From the June 2007 Idaho Observer:

An innocent man and a guilty nation

We have been corresponding with Steve Boggs for a couple of years now. Steve was sentenced to death for killing three Hispanics at a Burger King in Phoenix five years ago even though he has an alibi and no actual evidence of his guilt exists. Steve was, however, the leader of a small group of Phoenix area patriots. In a recent letter, I asked Steve a few questions about his daily routine. His answer hit me right between the eyes. Hours later, it was all I could think about. The letter, slightly edited, is below. (DWH)

As you know, I am on death row. What this means is I am locked down until I am set free, my sentence changes or the state kills me. While this is just life, at least where my life is concerned, one cannot conceive how narrow the confines of a death row cage can be until the infinite possibilities of his pre-confinement existence are reduced to freedom, life in prison or death by lethal injection.

As it stands right now, the latter possibility is the most likely outcome of my present circumstances.

Like all real patriots, I have strived to protect the rights of others; to live free and be free. Throughout my life and still to this day I respect the rights and the dignity of all men and women. But today I am not seen as a man worthy of respect; I am now an animal in a cage with a number. Like in the days of concentration camps, I am awaiting the time when I will be led to the proverbial "shower."

Though I have been locked up only for five years (by a system that claims to protect the innocent), I have been beaten into submission and stripped of all rights and dignity.

Prison life for the truly guilty is just another day to con somebody, though I am sure there are those who are guilty that seek the right path. But for those of us who are truly innocent, we live in a con man’s world and we live in fear—fear of the walls, fear of the state and fear of those who actually belong in these cages.

This fear is my mind’s reaction to the desperation I feel in my soul, which longs to be free—free to feel, free to love; free to feel the wind in my face and be warmed by the sun. Instead, I have metal bars, thick glass and concrete.

My heart is sad. In my former life I was useful and helpful and now I am useless and helpless. Before being wrongfully convicted, I was an honest and decent person and now it matters not what I truly am. To my captors and the outside world, I am a liar, a thief, a criminal; a murderer who deserves to die. By throwing my innocent man’s body into a cage and leaving it with only three ways out, the state is hoping to also claim conquest of my soul. It grinds on the heart of a true patriot to be reduced to such a state. One day in here as an innocent man is truly hell on earth.

I will never stop being a soldier for truth and justice, nor will the patriot’s fire of freedom that burns deep in my soul ever dwindle. Yet I fear that fire among Americans as citizens of a free nation has dwindled to the point of almost being extinguished. I fear America will not recover her lost soul; she is sinking just like my life is sinking.

It pains me to see so many brothers and sisters dying in vain. I feel that our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves and that the great American experiment in government of, by and for the people will inevitably fail—soon—because so many of our countrymen are oblivious to what is happening to us, that the few who are giving their all, aren’t enough to turn our country around.

Those few who stand as true patriots should band together, defend their land and protect their way of life. Let those who seek to destroy us come and be smitten by the one true power the Almighty gave us: Freedom.

Though my time may indeed be short (or not), I will stand for freedom to the very end. I will always be duty bound and I will always stand for America. Freedom cannot be outdone or overcome. Freedom is in the hearts of men; as long as men’s hearts beat freely, they will always be free. Likewise, though I may be locked up, my heart beats freely and I am free at heart, free in my mind and my soul is free. That is something that can never be taken from me. Even as my body is beaten and my bones broken, I am still—and forever will be—free.

Note: On August 4, 2005, the state of Alabama lethally injected George Everett Sibley for being an accomplice to the 1993 murder of an Opalika cop. Sibley was also an extremely intelligent, decent and committed patriot. We had been corresponding for a couple of years before I found out he was on death row and, by then, it was too late. George’s last letter to me, which came the day after he was killed, is in a place where I see it every day—not as a morbid reminder of a good man’s tragic end, but to honor and keep alive the memory of a patriot brother who lost his life in the undeclared war on the American people.