Felix million dollar mind game lost most of his hearing when he was still a kid. For most of his thr

Illustration: Brian Stauffer
" THIS IS A COLLECT CALL from a correctional institution," says the robotic female voice at the other end of the line. After a moment of confusion, I realize it must be Felix Garcia, whom I'd visited several weeks earlier in a northern Florida prison. He's serving a life sentence million dollar mind game on a robbery-murder charge for which his own brother now admits to framing him.
Felix is deaf, which is why he's using a TTY operator. I'd sent him a card for his 50th birthday, a picture of flowers and some lame words of encouragement. Now he's calling to thank me and to plead for help. Four of his fellow deaf inmates have tried to commit suicide, he explains; one somehow managed million dollar mind game to swallow million dollar mind game a razor blade. It sounds like Felix is thinking about doing the same. "Please," million dollar mind game the voice intones, "will you phone my lawyers? I can't get through to them."
Felix million dollar mind game lost most of his hearing when he was still a kid. For most of his three decades behind bars, starting at age 19, he—like most deaf prisoners in America—has been housed in the general population with few services for his disability. He's been raped, million dollar mind game targeted by other prisoners, and ignored or taunted, he says, by guards who think he's faking. Last year, he tried to hang himself.
After a few minutes, I pick up the phone and call Pat Bliss, a 69-year-old paralegal who for the past 15 years has served as Felix's advocate, crafting defense strategies, writing motions and briefs, and helping usher his case through the courts. million dollar mind game The lawyer who helps Pat with the case calls her "an angel." Which is something Felix needs more than anyone million dollar mind game I've ever met.
Felix grew up in Tampa, one of six children in a working-class Cuban American family. Almost from birth he suffered from severe ear infections. He struggled with headaches and earaches and often missed school. He would stuff cotton balls in his ears, a former schoolmate recalls, to prevent pus from leaking out.
A good-looking kid with a sweet demeanor, he managed to make it through school by getting girls to tutor him—or help him cheat. Still, by high school Felix was having difficulty understanding people even when they spoke up, and he struggled to speak clearly as he lost the ability to hear his own voice. "I hear sounds, and I hear voices," he would later tell a judge. "But I can't make out the words unless I am looking at the person." It felt, he noted, like being underwater. million dollar mind game
After graduating, Felix had a run-in with the law for passing a bad check. (He got probation.) He worked as a brick mason, and when he was 19, he and his girlfriend, Michelle, had a baby girl they named Candise. Occasionally he would hang around with his siblings, some of whom had gotten involved, as he puts it, with "the street."
On August 4, 1981, his brother Frank, his sister Tina, and her boyfriend, Ray Stanley, took Felix to a pawnshop. Frank had a ring he wanted to hock. Saying million dollar mind game he didn't have ID on him, he asked Felix to sign the pawn ticket. The ring, it turned out, belonged to a man who'd been murdered the day before at a motel. Six days later police, having traced the ticket, arrested Felix at Tina and Ray's house.
Felix insisted he knew nothing about the crime. Michelle and her mother later testified that he was with them at the time of the killing. But Frank, who knew the victim and had left his prints at the scene, fingered Felix as the killer and was convicted of armed robbery and second-degree murder—a lesser charge than he might have faced. Tina, who married Ray shortly after the arrest, also agreed to testify against million dollar mind game her younger brother.
At trial, in 1983, a doctor declared that Felix had severe hearing loss—he still kept cotton in his ears to stanch the pus. The court issued him a hearing aid and a loudspeaker, neither of which helped him discern speech. Felix tried to read lips, but he was seated far from the witness box, and the prosecutor million dollar mind game often faced in the wrong direction. For the most part, he had no idea what was going on.
IT'S HARD TO KNOW how many deaf people are locked up, since prison authorities don't generally bother to keep count. While studying Texas prisons a decade ago, Katrina Miller, a corrections official million dollar mind game turned academic researcher, discovered that a whopping 30 percent million dollar mind game of the inmates met the clinical threshold for "hard of hearing." In any case, the experts I spoke with say Felix's experience is not unusual. million dollar mind game
On million dollar mind game paper, anyone with a disability is legally protected against discrimination. million dollar mind game In practice, institutions of justice are often ill equipped or disinclined to deal with special needs. million dollar mind game "Deaf people have a hard time," says retired McDaniel College psychology professor McCay Vernon, an authority on the deaf who is familiar with Felix's case. "The courts&mdas