the second White trial where Marcos was a co-defendant, as if he was a truthful and reliable witness of good character, when he was known by the FBI as a scoundrel of the lowest moral stalk, who would literally say anything to gain an advantage in his own case; and say anything to get payola from the FBI in the form of a shorter sentence in his own case. (There has been a raft of fantasy cases promoted by the FBI in America over the past 20 years, which most people can’t understand because of cognitive dissonance).

The case against Marcos Boyce raises an important issue in our society: Are humans expendable? Was it okay to falsely accuse Marcos Boyce (or anyone of the millions of innocents who are falsely accused in America today) of being the equivalent of a Mafia Don, with the power to order the murder of another? Did the end justify the means?

The sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole for Marcos, truly an innocent man…would scream “No Way.” Looking honestly at Marcos’ case may suggest some answers or at least offer some alternatives, including checks and balances that do not currently exist, to insure that no innocent person who is trying to prove his innocence is ignored, as Marcos was disregarded by America’s appellate courts for the last 20 years.

This true story of American injustice puts the discussion of imprisonment of the innocent squarely into the center of the cultural landscape. There may be value in publicizing the Boyce experiences to help those on the wrong path to make an immediate u-turn from that direction; and Marcos is dedicated to speaking to the youth with the authentic experience of one who has “been there done that,” encouraging the youth to find new friends before drug addictions or crime overtakes their life and they should find themselves in prison (this is sometimes known as “Scared Straight” therapy).

“Happy” is a charming and delightful story of redemption. Unlike the Shawshank Redemption, where the innocent had no life, no friends and no place to go after his release: resulting in depression and suicide… Marcos’ life is filled with friends, family and well-wishers. Some of his experiences since his October 2nd release are, quite frankly, hilarious, partly because he is the embodiment of the Rip Van Winkle story.

Who today can say they have never seen a cell phone? Maybe an Aborigine from the desolate Northern Territory of Australia, but, who in America? Marcos “Happy” Boyce may have been one of the very few until October 2, 2015. In addition, part of the story is directly out of a Disney fairy tale, because he married his sweetheart, who had waited for him 20 years, on the very same day as his release due to the kindness and cooperation of two federal judges, one of whom released him and the other who married Marcos and Rosa in her chambers and actually provided the wedding cake and non-alcoholic bubblies for the reception, but Marcos not realizing that a Champagne-clone was available, said: “I don’t drink”.

Of course one must remember the faithful work of Marcos’ defense attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, Michael Trost, who never gave up on him, although for 20 years in appeal-after-appeal, he was denied a fair appellate hearing on evidence that would make any fair-minded appellate judge look very bad if simply presented on a whiteboard. Nor, should we neglect the prosecutor himself, Gentry Shelnutt, who saw the wisdom of petitioning the court for the release of Marcos, realizing that Happy had nothing to do with the 1994 murder.

“Why did it take 20 years to figure that out,” asked the Chief Judge of the Federal bench in Atlanta. Well, nobody’s perfect admits Marcos, who has no second thoughts and is grateful that he is “out,” now employed and trying to earn enough money so that he and his beloved sweetheart can live the American dream - they want to buy a home where they can put down roots near their family.

Clearly, the fulcrum that leveraged behind Marcos’ release was his faith, his positive attitude and his sure knowledge that God would get him “out.” He read from his Bible and Book of Mormon every day. He prayed continually and he rendered service to his fellow inmates, offering them a different perspective than their dour circumstances might otherwise suggest encouraging them to act better despite the depression that so often besets the incarcerated who are abandoned by their families, because of shame. Marcos was waiting patiently on the Lord.

Years ago, the odds that Marcos Boyce might walk free from prison were about the same as the odds of an asteroid strike opening the prison gate…”zero to nothing.” Yet, in the world of spiritual matters, faith is everything, and it is said, “nothing is impossible in the Lord.”

The gravitational waves from Marcos’ release offer a profound reason for the entire populace to demand that no innocent person be allowed to suffer imprisonment without a thorough review of their case. Just the mere mention of the words, “Actual Innocence” should be a trigger that impanels a review board which can make recommendations that appellate judges are compelled to follow. The answer is that the judiciary can no longer be trusted with such an important decision that blocks an “innocent” from a fair hearing on the evidence because they allow expediency to control their judgment. Time-after-time this author has seen those entrusted with the power to review simply rubber stamp such appeals “Denied.” Underlying the dismissive-attitude of appellate judges in America is their concern with appearances rather than answering the primeval question: “Is this man/woman truly guilty in the face of real proof to the contrary.” Marcos’ case was treated dismissively by such judges on five occasions - Hello judges, when will you wake up and let the innocent smell the roses?

If enough people chant: “Give ‘em a chance, give ‘em a hearing” loud enough and long enough, someone will listen; maybe Congress will act and who knows, maybe some of the estimated 15% of all prisoners in America who are truly innocent and wrongfully incarcerated will be liberated so that they too may once again, as Marcos, inhale the SMELL of FREEDOM.

Boyce's Attorney Wesley Hoyt

As a final note I learned of a most thought provoking experience from Mr. John Lay, former Chief Administrative Aid, to Governor Dick Lamb of Colorado. He said that many years ago he had the privilege to be incarcerated for one night in Colorado’s newest high security prison on the day before it opened. He and several other dignitaries were given the opportunity to sleep in the new facility, in their very own cell, just to prove to the high-brass that this new institution really would keep the undesirables off-the-streets (i.e., that the public’s money was well spent). John’s remark to me was that, although the surroundings were bleak, a concrete floor and walls, a metal toilet and a solid metal bed with a very thin “mattress” in an area about 6’ by 9’, yet the scariest thing was when the cell door closed, he knew deep inside his very being that this was non-negotiable; and he could not see how anyone who had this experience would not be, “Scared Straight.”

If only the appellate judges in America, who blithely dismiss the petitions of the many-many innocent, could have such an experience for just one night, maybe, just maybe, they might be a little more empathetic.

Wesley W. Hoyt, attorney, former prosecutor and friend of Marcos and Rosa Boyce, November 5, 2015.

Please check www.usobserver.com for the book's release in early 2016.

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