Frank De Palma cried when he saw his face in the mirror for the first time after spending 22 years and 36 days in solitary confinement in the Ely State Prison.
He was 58 years old. The last time he had seen his own face, he was 35.
After being incarcerated for 43 years total, De Palma was released in 2018. Now a free man, he is devoted to telling his story—speaking out against the horror of solitary confinement and advocating for reform of the prison system.
“Parts of me are missing that might never come back,” De Palma said. “The deprivation of that cell, the ugly torture of that aloneness, has killed parts of me. My soul is like Swiss cheese.”
It was 1974 when De Palma, then 18 years old, made a rash decision. The “neighborhood jerk” who was always racing his pickup down the street had run over and killed De Palma’s beloved dog, Bud. De Palma, crazed with anger, ran to the guy’s house. He pounded on the door, but no one answered. De Palma then noticed the truck that had just ran over his best friend was in the driveway, and the keys were still in the ignition. De Palma jumped in and started the car; he drove around the block, and when he came back around, he crashed the truck into the house. When he came to, he was surrounded by cops.
Although no one was killed or injured in the incident, De Palma received a sentence of 10 years at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, with eligibility for parole after two years with good behavior. Hopeful to serve his two years and go home, he tried to keep to himself. But in the prison environment, he said, that wasn’t an option.
In 1982, a member of the Black Mafia Family gang attacked De Palma from behind, narrowly missing his neck but slashing him in the shoulder. The two fought until De Palma stabbed his attacker four times—fatally—in self-defense. His last words were, “They told me to get you.” Roderick Abeyta, who had been with De Palma when the incident happened and tossed him the shank to defend himself, lied during the trial, saying the killing was not spontaneous, and De Palma had forced him to sharpen the knife and hand it over. (De Palma speculated that since Abeyta was slated to spend the rest of his life in prison, the trial was his lottery ticket out.) A porter, Chris Jones, who’d witnessed everything from the opposite tier, corroborated De Palma’s story—but a jury still found De Palma guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to five years to life with the possibility of parole.
He was moved to the Ely State Prison in 1989. He was put in solitary confinement in 1992.
“My decisions kept me alive, but at what cost?” De Palma wrote in his book, Never to Surrender! 22 Years in Solitary: The Battle for My Soul in a U.S. Prison, released in April. “When I first entered prison, I vowed I’d never become one of those black-hearted monsters who walked the yard. Yet in the end, I became one of the worst of them. I tried to understand how it could be a teen who’d made a rash decision when his dog was run over could have spent most of his life in prison as a result. I would never understand it.”
‘Thankful to be alive’
De Palma was born in 1956 in Brooklyn, N.Y., not far from the boardwalk of Coney Island, but “worlds away from the Nevada State Prison and all its misery.” He lived with his parents and older sister, Marie. He was very close to his mother, Mary; he said she was his refuge—safe and affectionate. He both loved and hated his father, whom he described as a dominating force who exerted his will through violence.
When De Palma was 9, his parents divorced. After his father remarried, he moved Frank, then 14, and his sister, to Las Vegas. Soon after arriving, De Palma got his dog, Bud, a golden Labrador puppy who followed him everywhere. He said Bud even saved him from a mountain lion once.
Today, De Palma lives in an apartment in Reno with his cat, Fatty. He likes to sit in the sun on the Adirondack chairs near the pool in the courtyard. On the June day when De Palma talked with the RN&R, Amanda, the manager, stopped by to say hello; he told her he would get her a copy of his book and sign it when he gets more. Later, a neighbor named Che stopped by to chat.
“In the end, my worst day out (of prison), which was when I was homeless, was better than my best day in there, so I’m always in the plus column,” De Palma said. “I’m sitting out here because I can. I don’t have to ask permission, and so, I’m blessed. I’ve learned what so many of us need to learn: No matter what, just be thankful to be alive.”
Free at last
When De Palma entered the Nevada State Prison in Carson City in the mid-1970s, there were no programs or activities that offered any sort of structure or rehabilitation. In his book, De Palma describes it as a violent environment. The air was charged with tension—at any moment, a fight could break out.
“The years of being immersed in violence, of expecting to die every single day, (do) something to a person,” De Palma wrote. “It was as though I existed in a dark, hate-infused dome with nothing good, warm or loving to ever balance it out. … That place begins to erode away at your humanity. Like waves hitting the sand, it just keeps eroding away.”
A few years after De Palma was moved to the Ely State Prison, a watch commander asked to speak with De Palma. He told him that the Nevada prison system had a new guy “upstairs,” and he was making some changes. “They’ve got a lot of young gangbangers coming into Ely,” he said, “and he’s worried about violence here. So, his plan is to lock down the old-timers like you—guys with violent histories—to prevent problems, as a precaution.”
