If you can help this gentlemen, please reply directly to him at
garijones@...

His message follows:

I'm doing some research into abuse in prisons and would welcome any
help you can offer. Do you have a brief list of case studies and/or
statistics?  I'd like to compile a cross-section of atrocities,
predominantly by the officers.

I'm a Theatre Director and Writer based in London, UK.

Thanks for your time.
Gari Jones

I like to send out the URL to the Stanford Prison Experiment from
time to time, because we have a constant flow of "new folks" entering
the prison reform/human rights arena.  I think it's very important
for everyone to see this slideshow, which documents what happens to
the characters of both the incarcerated and the incarcerators within
a prison setting.

If you have never viewed the account of this remarkable experiment,
it will amaze you.  It's at

http://www.prisonexp.org/

It's also worth a re-viewing, by those who have already seen it.  It
now contains a section, documenting the parallels between the
Stanford Prison Experiment and the events at Abu Ghraib.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the most astonishing
psychological studies of all time!

Peace and Blessings,
Linda Tant Miller

Just before my old computer died, several months ago, someone
contacted me about creating a page for their loved one on the
Murdered Prisoners web site.  I lost the information, when my
computer died, so if it's you, please re-contact me at
tantsy1@...

The Murdered Prisoners web site has been updated, with a few more
cases.  I have about 200 more to add, just as soon as I get time.  In
the meantime, if you need a page for a friend or loved one, just let
me know.

The Murdered Prisoners web site is at
http://www.geocities.com/PrisonMurder

After 9 years of prison reform and human rights work, I'm finally
getting my own home office.  As part of the décor, I have a curtain
hung behind my computer desk on which I have pinned my collection of
prison reform and human rights pins and buttons.  If your
organization has a pin or button I can add to my collection, I will
appreciate it if you will help me acquire one.  If I need to purchase
it, please let me know.  My address is:

Linda Tant Miller
8611 270th Ave., E.
Buckley, WA  98321


Peace and Blessings,
Linda Tant Miller

KRIS - PLEASE POST THIS TO OLI FOR ME

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

California: Repeal Law Jailing Children for Life

Senate Should End ‘Life Without Parole’ for Juvenile Offenders

(Sacramento, January 14, 2008) – California’s State Senate should
pass a law this month to end the sentencing of children to prison for
life with no possibility of parole, Human Rights Watch said today in
a report on a practice outlawed in most of the world.

In the 100-page report, “When I Die, They’ll Send Me Home: Youth
Sentenced to Life without Parole in California,”Human Rights Watch
found that in many cases where juveniles were prosecuted with an
adult, the youth received heavier sentences than their adult
codefendants. There are 227 inmates in California sentenced as
juveniles to life in prison without parole.

“Sentencing children to life without parole means they will die in
prison, without the possibility of a second chance at life,” said
Elizabeth Calvin, children’s rights advocate at Human Rights Watch
and author of the report. “The public can be kept safe without
locking children up forever for crimes committed when they were too
young to vote, drink, or even drive.”

For the report, Human Rights Watch interviewed 27 people sentenced to
life without parole for crimes committed at ages 14 to 17. The report
draws on records from the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation and analyzes findings from a Human Rights Watch survey
of more than half of all youth serving the sentence.

Despite popular belief to the contrary, Human Rights Watch found that
life without parole is not reserved for children who commit the worst
crimes or who show signs of being irredeemable criminals. Forty-five
percent of California youth sentenced to life without parole for
involvement in a murder did not actually kill the victim. Many were
convicted of felony murder, or for aiding and abetting the murder,
because they acted as lookouts or were participating in another
felony when the murder took place.

In nearly 70 percent of cases reported to Human Rights Watch in which
the youth was not acting alone at least one codefendant was an adult.
Survey responses reveal that in 56 percent of those cases, the adult
received a lower sentence than the juvenile.

Many survey respondents wrote heartfelt messages of remorse and
apology to the families of their victims.

Nationally, a 2005 Human Rights Watch study estimated that 59 percent
of youth offenders serving life without parole in the United States
were first-time offenders, without even a juvenile court matter on
their records.

Other states are considering reforms or have efforts underway to
eliminate the sentence, including Florida, Illinois, Louisiana,
Michigan, and Washington.

International law prohibits the sentence for child offenders, and it
is banned in nearly every other country in the world. Human Rights
Watch believes only seven people outside the United States are
serving life without parole for crimes committed as children.

“The immaturity that leads children to commit crimes in the first
place leaves them ill-prepared to navigate the criminal justice
system, so they’re more likely than adults to receive the heaviest
sentence,” Calvin said. “Some of those I interviewed didn’t
understand the plea bargain system, for instance, so they’d reject a
15-year sentence as being too long and then end up with life.”

One interviewee, Dave U., who was 16 years old at the time of his
crime, said he had several adult codefendants, one of whom was more
than 10 years older than he:

“I thought these older dudes would be my friends, but in the end,
they said that I did it all.”

Almost all of those interviewed said they did not fully understand
the proceedings, their role in the process, and the consequences at
stake. Jeff S., 16 at the time of his crime, told Human Rights Watch:

“I didn’t even know I got LWOP [life without parole] until I talked
to my lawyer after the hearing.”

