2. “James William Edward Caldwell”
of Sulphur Springs Texas
It would have been difficult to have been a better kid growing up in Sulphur Springs, a small East Texas town of 12,000 people when I graduated from high
.
school in the fall of 1967. My family, since 1901, had owned and operated the main funeral home and retail furniture store in Sulphur Springs. Just about
everybody in the surrounding county knew, or had heard of, my family. My great-grandfather, H.W. Tapp, had started the business in 1901. It had
prospered until it was sold a couple of years ago, much to my disappointment.
Although I had grown up in a dysfunctional family because most of the members were, at best, social alcoholics, I still lived a charmed life compared to
most kids growing up in East Texas. I don’t recall ever really wanting for anything within reason. I had just about everything a young boy growing up in a
small town could ever want. My parents belonged to the local Country Club while at the same time were regular members of the Methodist Church. They
would party and get drunk on Saturday nights, then attend church on Sunday, asking forgiveness for their “wrong-doings.”
During my senior year in High School, I had a new Pontiac GTO, my car of choice. During my freshman, sophomore, and junior years, I was nominated
Class Favorite. My senior year I was voted Class Favorite and Most Handsome. I dated all the prettiest girls and was Class Representative at all the
major functions for my class. My girlfriend, Pat McGarity, was voted Most Beautiful and Homecoming Queen. I was an All-District Football Player and ran
on the Track Team. I was also voted Vice-President of the Letterman’s Club. I did not think that life could be better or would get worse.
The only brush with law enforcement that I had was for numerous speeding tickets and, on one occasion, for fighting in public over my girlfriend. My
senior year, along with a few friends, I was scolded by the local Chief of Police for trying to cement a toilet on the front steps of the High School.
I attended church whenever the church doors were open. I was considered damn near the perfect kid until I went to college at North Texas State
University (NTSU) in Denton, Texas, beginning the fall of 1967.
3. 2 Life sentences w/ no possibility for parole He overturns his case on a
technicality that changes the picture.
INTRODUCTION
It is Thursday, the 17th day of August, 2006. I was informed yesterday that I have finally been approved
for halfway house placement in Dallas, Texas, after 17 years and 8 months of incarceration in various
Federal Prisons for a non-violent marijuana conspiracy case. I am currently housed at the Federal
Correction Institution located in Jesup, Georgia, and have been since November 11, 2005. Since I arrived
at Jesup I have been waiting for the resolution of a second Re-Sentencing Hearing and an Evidentiary
Hearing pertaining to a conflict of interest claim that I raised pursuant to a Writ of Habeas Corpus. Both
hearings were held in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, Memphis
Division, on September 29-30, 2005, before the Honorable Magistrate Judge Diana Vescovo.
In 1991, after my arrest on January 11, 1989, I was initially sentenced to two life sentences without the
possibility of parole for my involvement in a 4,457 pound marijuana conspiracy, then subsequently re-
sentenced to 360 months some five-plus years later. A few months ago, I was once again re-sentenced
In-Absentia, hopefully for the last time, to 240 months. Since I have served nearly 18 years in prison, I am
to report to the halfway house on August 31, 2006, within two hours after arrival at the Dallas/Ft. Worth
Airport. It has been a long legal battle and sometimes lonely ride through the Federal Prison System
contending with the Federal and State courts, prison guards, staff, and inmates; all with various
dispositions ranging from what is considered the norm to the dysfunctional. If nothing else, my travel
through the prison system has been a rather interesting study of the psychology of the members of the
penal system.
4. On December 1, 2005, I started, once again, writing what initially was meant to be a long letter to my children, a memoir of sorts. My intention was to try and explain
how and why their father has spent nearly 20 years in Federal Prison and, subsequently, they have grown up basically with one parent.
As I began my incarceration, my eldest son, Cris, was 18 years old. Loren, my second son, was only 11, and his sister, Ivy, my first daughter, was just 9. Chelsea, my
youngest daughter, was born three months after my arrest and I have only met with her in the visitation room of several Federal Prisons during the last 17 years. I felt
compelled, for one reason or another, to explain, the best that I could, my story starting as a clean-cut young man from a small town in East Texas on the way to college
and how that trip transformed a typical college kid to a highly sought-after Federal Fugitive living in a foreign country operating a major marijuana smuggling operation.
The more I wrote about my travails in the marijuana smuggling business and life in prison, the more that it seemed that perhaps someone other than my children and
immediate family might find my story interesting, enlightening, and, perhaps, entertaining. With that thought in mind, I would sometimes struggle with wanting to remain
100% factually accurate and also appealing to the general reader while keeping the memoir primarily written to my children. At the risk of being boring to the general
reader, I opted to remain faithful to my initial objective; a long letter to my children.
As I have finished the first rough draft of the story line, before writing this introduction, I hope, if nothing else, that after reading my memoir, my children will conclude that
perhaps their father, whom they have really only known through countless telephone conversations and a few visits in the visitation rooms of Federal Prisons, is not that
bad of a guy. This would be an assessment contrary to that characterized by the government. I would hope that my children would conclude that I was just a young
college kid growing up during the turbulent years of the 60’s and 70’s who did, indeed, make some wrong decisions but also made some good ones, as well.
My initial draft of the story line used the correct names of the cast of characters that have played important parts in the story of my life. However, after some rethinking, I
have since decided to change some of the names just in case I could bring unwanted attention to their current or past involvement in the marijuana business. Besides
the changing of some of some of the names of the characters, the facts are 100% correct to the best of my recollection. Since I finally sat down behind a rather
obsolete typewriter some six months ago, I have finished the first rough draft of a story line that encompassed nearly 40 years of my life. I am certain that it will be
several months before a final draft is finished and a book self-published. Regardless, I am determined to accomplish just that as I was determined to smuggle my first
load of Acapulco Gold across the Rio Grande River.
A few inmates currently incarcerated in Jesup FCI have read the first draft and all have found it quite interesting and I can only hope that future readers will also find the
finished product the same.
It is not my intention to glamorize my smuggling of an illegal substance; marijuana. But instead, my intention is to tell my children and any other interested reader, a
story of how a typical college kid made some wrong decisions that cost him 20 years of his adult life. And also, to make a statement that the so called “war on drugs”
just is not working in society’s best interest.
