Blood on My Hands
My Codefendant’s Actions Branded Me Violent
October 10, 2025
This is the latest installment of our regular series featuring incarcerated writers and artists. Thanks as always go to Empowerment Avenue, who continue to make this project possible.
I woke to Jason yelling, and I sleepily ushered him down the hall to my bedroom. It was late—I don’t know what time—and everyone else in the house was asleep.
He continued yelling. Occasionally I tried to shush him, afraid he’d wake his two young nephews, but his rant inevitably crescendoed within a few minutes. The rest of the house stayed quiet, though.
Yawning, I eventually cut in, “So what are you gonna do?”
Jason paused in his pacing, looking at me for the first time. “I don’t know, but I can’t stick around and go back to prison.”
“So let’s go.” I tried to think through the fog of Percocet and Valium still clouding my mind. “I have friends all over the country. We don’t have to stay here.” It was a given that I’d go with him. Despite our complicated history and recent distance, I’d promised his mom that I’d take care of him, and I intended to honor that promise… wherever it led. Besides, Southwest Virginia had always felt stifling to me; I’d only been home five months, and I was ready to leave it behind yet again. “What do you want to do? Hitch-hike? I can’t afford a bus ticket?”
He folded his long limbs and sank onto the bed beside me. Rubbing a hand over his face, he said, “No… We’ll get a car from the lot… ” He lit a cigarette. “I’ve gone with Miguel a few times. I know where they keep the keys.”1I am using a pseudonym in this case to protect the innocent.
I nodded and plucked the cigarette from his hand to take a drag. Miguel was his brother-in-law, who worked at a small used car dealership down the road. Jason and I had both helped out around the lot in the past: I’d driven back repossessed vehicles, and Jason did whatever was needed. “Ok, let’s go.” (In retrospect, I’m amazed by the degree of delinquency in my lifestyle evinced by my willingness to steal a car. It honestly seemed like a perfectly logical solution to the situation.)
We trudged through the few inches of snow, neither of us wearing more than jeans and lightweight leather jackets. I chose a van that I’d recently driven, and Jason went inside to retrieve the keys. Within minutes we were gassed up and speeding south on Interstate 81. I soon fell asleep in the passenger seat, lulled by the whisper of tires on asphalt.
When I awoke, a man was dead, and three others were gravely injured.
And we were on the run for murder.
Six days later, Jason and I were apprehended in San Antonio, Texas. By then, the numbness of my initial shock had worn off to be replaced with dread, horror, panic, despair. When we were arrested, I was torn between relief at being saved from Jason, who had become increasingly more aggressive and threatening, and fear of the fate awaiting me.
I knew I was going to prison. But what I didn’t know was that for the rest of my life, I would be branded a violent felon.
We were driven by different motivations: he fleeing justice, and I pursuing freedom. But the events that later transpired painted us both the same violent shade of guilty—a stain for which I can neither atone nor from which I can hide. I will forever be labeled a violent felon.
Eleven months later, I was convicted of Aiding and Abetting Capital Murder, three counts of Aiding and Abetting, Malicious Wounding, Grand Larceny, and Concealing/Destroying Evidence. I was sentenced to seventy-seven years with fifty-seven suspended. (Ironically, all the time for stealing the car was suspended.)
Little did I know how deeply I would be branded by Jason’s violence. The transfer of blood onto my hands when I’d thrown the knife he had wielded out the window seems indelible, a psychic tattoo visible only to me—and to the state of Virginia.
A person convicted of Aiding and Abetting a violent crime, despite all evidence that they did not personally perform any act of violence, is classified a “violent felon” by dint of their codefendant’s actions. Not only is this person’s guilt predicated on their mere proximity to a violent act, but they are categorized by it and punished as if their hands committed the violent deed that—by the very definition of Aiding and Abetting—another obviously committed.
That person suffers the same legal discrimination leveled at those who have been convicted of actual violence. This discrimination takes many forms: violent offenders are excluded from enhanced earning credits for good time, denied entry into many transitional and reentry programs upon release, and burdened with barrier crimes barring them from employment in many types of jobs for which that person would otherwise be ideally suited.
My aiding and abetting convictions label me a violent felon despite the fact that there was never any question that I hadn’t physically harmed anyone. The victims identified my codefendant immediately as the sole perpetrator of the attack. I never entered the residence or committed any act—violent or otherwise.
I’ve never liked to fight, possibly a consequence of growing up in an abusive home. I know what it’s like to be hurt—to feel powerless and unsafe inside my own skin—and I don’t want to do that to anyone else. Even as a child, when my sisters and I competed in karate tournaments, I hated sparring; I preferred the katas, the choreographed sequences of moves that highlight form.
Now, as a Buddhist, I strive not to harm other sentient beings. I don’t even kill bugs. Sometimes people in prison marvel that in the nearly seventeen years I’ve been incarcerated, I’ve never been in a fight. Some seem to find violence a way of life—or at least survival, but for me, embracing the Buddhist tenet of nonviolence was easy (at least physically; I’m still working on non-harming with my words when I feel hurt or threatened).
Yet the Department of Corrections and the state of Virginia consider me violent.
I will be 40-years-old when I’m released in January, 2026. Throughout my nearly 20-year imprisonment, I have done extensive recovery and self-development work, most notably earning a certification as a Peer Recovery Specialist last year. However, when I reenter society, my convictions will limit my employment options. I cannot work for a Community Services Board, health department, hospital, or other medical or mental health provider or treatment facility that accepts Medicaid or Medicare—because I happened to be in a car with someone who committed a violent crime.
I had no thought about my future job prospects that cold December night long ago when Jason and I trekked through snow to steal a car. We were driven by different motivations: he fleeing justice, and I pursuing freedom. But the events that later transpired painted us both the same violent shade of guilty—a stain for which I can neither atone nor from which I can hide. I will forever be labeled a violent felon.
In a society that prizes individualism above nearly all else, it is a travesty that one person be judged by another’s actions in such a way. I am not negating my responsibility for stealing a car—or for not alerting authorities once I learned of the crimes that Jason committed, nor am I disputing my convictions or the sentence I’m serving. I am merely highlighting the flawed logic—and grave injustice—that brands me violent for the passive act of sitting in a car.