De Palma wrote: “On Feb. 3, 1992, 13 of us ‘old-timers’—most in our 30s—were moved into solitary confinement cells to face a brutal existence: 23-hour-a day containment in a concrete box, one hour out for rec a few times a week, twice-a-week showers, and a food tray passed through a flap in the door. But the most disturbing was the vagueness of how long it would last.”
Decades later, there was a bright spot of compassion—Lisa Walsh, former associate warden of the Ely State Prison, played a large part in De Palma’s rehabilitation. Along with a team of psychologists, Walsh helped him get used to being around people again. He was their test case: the first person who had been in solitary for decades with an impending release date. Was it possible for him to be placed back into the fold of society?
For the two years prior to his release, De Palma was transferred to Warm Springs Correctional Center, a medium-security prison in Carson City. It was a big adjustment for him to have relative freedom. That facility offered programs and activities such as gardening, in which De Palma found great joy and meaning.
He slowly got used to the overwhelming stimuli of his new environment. Walsh enrolled De Palma in school, and he earned his GED and high school diploma. De Palma also won a writing contest.
On Dec. 21, 2018, De Palma, at age 62, walked out of prison a free man—into a world he hardly recognized.
De Palma wrote, “I couldn’t help but notice how majestic the sunrise looked, in much the same way it looked some 43 years earlier when a scared, freckle-faced kid had been driven to the Nevada State Prison. I’d come into prison a young man, my life ahead of me; now I was leaving an old man, my life behind me.”
He faced homelessness and dire poverty. The only people he knew were other former inmates. Though De Palma was legally not supposed to “associate” with them, they ended up being the people who helped him get on his feet.
“It was ex-cons who got me off the street,” he said. “Got me places to stay. Fed me. Gave me money. Rented me places. All ex-cons.”
An effort to change the law
Nick Shepack is the Nevada state deputy director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center. Back in 2018, he was working with the ACLU of Nevada and state Sen. Pat Spearman on a bill that would limit the use of solitary confinement in Nevada. To identify solitary survivors to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of the bill, Shepack contacted Elaine Voigt, who runs My Journey Home, a re-entry program for formerly incarcerated people. Voigt told Shepack she had the perfect person for him. Voigt helped Shepack set up a meeting with De Palma at Beto’s Mexican Food.
Shepack developed a friendship with De Palma and helped him get stable housing, access the few government benefits that were available to him, and adjust to life outside. De Palma had never even grocery-shopped for himself, having lived with his parents prior to entering prison.
“Imagine entering a grocery store at 60 years old and trying to budget and do all those things there was no training for,” Shepack said. “Especially the most affordable ones like Walmart or WinCo; those are hard to navigate. I helped him a lot with things like that.”
At one point, when De Palma was between stable housing situations, he endured multiple falls, Shepack said. His spinal cord was rubbing against the bone, and he was losing the ability to walk. He started using a wheelchair and needed major neck surgery. During that time, Shepack was his transportation.
“I met this guy for a burrito in 2018, not having any idea what it would turn into,” Shepack said. “It’s been one of the most rewarding relationships in my life. Frank has taught me a lot. It’s an amazing transformation. It really shows you how he was turned into a self-admittedly violent and dangerous person for much of his life, but it was completely situational. Now that he’s been put back into a safe environment, he’s starting to thrive again.”
In March 2021, the ACLU of Nevada was ready to push the solitary-confinement reform bill on which Shepack had been working. Shepack asked De Palma to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Moving testimony
Shepack also asked Mary Buser to testify. She is a criminal-justice reform advocate who has worked as a clinical social worker on Rikers Island. She’s also the author of the 2015 book Lockdown on Rikers: Shocking Stories of Abuse and Injustice at New York’s Notorious Jail.
Buser said that when she received the email from Shepack asking her to testify, she thought that the request was a bit odd, since she was in New York and knew nothing about Nevada.
“I decided, ‘Sure, why not?’” Buser said. “Solitary confinement is the same wherever you go in the country. So I was ready.”
The testimony took place via Zoom. When Buser entered the Zoom waiting room, she learned there was one other person testifying—De Palma.
“He introduced himself and was very friendly,” she said. “So it was just the two of us, and Frank went first. When he spoke, I was just flabbergasted, because Rikers Island is a jail where people come and go, so people are in solitary for a few months, maybe a year at most. But here I am on a call with this man talking about 22-plus years with nothing, no TV, no magazines. So I was just like, ‘What am I doing here?’ I was this pipsqueak with my observations. I wanted to slink out of there. There was this moment when everyone needed time to kind of recover. The chairwoman (Sen. Melanie Scheible) said, ‘We will never forget this.’”
Buser was so moved by De Palma’s testimony that she asked Shepack if he could put her in touch. When she learned De Palma had been in prison for 43 years as a result of something “stupid and impulsive” he did when he was 18, she wondered how this could happen in this country. She quickly learned that De Palma’s case isn’t uncommon.
