The Bobcat Nation

Joseph R. Holland, 23, who escaped in February from prison in Schuylkill County, Pa. (near Allentown), but who was captured the following day, wrote to a judge in March disputing the escape charge against him: (1) The warden never told him he couldn't escape, he said (in his syntax-challenged petition). "(I) was never provided with any orientation, a handbook or ever signed any contract ... I was never informed to follow any rules, cause I knew no rules!" (2) "I wasn't gone over 24 hours, and all my personal belongings were ever here. I had every intention of coming back, who's to say any different?" (3) And besides, he said, the guards actually opened the gate for him (even though it was really for another inmate coming in, with Holland managing to sneak out at the same time). [Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.), 3-19-05]