California has the worst record in the nation for racial disparity in
the imposition of life without parole for juveniles. African-American
youth are serving the sentence at a rate that is 18 times higher than
the rate for white youth, and the rate for Hispanic youth is five
times higher in California than for white youth.

Despite there being no evidence that these youth are incapable of
rehabilitation, many youth serving life without parole reported that
their sentence precludes participation in rehabilitative programs in
prison.

The Juvenile Life Without Parole Reform Act (SB 999) is scheduled for
a vote in the State Senate before January 31, 2008. If passed in the
State Senate and House, the bill, written by Senator Leland Yee (D-
San Francisco/San Mateo), would end the sentencing of juveniles to
life without parole in California. Youth convicted of murder could
still be sentenced to life in prison, but would have the opportunity
for parole consideration after serving 25 years or more. The bill is
supported by a diverse and sizable number of organizations,
coalitions, and religious groups.

“Even children convicted of crimes that cause terrible suffering can
turn their lives around,” said Calvin. “California’s child offenders
should be punished for their crimes, but they also deserve a chance
to rehabilitate themselves. And California’s political leaders should
help them by passing SB999.”

Selected Testimonies

“When they offered [my codefendant and me] 30 years – a flat 30
years, not 30 to life – we were 17 [years old.] We didn’t understand.
Thirty years? I was 17 and in 30 years I’d be 47. That seemed like
forever to me. We were in juvie hall. We said no.”
– Robert D.

“The judge let me hug my mom and I cried and I couldn’t stop... I got
life without and I didn’t kill anybody.”
– Ray J., 17 at the time of his crime, described the moment when he
heard the sentence.

“As a kid, you don’t realize how fragile life is or how fragile it
becomes.”
– Billy G., 17 at the time of his crime.

“My thoughts about what I had done to them – I’ve been thinking about
the crime, my case, and the victims a lot... I didn’t realize my
situation until I was about 24 or 25 years old. I started thinking
about my whole life, what my whole family went through – their pain
and suffering. I started waking up. I started regretting… Just me
really accepting what I had done to them.”
– Roland T., 33, described the process of beginning to understand
what he had done, and his feelings of remorse.

“[I was] scared to death. I was all of 5’6”, 130 pounds and they sent
me to PBSP [Pelican Bay State Prison]. I tried to kill myself because
I couldn’t stand what the voices in my head was saying…‘You’re gonna
get raped.’ ‘You won't ever see your family again.’”
– David C., 29, described being sent at age 18 to one of California’s
highest-security prisons. David was 16 at the time of his crime.
Related Material

When I Die, They’ll Send Me Home
Report, January 14, 2008

Juvenile Life Without Parole
Campaign Document

United States
Country Page



From:
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/01/14/usdom17726.htm<http://hrw.org/english/doc\
s/2008/01/14/usdom17726.htm>

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Floor    New York, NY 10118-3299    USA

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

From the Los Angeles Times
Locking up kids for life

California can sentence criminals under 18 to life without parole.
It's cruel and unusual punishment.

January 16, 2008

California is paying a heavy price for its get-tough-on-crime
attitude, with an underfunded and overcrowded prison system, the
nation's worst recidivism rate and a rotten international image as
the state with the highest death row population. But of all the
inequities of a dysfunctional penal system and harsh state laws, few
can touch our predilection for discarding the lives of children who
commit crimes before they're old enough to fully understand the
consequences of their actions.

Sentencing youths under 18 to life without the possibility of parole
is a violation of international law that has been banned in nearly
every country in the world except this one. A recent report by Human
Rights Watch identified just seven people outside the United States
who have been subjected to this cruel and unusual punishment -- but
it found 227 in California, which leads the nation in juvenile
injustice.

There are a number of reasons for California's sad history of youth
incarceration, though perhaps the biggest is that Los Angeles is the
birthplace of modern street gangs, which recruitteens and turn them
into homicidal child soldiers. In addition, state law includes an
unusually high number of "special circumstances" that increase the
penalties in homicide cases. Youths 16 and 17 who are convicted with
special circumstances are sentenced to life without parole (adults in
such cases would be eligible for the death penalty).

Not long ago, scientists thought the human brain was fully developed
by early adolescence. But modern technology, allowing more
sophisticated brain scans, has shown that isn't true. Parts of the
frontal lobe involved in inhibiting impulses and appreciating
consequences aren't fully formed in most people until they hit their
early 20s. Rash, risky and even illegal behavior is commonplace among
teens. Few go so far as to commit murder, and those who do obviously
must face serious penalties, but it is perverse to condemn a minor to
prison for life for committing a crime that he or she might find
unthinkable on reaching adulthood.

A bill before the state Senate, which will expire after Jan. 31
unless it's approved by a two-thirds vote, would correct this
injustice. SB 999 from Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) changes the
sentence for those under 18 who are convicted of murder with special
circumstances to 25 years to life. It's a lengthy term but still
assures that those eligible for parole would have a chance to turn
their lives around. Critics object that the bill would only encourage
youth violence and gang killings, but there is little evidence that
harsh penalties quell such behavior. Stronger community anti-gang
programs are a better approach.

Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I know for a fact that the WM3 Innocence Project was formed by HONORABLE PEOPLE,
for the benefit of all of the WM3.  They formed the new organization because
there was a NEED for it, not because they don't have anything else to do.  They
are ALL very busy people, who undertook this project for purely altruistic
reasons.