According to Shepack, prisons do not keep thorough data on solitary confinement, especially on long-term cases, and they are not required to track data on the use or duration of solitary confinement. A May 2023 study by the watchdog group Solitary Watch reported that 122,840 inmates in the U.S. were in solitary confinement at that time, amounting to approximately 6% of all inmates. The study reports that the state with the highest percentage of inmates in solitary was Nevada, with almost 26%.
De Palma said that many inmates over the decades have told him they have been in similar situations—locked away after making a stupid mistake.
“People are buried without a paper trail every day,” Shepack said.
Buser also spoke with Dr. Terry Kupers, a leading authority on solitary confinement, who noted the pattern throughout his years of interviewing prisoners for his research. “I found out there are tons of kids who go in for the same thing—nickel-and-dime charges—and pay with their lives,” Buser said. “I went to Nick (Shepack) and said, ‘Crazy idea, I know, but I think there’s a book here about Frank’s life.’”
Shepack didn’t think it wasn’t crazy at all. In fact, De Palma had already done a lot of writing about his life while he was in prison. At a point when De Palma’s housing situation was unstable, he gave the stacks of his writing on clipped-together lined paper to Shepack for safekeeping. Shepack passed De Palma’s writing on to Buser, who read through it all and then began to edit and compile it into a book. Buser and De Palma worked together on writing the book, and in the process became very good friends.
“We’ve talked on the phone every day for over three years,” Buser said.
The bill stalled in 2021, despite De Palma’s testimony. “The director of prisons at the time (Charles Daniels) was very much against any sort of reform,” Shepack said.
After Daniels was forced to resign in 2022, James Dzurenda—a reform supporter who had been the director from 2016-2019—returned to the post in 2023, Spearman re-introduced the legislation again. Senate Bill 307, which limits the use of solitary confinement in Nevada to 15 days in most cases, was signed into law by Gov. Joseph Lombardo on June 15, 2023. It went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
A purpose born out of experience
De Palma is now committed to being a voice for all those in prison who are forgotten by society, especially those across the country who are still kept in solitary confinement.
“My life’s experiences, however unjust, led me to my purpose,” De Palma said.
De Palma’s ultimate goal is to abolish the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. He shares his story with each person he meets.
“He’s extremely impactful when he talks to people,” Shepack said. “It was a little bit of luck, because if I hadn’t found him—if the ACLU hadn’t been looking for people to testify—he wouldn’t have gotten plugged in with anyone who could help him on his mission. He met me and Holly (Welborn); she was the policy director at the ACLU at the time, and then we introduced him to Mary, and his world grew and grew. He started to get all these opportunities. A lot of things fell into place, and we made major reform in Nevada, in no small part due to his testimony.”
De Palma recently visited the University of Delaware and gave a talk. Afterward, he received a letter from one of the students in attendance, which he retrieved from his apartment and read aloud.
Dear Frank,
Hello. My name is Danielle Linekin. I am 21 years old from Long Island, New York. This upcoming Aug.14, I will turn 22 years old. Meaning that my time on Earth is shorter than the time you spent in solitary confinement. Wow. Frank, I cannot express enough how grateful I am to hear your story and in your own words. Thank you for coming to our class and talking about your experiences, even though it is painful. It is difficult to imagine what you went through and how you are still so full of love, hope, kindness and humor. Your words are forever stuck with me in my mind and heart. After I graduate, I plan on dedicating my life and career to reform, rehabilitation and abolishing solitary confinement.
Thank you for being brave and strong while reliving the horrible things that happened to you. I want you to know that you’re not alone. We are here to cheer you on. Your words are beyond powerful and encourage us to make change in the prison system. This has to end. No one should be treated as you were. Thank you for laughing and crying with us, giving us inspiration, and showing us the fierceness of the human spirit. I think you are the strongest person I have ever (known) and will ever know. I am proud of you. You are a worthy man. I look forward to reading your book. And I hope whenever you read this, you are having a wonderful day.
I wish you peace and love and of course a very happy birthday.
Sincerely,
Danielle Linekin
De Palma hopes to do more talks at universities and other places. Buser said there’s a Reno event in the works for early August, with the exact date and venue to be determined, during which De Palma plans to speak and sign books.
Now, De Palma has a community of people around him who care, like Shepack, Buser and many others.
“People like me; they all say nice things about me,” De Palma said. “I’m just being me. I don’t know what people like about me, but I’m glad there’s something. I’ve experienced the depths of hell and despair on earth. And so, I’ve earned the right to aspire to the complete opposite: love, pure joy, happiness, contentment, beauty and peace.”
wonderful story. Thank you!
Hard to believe that during all these years some court has not ruled that years in solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution.