Tag: clemency

David Gilbert has paid a heavy price for his crime. Granting him clemency would allow him to contribute his many talents to his family, friends and the community at large, and his release would send a message of hope to the many elders serving lengthy sentences.

Rodney Reed’s scheduled execution has been put on hold five days before he was to be put to death, after more than 20 years in prison. Common sense and 21st century DNA technology could take 20 days, not 20 years, to give an innocent person his or her life back. It is time for a change in who should control clemency.

You may think you know this story. A man lives the high life of a drug dealer, becomes a fugitive, goes to prison for a long time and eventually redeems himself. But you would be wrong. Malik Wade’s story is much, much more. While “Pressure” is a story about a man existing in Dante’s Inferno who transformed himself into an educated and enlightened person, it will also take you on Malik’s sometimes painful but never boring journey that has led him to who he is today.

Join us in resistance and solidarity from inside to outside the prison system in an undertaking to educate and mobilize ourselves for dignified struggle to abolish the modern institution of slavery which operates today as a mean coalition consisting of the police, the courts, racist and bigoted judges, unscrupulous prosecutors, ravenous and greedy sheriffs, cash-strapped school districts, under-funded indigent defense systems, and unfriendly and hostile prison officials.

Gen. George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) paid the ultimate price for the sins of certain white people of his time who committed damn near every type of crime against humanity upon the indigenous peoples of this country. So much so that many different tribes of indigenous peoples came together, some who were sworn enemies, to fight and defeat their common oppressor. Here in 2016, once again, many different tribes of indigenous peoples, and not just from this country but from around the world, have come together to defeat their common modern day oppressor.

Most parties now agree that mass incarceration is NOT the solution to crime in America. The reason being its prison population size is NOT determined by the number of CRIMES committed. So if the crime rate is not the dominant factor, what is? UNJUST racial and class policies are the dominant driving forces behind mass incarceration in the U.S. today. We urge federal prisoners to file for relief under the programs offered.

On July 13, President Barack Obama followed up his March 2015 pardons of 22 federal prisoners by commuting the sentences of 46 federal prisoners who had served time for what has been described by the Washington Post as overly harsh sentencing. On Thursday, July 16, Obama will meet with law enforcement officials and prisoners at El Reno, the first time a sitting president has visited a federal prison.

The New Underground Railroad Movement is a grassroots inside-outside organization that recognizes that the institutionalization of mass incarceration is the greatest civil rights and social issue we are faced with today. The New Underground Railroad Movement is dedicated to shutting down the “prison industrial complex” through tactical, organizational and grassroots work strikes, boycotts and class conscious empowerment.

A petition for Strategic Release, a groundbreaking initiative to free prisoners with a record of service to their communities, will for the first time be presented to the Parole Board April 2, 2015, on behalf of Abdul Olugbala Shakur. A two-sided petition form to print out, sign and circulate is posted below. Signed petitions must be returned in time to send them to the Parole Board by April 2. An online petition is also available.

Patricia Wright is a prisoner in Central California Women’s Facility’s Nursing Unit coping with an extraordinary array of challenges. She is legally blind, has stage four cancer that has spread to her breasts and her brain, causing her to lose control of her bodily functions, leaving her diapered, and has been given six months to live. What’s worse is that she’s innocent.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a stay of execution, and Troy Davis was murdered by the state of Georgia on Wednesday at 11:08 p.m. Eastern Time. Here are Troy’s words relayed earlier in the day: “The struggle for justice doesn’t end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I’m in good spirits and I’m prayerful and at peace. But I will not stop fighting until I’ve taken my last breath. Georgia is prepared to snuff out the life of an innocent man.”

I am writing to ask you to help fight for Troy’s life. Troy Davis is on death row for the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Ga. Troy has always maintained his innocence, and there was never any physical evidence linking him to the crime.

At long last the Scott sisters will be free! Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, based on public pressure, used his commutation powers to grant the sisters their freedom. He suspended Jamie and Gladys Scott's double life sentences for taking part in an $11 armed robbery. The women have always maintained their innocence. This good news is the people’s victory! Listen to Minister of Information JR's Block Report with the Scott sisters' attorney, Chokwe Lumumba, broadcast Dec. 30 on Flashpoints.

I trust you will carefully consider using your gubernatorial powers to grant clemency to Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim in the New York case and parole to warrant in the San Francisco case.