As far as "bad mouthing" anyone, when the truth is bad, it doesn't mean it
shouldn't be spoken - it means it should be changed.  There has been nothing
said by the founders of the WM3 Innocence Project that isn't true.

I see NO legitimate reason why ANYONE would object to the formation of a genuine
non-profit organization to collect defense funds for which they will provide
100% accountability.

It seems to me that such objection - especially coming from an org which has NOT
provided accountability for the funds they've collected - is suspect.  If
accountability for the funds already collected had been made, there would have
been no need for the formation of a new one.

NOBODY "owns" the WM3, or their cause.  Everyone's help and support is
essential.  Petty jealousy and bickering about who has the right to support the
WM3's innocence is counter-productive, and there's NO legitimate reason for it.

One fact is completely indisputable - no public relations firm; no influx of
celebrities; no amount of public outcry is going to get the WM3 out of prison. 
The ONLY thing that's going to accomplish that is THE LAW, through LAWYERS, and
even lawyers working pro bono need MONEY for labs, filing fees, court
stenographers, and other required services which DON'T do charity work!

Real non-profit organizations are REQUIRED to provide an accounting of the
disbursements of funds, because donors have a RIGHT to see where their money is
going.  There is NO legitimate reason to refuse to account for donated funds. 
None, whatsoever.  No matter WHO does it!

Linda Tant Miller


   ----- Original Message -----
   From: e-mark<mailto:e-mark@...>
   To: WM3discussion@...<mailto:WM3discussion@...>
   Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 3:32 PM
   Subject: Re: [WM3d] WM3 Innocence Project Inc


   kathy@...<mailto:kathy@...> wrote:
Anyone wanting to start a fund to help, seems to me like a good thing.
But not accusing or badmouthing others, especially the wife of one of
the men they are claiming to try and help. It's outright disrespect, and
disregard, as I said.>>

Very good point, Jen.


   It is a good point as far as it goes.  But no one is badmouthing anyone.  The
questions are:  where is the money going, why can't anyone get an accounting,
and is it a good thing to have the fate of all the members being determine by
one person who is obviously biased?  Shouldn't there be an independent entity,
like a board of directors, managing these funds?

   And Kathy, it is my impression from looking at the archives that you've and
the others have been asked many times about some of these issues and the answers
from anyone have never been satisfactory.  I'd like to know why the PayPal
donation button on the wm3.org site goes to "The Damien Echols Trust Fund" and
not to some entity called The West Memphis Defense Trust Fund.  It may say words
to that effect in the description but that's not what the account is called.

   Mark


   *
   John Creasy, the English novelist who wrote 564 books, was rejected 753 times
before he became established.


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Fox News is conducting the following poll....

Do you think juveniles convicted of serious crimes should be eligible for life
in prison without the possibility of parole?

VOTE NO AT:

http://fox40.trb.com/news/local/special2/?track=nav<http://fox40.trb.com/news/lo\
cal/special2/?track=nav>




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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Fox News is conducting the following poll....

Do you think juveniles convicted of serious crimes should be eligible for life
in prison without the possibility of parole?

VOTE NO AT:

http://fox40.trb.com/news/local/special2/?track=nav<http://fox40.trb.com/news/lo\
cal/special2/?track=nav>




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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I have just completed some major updates on the Murdered Prisoners
web site.  In addition to several dozen new cases on the state pages,
I have added four new pages for individuals.

They are:
Larry Cox
Teddy Schmerber
Larry Neal

There is also new page, depicting a rally held by families of
prisoners who "committed suicide" at SCI Smithfield, in Pennsylvania,
and links to the organization which organized the rally.

In addition, I've made major updates to Emily Rice's page, including
heartbreaking letters to Emily from her mom, new news articles, and
new photos of Emily.

Please visit the site and view these new, heart-breaking stories.
Please leave messages in the Guest Books for their grieving families,
and pass the url to all your contacts.

Many thanks to Flo of People Against Prison Abuse (PAPA) for the html
code that creates the new way the pages open.

Murder Prisoners
http://www.geocities.com/PrisonMurder

Peace and Blessings,
Linda Tant Miller

Jan. 20, 2008, 11:30PM
Kids in solitary
Texas Youth Commission shake-up fails to eliminate punitive and
inhumane measures against juveniles.

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

On the same day last November that the Chronicle published an
editorial calling for speedy rebuilding of the scandal-scarred Texas
Youth Commission, the agency ombudsman sent an alarming memo to TYC
acting director Dimitria Pope.

A year after revelations of sexual abuse of inmates by reform school
guards and wardens led to ouster of the TYC board and management, it
seems the agency is slipping back into its bad habits. In the memo,
chief ombudsman Will Harrell alerted Pope to evidence that agency
employees were putting more young people in solitary confinement in
violation of TYC's policies and procedures.

Under the TYC's Behavior Management Program and its "Stop the
Violence" campaign, TYC supervisors have become increasingly reliant
on sending teens with behavioral problems to isolation cells without
required due process hearings or psychological evaluations. Even
worse, according to Harrell, some of the inmates at a correctional
facility in Mart, east of Waco, have been left in solitary for days
and even weeks with scant access to therapy, sanitary conditions and
outside exercise.

