Ex-Bloods gang leader Brandon Washington has nothing to lose: he’s serving four life terms in prison in Okaloosa. So he keeps trying to get a break on his sentence. And he keeps losing. His latest loss was earlier this month as a judge rejected his claim that he was unjustly denied an appeal because mail wasn’t delivered to him.
Washington has dealt with every felony judge in Flagler County but one since his 2008 and 2011 arrests and eventual conviction on charges of murder, conspiracy, burglary and attempted armed home invasion: Kim Hammond, Raul Zambrano, J. David Walsh, Dennis Craig and Terence Perkins. Earlier this month, it was Judge Dawn Nichols’s turn.
In 2017 Washington filed a motion for “post-conviction relief” (an attempt to lessen his sentence or have it thrown out) that the trial court denied. The Fifth District Court of Appeal upheld most of the trial court’s ruling but ordered an evidentiary hearing on one ground. After Washington went through several attorneys, the hearing was held last November before Perkins.
Washington, 37, is unusually intelligent. He’s also cynically wily and deceptive. He dueled with Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis, intentionally sending Lewis down rhetorical rabbit holes, all the while likely knowing that he had no case. Perkins ruled against him.
Washington appealed. But he did so almost six months after Perkins’s ruling–too late for a legal appeal. He claimed his mail was never delivered to him, so he should be allowed to file a belated appeal.
Earlier this month Washington appeared before Nichols to argue his case, again representing himself (Perkins had denied him a motion to have an attorney appointed for him). Washington again dueled with Lewis. For a witness, Lewis had the Okaloosa prison employee who handles the mail, and who explained to the court all the procedures the mail goes through before it is issued to an inmate. If an inmate doesn’t claim the mail, it is returned. Washington never claimed his mail, the employee said.
Washington disagreed, blaming the prison for not delivering the mail in the first place. But Lewis had printouts showing when and to whom the mail had been issued, and who did not claim it. “Callouts were made on December 1, 2023, December 4, 2023, December 5, 2023, December 6, 2023, and December 7, 2023, to inform Defendant that he had legal mail,” Nichols found. Washington “did not show up to collect his legal mail on the aforementioned days that the callouts were made; and [] after 5 days of callouts the prison sends the legal mail back to the clerk of court.”
The judge ruled against Washington’s claim.
The order, however, was sent to the Flagler County jail. Naturally, it was sent back to the clerk of court with a stamp: “Return to sender / No longer at this address.” Washington had been transported back to his Okaloosa prison, and could now legitimately claim that the system was misdirecting his mail.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Too all you folks that claims there’s no gangs in P/C!!!! Wake up & smell the roses!
Roots says
Yeah, they’re called MAGA. LOL!
Land of no turn signals says says
Always have to have a snowflake make a dumb ass statement when it has nothing to do with the article.
Ready for Trumpflation says
Ask a republican how they avoid prison for their crimes. Maybe he should run for office just make sure you have an R by your name and you’ll fit right in. Or just sabatoge the judicial, tamper witnesses, lie it doesn’t really matter. our chief convict has 30 plus felonies and sex assault and millions in fraud but never even spent the night in the jail. shows that the justice system is a joke used to discriminate against the less wealthy.