I got to know James “Buck” Martin some years ago while working at Green Meadow Correctional Facility’s law library, where we both clerked. No one introduced us; our inevitable meeting was the result of limited library space at the former maximum security prison in New York, which pushed even the most reserved people toward each other. 

In prison, you sometimes cross paths with people you regret meeting — bitter guards who espouse anti-prisoner sentiments, prisoners who are miserable and mad at the world. 

But wonderful humans come into your life, too. Buck was one of them, a humble and godly man. Buck’s bright smile was like a beam of light through a slip in a curtain. Through the gap in his pearly-white front teeth, he spoke of peace and love. 

Buck died unexpectedly in April 2025 at age 64. He had served over 30 years in prison when I first met him. Before he passed, he told me that he had multiple prison sentences running consecutively, amounting to a natural life sentence. 

But he was confident he would end up going home. He was certain the courts had erred and miscalculated the length of his sentence. The strength of his conviction made his fast and untimely death all the more cruel. 

No one knows for sure what killed Buck. Weeks before he died, people who knew him said he was suffering from severe abdominal pain. It’s possible that something terrible killed him fast, that medical staff did everything they could to save him. But no one I’ve spoken to believes that, and it’s hard to blame them.

In my 26 years of incarceration, I have seen half measures taken by medical care again and again. When a prisoner reports to medical staff that they’re experiencing debilitating pain in their chest, head or stomach, the remedy is frequently an aspirin, ibuprofen or an antibiotic. 

In my experience in prison, these kinds of benign medical treatments discourage people from even seeking care. Some believe it’s pointless and instead try to heal themselves with often insufficient home remedies, such as water, tea, cinnamon and honey. 

In an emailed statement, New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision spokesman Thomas Mailey said the agency could not comment on Buck’s medical condition or treatment due to medical privacy laws. 

“DOCCS takes the health and well-being of incarcerated individuals under its care seriously,” Mailey said.

Buck sought treatment multiple times, but only received his most thorough attention toward the end of his life, people who knew him said. He was taken to an outside hospital on April 12, according to Mailey, and died there a week later.

The Buck I knew

During his incarceration, Buck was selfless and cared deeply about other people. When I spent time with Buck in the law library or on the yard, his Christian brothers would visit him to seek his knowledge on Scripture. Even when he was busy, he would gladly put aside what he was doing to help out. 

One time, two young men were making fun of a transgender woman inside the law library, and Buck intervened to stop the harassment. He firmly but respectfully explained to the men that they were degrading another human, just like them. Whether it was Buck’s good reputation or because he was an elder, the young men stopped their badgering and apologized to the woman. 

In general, it’s never a good idea to meddle in someone else’s affairs in prison. But that was Buck, a true defender of what was right, even under threat of trouble.

Buck and I were in different prisons after that. Then, last year, as I walked down Green Haven’s A Block corridor on my way to my night job in the prison’s kitchen, I heard someone yell: “Jesus!” 

I knew immediately who it was. I recognized the voice, and no other person in my over two decades behind bars ever called me by my given name. Here, I am known by Gio, a name that followed me from the streets. I am not sure when Buck learned my first name, but in my memory it seemed like he always called me Jesus. 

When I saw Buck again that day in 2025, I couldn’t believe it. It had been several years since I last saw him. I thought for sure he would have gained his freedom already.

Buck told me how excited he was to have been transferred to Green Haven from Clinton Correctional Facility — it was the closest he’d been to his home of Brooklyn in decades. He told me he had written to the commissioner of New York’s prison system about being far away from his loved ones for so long. He said he was transferred to Green Haven soon after that. 

Having Buck around again was a blessing. In the past, I had always turned to him for advice on family troubles and negative encounters with guards or prisoners. He swore by his philosophy of having a short memory in prison. Ruminating on a problem only made it worse. 

From our conversation that day, it seemed he was his same old self, walking with the Lord, exercising daily and maintaining a diet of mainly fish and vegetables. He hadn’t eaten red meat in 40 years. Although he was already in his 60s, he looked like he was in the physical shape of someone half his age.

A serious decline

About three months after Buck came to Green Haven, I went a couple weeks without seeing him around the block. Sometimes people hole up in their cells for days, trying to escape prison’s chaotic and suffocating environment. 

But then I heard talk of “some old-timer” locked in his cell, dying. I did not think for a second that it was Buck.

When I asked around about what happened, Jonathan Maisonette, who knew Buck, told me the last time he saw Buck, the man was outside in the yard vomiting. When Buck visited the medical department, he was given an antibiotic and sent back to his cell, Maisonette said, recalling a conversation he had with Buck.

“He had been complaining about severe pain in his abdomen for over a week,” Maisonette said.

Devastated, I began questioning more people from B Block, where Buck lived. Two older men, Leroy Wright and Alphonso Barnes, said Buck had returned to the medical department another time, seeking more care.

“Al and I saw him in the medical bullpen, holding his stomach and complaining of pain,” Wright said. “The nurses had given him some aspirin and that was all.”

“Yeah, he looked awful that day,” Barnes added. “You could see in his face that there was something terribly wrong with him. He looked like he was dying.”

I wonder now: If I had been aware of his medical problems and where they were leading, could I have somehow helped?

In August, as I was finishing this story, my mind drifted back to our old prison’s law library, where I first met Buck. Just as soon as I entered the library’s door in my mind’s eye, my spirits were lifted. I saw Buck, stooped over the law clerk’s counter, assisting people. He looked up at me, and smiled. What exactly killed Buck, I will probably never know. But it has been over a year since his death, and I still see his beautiful, gap-toothed grin and hear him call my name.