The ombudsman cited a case in which a youth had been locked down for
eight days. He was allowed on only two occasions to go to classes and
was given outdoor recreation only once. "Conditions in security are
inadequate and unsanitary," Harrell wrote. "One cell has no light or
bed, yet a kid has been in the cell for over 24 hours." Records
obtained by the Chronicle indicate that since August, the number of
young people placed in isolation across the state rose from 52 to 82.

As Harrell reminded Pope, the settlement of a 1983 lawsuit brought
against the TYC bans the use of isolation as a mode of retaliation or
as a first-resort punishment against youth offenders. With only a few
exceptions, the agreement allows placement in solitary only as a last
resort and for a period not to exceed 24 hours. It also calls for the
student to be released from isolation as soon as he is under control
and not posing a danger to himself or others.

Harrell recommended that a TYC team audit the transfers of youths to
solitary and release those who do not meet the criteria or did not
receive due process and psychological exams. Until that happens, a
moratorium on isolation should go into effect. A thorough evaluation
of agency use of solitary confinement should be accompanied by
implementation of positive rather than punitive behavior mod programs.

In the two months since Harrell sent his memo, nothing has been done
to address the issues he raised. While Pope was unavailable for
comment, newly appointed TYC conservator Richard Nedelkoff indicated
he had not been told of Harrell's concerns and would analyze the
situation and come up with recommendations in 35 to 40 days.

Pope's failure to act in a timely fashion on the ombudsman's warning
indicates Nedelkoff needs to consider bringing in new leadership at
the agency as well making major policy changes. While the conservator
carries out his appraisal, the use of solitary confinement should be
halted until officials can guarantee it is being used in a
responsible and legal manner.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5471360.html<http://www.chron.com/\
disp/story.mpl/editorial/5471360.html>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi, folks:

I've just added to several of my web sites, and my MySpace blog, Amy Burnett's
very vivid account of a tour of the Cummins Unit that she made with one of her
classes.   I wanted all of you to have an opportunity to read her emotional
account of her experience, without having to "click" anywhere.

Thank you for sharing this, Amy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------------------------------------

CUMMINS UNIT

By: AMY BURNETT



In Arkansas, "Down on the Farm, Where Life Means Life," I was not looking
forward to my trip to the Cummins Unit. My husband John had spent many years
there after he became incarcerated.


As I turned off on the road that leads to the Cummins Unit, my heart raced and
my nerves shook like chattering teeth when it's cold. I knew I would be going
back behind the walls of the visitation room I had spent many Saturdays in
visiting my husband and walk the very halls my husband walked.


As I pulled in to the parking lot and turned off my car, I asked God to get me
through the day. While the other students would just be touring a prison
facility, I was about to go on an emotional walk of painful thoughts and
feelings. I was scared and full of anxiety. I never wanted to see the prison
behind the walls of the visitation room, what it looked like and how my husband
had to live his life everyday. However, it was something I had to do.


As I walked through the front door to check in, I felt like I was returning home
after a three year absence. I hated being there, but going to a prison is a
routine part of my life now. I spent one year of my life going to this unit I
was about to tour and it is a place I had never wanted to go back to.


I removed my shoes and belt and placed my belongings in the little wooden box on
the table to be checked. These things are so common to me now, just as breathing
is. Since I had been there, scanners had been installed to scan people's
personal belongings, just like the airports have.


I made my usual technical walk through the metal detector of walking sideways
and covering my under wire bra. I was taught that trick from a lady guard at
Cummins while I was visiting there once before. It keeps from setting off the
metal detector.


We met Mrs. Kennedy, our tour guide, and Assistant Warden Danny Burrows. Major
Robertson and Mr. Straun, the Assistant Warden of Security, also joined us for
the tour.


I took a deep breath as I walked through Administration in to the 100 year old
part of the Cummins Unit building. To my right, I immediately noticed the photo
processing room. I realized right then I was inside the prison and there was no
turning back. Tears immediately began to roll down my eyes as I looked at the
photo processing room and I imagined how John felt the first day he got there. I
thought of him, a young man at age 19 whose life had been stripped from him, a
lost Army career and a recently widowed young man taken from his family. The
photo processing room is where your inmate photo is taken and you are issued an
inmate ID card that legally declares you a numbered state inmate. Looking at
that room also gave me another hard thought to swallow. It gave me the reality
that this is for real, you are now in prison and life as you knew it is over.


As I walked down the hall of the oldest part of Cummins Unit I felt cold,
depressed and trapped. I was surrounded by white walls, a white floor and white
pipes in the ceiling. As I approached the first set of barracks, I saw more
white walls; white rod iron beds with white sheets and all the inmates were
dressed in white. I felt like I was in an old insane asylum. However, no one was
wearing a straight jacket.


I looked at the small white metal beds with white grated bottoms covered with a
thin mattress and white sheets, and it was heartbreaking to imagine my 230 pound
husband trying to sleep on those beds. If he rolled over he would fall in the
floor. However, it was probably better than the concrete bed with the same thin
mattress he sleeps in now at another facility.


Some of the inmates looked out of the bar and plate glass covered windows at us
as if they had not seen free world people in regular clothes in years.


Mrs. Kennedy explained how much it took to salvage the one hundred year old
building at Cummins to finally meet ACA standards. This was an all too familiar
subject I knew a lot about. My husband was a Maintenance Clerk at Cummins for
years and was in charge of getting everything in order for accreditation. It is
a stressful job that takes several months to complete. I thought of how stressed
out he always was during those months in the time we have been together. I
thought of all the hard work he had to do with no pay or reward.


As I made my way down the West halls of the Cummins Unit the only color I could
see was the yellow lines on the floor where inmates have to walk in single file
lines, as I had seen them do in prison movies I have watched. Looking in each of
the barracks I passed, I took notice to the pay phones which I have received
many phone calls from every Tuesday and Thursday. I also took notice to the
television sets of where John watched Arkansas Razorback games on Saturdays and
NASCAR races on Sundays. I saw the domino tables he complains so much about,
because the other inmates slam the dominos down on the table while they are
playing and it's very irritating to him.


Looking in those barracks was a hard sight for me to swallow, as I imagined the
love of my life in a cage like a guinea pig I once had.


As we exited West Hall and walked outside I still felt very trapped and
claustrophobic. The cool air felt wonderful, yet I was still caged in by the
fences surrounding the compound and the walkways. Standing in the walkway I
looked out in to the recreation yard at the other buildings and Mrs. Kennedy
pointed out the plasma room. I got a sick feeling in my stomach as I thought of
the Arkansas Prison Blood Cow Scandal.


During this time, Ray Hobbs, the Assistant Director of the Arkansas Department
of Corrections joined us.


While Mrs. Kennedy spoke to the rest of the class about things I already knew
and answered questions by my classmates, I stood against the fence alone crying.
I looked long and hard at everything around me. I looked at the recreation yard
with benches spaced out around the basketball courts, the high voltage lights,
the ICA tower, the gym and more fences. I imagined my husband playing
basketball, which he tried to do on a daily basis when he was at the Cummins
Unit. I wondered about his thoughts on a daily basis about me and our daughter
as he walked through those walkways. Thoughts of him thinking, "Will I ever get
to go home to my family or will I die here?" filled my mind, and the pain of
those thoughts cut me to the bone.


Mrs. Kennedy pointed out the sally port. I asked Mr. Burrows where the Mod Unit
was and he pointed out to me the roof that was left of it after being torn down.
Mrs. Kennedy's pointing out of the sally port caught my attention. John had
lived in the Cummins Modular Unit before he was transferred and when he came in
to the main building, he had to come through the sally port. She also pointed
out the kitchen dock and the laundry room. The sally port gate rises up and down
for trucks to enter and exit the compound, and everyone was busy at work. I
looked out across the compound to notice a "Y" shaped steeple. I wondered what
it was. Next to the sally port is the creamery and meat processing buildings.


We then entered South Hall. South Hall has concrete cinder block white walls and
there is glass and bars over the barrack windows. This hall houses inmates that
are classed as 1 B and 1 C, and it was very quiet. Upstairs is the control booth
with windows that look down in to the barracks and a grate floor. You can look
down into the showers and see everything that is going on. There are stainless
steel urinals in the bathroom. In the barracks are five rows of fourteen white
rod iron beds. You can see the A/C ducts in the ceiling. As I looked down into
the barracks, there were a few guys standing around. One guy looked up at me and
I just gave him a friendly smile back.


After exiting South Hall we walked across the lot to enter another building. I
had been walking in the front of the line ahead of my class with the Assistant
Warden, Danny Burrows. Somehow, Mrs. Kennedy had made her way to the front of
the line, and Mr. Burrows was no longer beside me. We entered the building, not
being told what building we were going in to. I stepped in the doorway only to
say," Oh shit!" I was entering the death chamber. Mrs. Kennedy asked if I was
alright and I said I was. The death chamber is housed in the Maximum Security
area. There is a gurney with orange and blue straps to strap the inmate down for
execution. It has leather arm straps for the inmate's arms. There is a digital
clock on the wall and I could smell fresh paint. Inmates are taken to the death
chamber three to five days prior to their execution date. There is a very tiny
room where the inmate is kept prior to execution. It is smaller than my closet
at home. Death Row inmates are only allowed to see their religious figure and
family during this time. During execution, the Director, Warden and Internal
Affairs are present. There is a tie down team of six full metal jacket guys who
strap the inmate down. An unknown person who administers the lethal injection is
behind a solid brick wall. Larry Norris, The Director of the Arkansas Department
of Corrections, is the only person who knows who is administering the lethal
injection. The inmate is asked if he or she has any last words. Six witnesses
and two press members are allowed in the viewing area, along with legal council
and a spiritual advisor. The inmate's family is not allowed to view the
execution. The family of the victim of the inmate's crime may watch the
execution from closed circuit TV in the Wardens office. It was hard and very
depressing being in that room, wondering if any innocent people have been put to
death. It was hard for me to imagine the day may come that Damien Echols is
brought there and executed.


Exiting the death chamber we walked the Max mile which used to be Death Row. The
concrete rooms are very small with two metal bunk beds. There is a pill call
room and the cells are covered with only bars, no glass like the barracks are.


We then approached North Hall where the ad segregation unit is. It is a three
tier unit of single cells with two stair cases. The shower stalls are separate
from the rooms and have steel doors. Inmates are handcuffed and shackled going
to and from the showers. They are locked in the showers while they bathe.
Thirteen and Fourteen barracks are also in North Hall. Most new inmates are
housed here and put on the hoe squad for the first sixty days they are there.


We then entered East Hall. East Hall houses inmates of different class. The East
Dining Hall has stainless steel tables with stainless steel stools attached. The
chow line is also stainless steel. The inmate staff that serves the meals is
blinded by a stainless steel window while serving meals. This is done to prevent
the staff from giving larger portions of food to a fellow inmate friend. The
dining hall seats 325 inmates and there is an old guard tower where a security
officer used to stand with a gun in past times. This day, no guns are allowed
inside the unit anymore.


After exiting East Hall we entered a room in a building and I thought to myself,
"I know where I am. This is the strip room for visitation." Sure enough, I
walked out of that room and in to the visitation room I spent every Saturday in
for almost a year. I looked out of the doorway to the table John and I always
sat at. I remembered sitting at the table and looking up at him walking out of
that room with a heartwarming smile on his face. I remembered the butterflies in
my stomach that I got when he walked out and I saw him every Saturday. I still
get those same butterflies and he still greets me with that same warm smile and
a big hug. In the visitation room we were greeted by members of the inmate
council. One of the guys I knew, because he worked in the concession stand when
I visited John there. We had a question and answer session and the inmate
council told us about some of the work they do as peers to troubled teens.


My overall impression of prison life at the Cummins Unit was hard work,
depressing, and it gave me an eerie feeling. I could see working on the Cummins
Farm was hard work for the inmates. I could see and feel that they were there to
be punished and that life for them was not easy. I think some of those
impressions came from the eerie feeling I got when I was there. I know that many
men have lived, worked hard and died there over the last 100 years. I could feel
ghosts of the past still lingering there and all the bad history that took place
there. While I know prison life at Cummins is not as bad as it was in the past,
I could still see it was a rough routine in which to follow by. If you think of
the hard work it takes to run a small farm at home, you see at this farm that it
is even harder. There is much more on this farm to maintain and keep running.


This tour had a huge emotional impact on me. Walking the same steps my husband
walked there, was an emotional rollercoaster of depressing feelings only an
inmate's wife and loved ones can feel and understand. It added more pain to my
thoughts of, "Why did this happen and will he ever get out of prison?"


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Yes, Mary - please send me your article about your visit to Varner, and seeing
Damien.  I will put it on my sites, also.

If anyone has articles they've written about any aspect of the ADC, or anything
like that that they'd be willing to share, please pass them along.

I have two sites (Dark and Evil World, and Down on the Farm), which both deal
specifically with the ADC in general, and the Cummins Unit in particular, in
addition to my Blood Cows site, my MySpace blog and 30 prison reform advocacy
groups I will post them to.

In Solidarity,
Linda


   ----- Original Message -----
   From: Amy Burnett<mailto:princessamyb269@...>
   To: AR_WAR@yahoogroups.com<mailto:AR_WAR@yahoogroups.com>
   Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 2:24 PM
   Subject: Re: [AR_WAR] Amy's paper



   Thank you all for taking the time to read my paper. It was one of the hardest
things I've ever had to do. My professor knew before hand how this was gonna be
for me and she told me I'm there if you need me. We were supposed to walk in
pairs but she kinda let me do my own thing and I just walked away from the class
along side AW Danny Burrows. Even John says he always felt wierd vibes there
when he was there, aside from the feelings of being an inmate there. You know as
many times as I had looked and went through the razor wire fence I remember the
first time I took real notice to it and it soaked in. I appreciate you posting
it on your sites Linda and I hope you can use it in your comp class Lanette as
we talked about. I also wrote a paper on Varner and seeing Damien face to face
if yall would like to read it. It was a much different journey. It amazes me how
one chief/state and all it's indians/towns can be so unjust, corrupted and
filthy! And some dumb bitch on that blog had the nerve to ask how Mara sleeps at
night? HA!!!!!! Mara is the one person who has had the heart enough to write
books and put and point out the injustice in Arkansas for everyone to read! She
is truly amazing and her journalism is truly worth while and meaningful, thats
why it aggervated me so much to see her trashed on that stupid blog! Lanette
Kelly Dan, Arwar members and Linda Tant(even though she wasn't on it) have all
took a stand in their own ways to stand up for the injustice, filth and
corruption in Arkansas as well. That blogger could use their time and talents to
do so much better! It also pisses me off when Linda gets trashed on here,
considering all the good she has done for years to expose the ADC and what her
family had to endure. I guess everyone is entitled to their opinions though. I'm
sure there may be a few lurking around here that don't like things I say as well
sometimes, OH WELL. We can't all agree, but thats what I like about this group
is we can all agree to disagree! We can all be ourselves with each other and we
don't have to pretend to be who we aren't or or pretend to be what we are not
about! Thanks again everybody! Love Amy

   PS Lanette I have tried 2 times to get things printed in the UALR Quils and
Pixels or whatever it is called but they weren't interested. Being true stories
they weren't comfortable with printing them and then like a paper I did on Kevin
and Don and all my friends who were killed in that tragedy they wanted and
needed all this info to back up what I was saying and crap and I was like I
can't do that! That's already a book of it's own written by Mara Leveritt. This
is my story/personal place in that story and my feelings about my friends.
Whatever, I think it was way above what Q and P prints in its yearly booklet is
what it was.

   Wendy Crow <wendymcrow@...> wrote:
     I thought so too.  The only thing you should add is his myspace link
http://www.myspace.com/chinuagirl<http://www.myspace.com/chinuagirl>


     Lanette Grate <l_grate@...> wrote:
       Amy,
       It is so well written; it is like we are on the tour
       with you. I thought you did an excellent job not only
       describing in detail what everything looked like, but
       also the emotions you felt and the personal connection
       made this an extremely compelling piece. Have you
       thought of sending it somewhere to be published?

       Lanette
       --- LINDA TANT MILLER <tantsy1@...<mailto:tantsy1@...>> wrote:

       > Hi, folks:
       >
       > I've just added to several of my web sites, and my
       > MySpace blog, Amy Burnett's very vivid account of a
       > tour of the Cummins Unit that she made with one of
       > her classes. I wanted all of you to have an
       > opportunity to read her emotional account of her
       > experience, without having to "click" anywhere.
       >
       > Thank you for sharing this, Amy
       >
       >
       ----------------------------------------------------------
       >
       >
       > CUMMINS UNIT
       >
       > By: AMY BURNETT
       >
       >
       >
       > In Arkansas, "Down on the Farm, Where Life Means
       > Life," I was not looking forward to my trip to the
       > Cummins Unit. My husband John had spent many years
       > there after he became incarcerated.
       >
       >
       > As I turned off on the road that leads to the
       > Cummins Unit, my heart raced and my nerves shook
       > like chattering teeth when it's cold. I knew I would
       > be going back behind the walls of the visitation
       > room I had spent many Saturdays in visiting my
       > husband and walk the very halls my husband walked.
       >
       >
       > As I pulled in to the parking lot and turned off my
       > car, I asked God to get me through the day. While
       > the other students would just be touring a prison
       > facility, I was about to go on an emotional walk of
       > painful thoughts and feelings. I was scared and full
       > of anxiety. I never wanted to see the prison behind
       > the walls of the visitation room, what it looked
       > like and how my husband had to live his life
       > everyday. However, it was something I had to do.
       >
       >
       > As I walked through the front door to check in, I
       > felt like I was returning home after a three year
       > absence. I hated being there, but going to a prison
       > is a routine part of my life now. I spent one year
       > of my life going to this unit I was about to tour
       > and it is a place I had never wanted to go back to.
       >
       >
       > I removed my shoes and belt and placed my belongings
       > in the little wooden box on the table to be checked.
       > These things are so common to me now, just as
       > breathing is. Since I had been there, scanners had
       > been installed to scan people's personal belongings,
       > just like the airports have.
       >
       >
       > I made my usual technical walk through the metal
       > detector of walking sideways and covering my under
       > wire bra. I was taught that trick from a lady guard
       > at Cummins while I was visiting there once before.
       > It keeps from setting off the metal detector.
       >
       >
       > We met Mrs. Kennedy, our tour guide, and Assistant
       > Warden Danny Burrows. Major Robertson and Mr.
       > Straun, the Assistant Warden of Security, also
       > joined us for the tour.
       >
       >
       > I took a deep breath as I walked through
       > Administration in to the 100 year old part of the
       > Cummins Unit building. To my right, I immediately
       > noticed the photo processing room. I realized right
       > then I was inside the prison and there was no
       > turning back. Tears immediately began to roll down
       > my eyes as I looked at the photo processing room and
       > I imagined how John felt the first day he got there.
       > I thought of him, a young man at age 19 whose life
       > had been stripped from him, a lost Army career and a
       > recently widowed young man taken from his family.
       > The photo processing room is where your inmate photo
       > is taken and you are issued an inmate ID card that
       > legally declares you a numbered state inmate.
       > Looking at that room also gave me another hard
       > thought to swallow. It gave me the reality that this
       > is for real, you are now in prison and life as you
       > knew it is over.
       >
       >
       > As I walked down the hall of the oldest part of
       > Cummins Unit I felt cold, depressed and trapped. I
       > was surrounded by white walls, a white floor and
       > white pipes in the ceiling. As I approached the
       > first set of barracks, I saw more white walls; white
       > rod iron beds with white sheets and all the inmates
       > were dressed in white. I felt like I was in an old
       > insane asylum. However, no one was wearing a
       > straight jacket.
       >
       >
       > I looked at the small white metal beds with white
       > grated bottoms covered with a thin mattress and
       > white sheets, and it was heartbreaking to imagine my
       > 230 pound husband trying to sleep on those beds. If
       > he rolled over he would fall in the floor. However,
       > it was probably better than the concrete bed with
       > the same thin mattress he sleeps in now at another
       > facility.
       >
       >
       > Some of the inmates looked out of the bar and plate
       > glass covered windows at us as if they had not seen
       > free world people in regular clothes in years.
       >
       >
       > Mrs. Kennedy explained how much it took to salvage
       > the one hundred year old building at Cummins to
       > finally meet ACA standards. This was an all too
       > familiar subject I knew a lot about. My husband was
       > a Maintenance Clerk at Cummins for years and was in
       > charge of getting everything in order for
       > accreditation. It is a stressful job that takes
       > several months to complete. I thought of how
       > stressed out he always was during those months in
       > the time we have been together. I thought of all the
       > hard work he had to do with no pay or reward.
       >
       >
       > As I made my way down the West halls of the Cummins
       > Unit the only color I could see was the yellow lines
       > on the floor where inmates have to walk in single
       > file lines, as I had seen them do in prison movies I
       > have watched. Looking in each of the barracks I
       > passed, I took notice to the pay phones which I have
       > received many phone calls from every Tuesday and
       > Thursday. I also took notice to the television sets
       > of where John watched Arkansas Razorback games on
       > Saturdays and NASCAR races on Sundays. I saw the
       > domino tables he complains so much about, because
       > the other inmates slam the dominos down on the table
       > while they are playing and it's very irritating to
       > him.
       >
       >
       > Looking in those barracks was a hard sight for me to
       > swallow, as I imagined the love of my life in a cage
       > like a guinea pig I once had.
       >
       >
       > As we exited West Hall and walked outside I still
       > felt very trapped and claustrophobic. The cool air
       > felt wonderful, yet I was still caged in by the
       > fences surrounding the compound and the walkways.
       > Standing in the walkway I looked out in to the
       > recreation yard at the other buildings and Mrs.
       > Kennedy pointed out the plasma room. I got a sick
       > feeling in my stomach as I thought of the Arkansas
       > Prison Blood Cow Scandal.
       >
       >
       > During this time, Ray Hobbs, the Assistant Director
       > of the Arkansas Department of Corrections joined us.
       >
       >
       >
       > While Mrs. Kennedy spoke to the rest of the class
       > about things I already knew and answered questions
       > by my classmates, I stood against the fence alone
       > crying. I looked long and hard at everything around
       > me. I looked at the recreation yard with benches
       > spaced out around the basketball courts, the high
       > voltage lights, the ICA tower, the gym and more
       > fences. I imagined my husband playing basketball,
       > which he tried to do on a daily basis when he was at
       > the Cummins Unit. I wondered about his thoughts on a
       > daily basis about me and our daughter as he walked
       > through those walkways. Thoughts of him thinking,
       > "Will I ever get to go home to my family or will I
       > die here?" filled my mind, and the pain of those
       > thoughts cut me to the bone.
       >
       >
       > Mrs. Kennedy pointed out the sally port. I asked Mr.
       > Burrows where the Mod Unit was and he pointed out to
       > me the roof that was left of it after being torn
       > down. Mrs. Kennedy's pointing out of the sally port
       > caught my attention. John had lived in the Cummins
       > Modular Unit before he was transferred and when he
       > came in to the main building, he had to come through
       > the sally port. She also pointed out the kitchen
       > dock and the laundry room. The sally port gate rises
       > up and down for trucks to enter and exit the
       > compound, and everyone was busy at work. I looked
       > out across the compound to notice a "Y" shaped
       > steeple. I wondered what it was. Next to the sally
       > port is the creamery and meat processing buildings.
       >
       === message truncated ===

       __________________________________________________________
       Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.
       http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs<http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs>





     Sincerely,

     Wendy Crow
     www.arwar.org<http://www.arwar.org/>


     "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort
and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
     ~Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

UGH!  Check this out!  SCARY!



editorial
Justice on trial in Masters case

By The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 01/21/2008 08:54:11 PM MST

The 1987 murder of Peggy Hettrick has been disturbing from the
beginning, but last week the case yielded some dramatic and
unsettling developments.
A special prosecutor announced that new DNA evidence was enough to
overturn the conviction of Tim Masters, who has been imprisoned for
almost nine years for Hettrick's murder. The evidence points to
another suspect.
What an injustice if an innocent man has been imprisoned all of these
years. Today, prosecutor Don Quick will ask a judge to set aside
Masters' conviction, a request likely to be granted.
But that should not be the end of the case. Someone stabbed and
grotesquely mutilated the 37-year-old woman, and that person must be
held accountable. If authorities retry Masters, it's imperative he
receive a fair trial.
Allegations have surfaced that authorities made bad decisions in
prosecuting Masters, or engaged in outright deceit. If that's so,
it's unacceptable and the offenders must be punished. On the flip
side, post-conviction defense lawyers David Wymore and Maria Liu, who
worked on Masters' appeals for five years, are to be commended for
their dogged pursuit of justice.
They recognized the case against Masters, 15 at the time of the
murder, was circumstantial and based largely on his violent drawings.
The lawyers believed that Masters was wrongly convicted and went to
great lengths, including hiring Dutch DNA experts, on his behalf.
And special prosecutor Quick, appointed to examine Masters' murder
conviction, did a worthy job as well. He has said from the beginning
that he and his team would "go where the evidence takes us." We're
glad to see that he appears to have done just that. We hope that Weld
County District Attorney Ken Buck will do the same in investigating
allegations of wrongdoing on behalf of those who worked to convict
Masters.
Buck's office is looking into accusations that a police officer
perjured himself during Masters' trial, and that authorities
illegally recorded a conversation between Masters and his father.
Also troubling is the acknowledgment by Quick that the original
prosecutors withheld potentially exonerating evidence from Masters'
defense team. That alone could have forced a new trial for Masters.
Larimer County District Attorney Larry Abrahamson now must decide
whether to retry Masters, or pursue a case against another suspect.
Given the number of missteps in this case and the apparent lack of
physical evidence tying Masters to the crime, we trust this will be a
well-considered decision on his part.
In the end, we hope the high-profile nature of the case won't deter
authorities from pursuing Peggy Hettrick's murderer. It would be a
tragedy if a flawed prosecution resulted in a killer walking away free.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_8038593?source=rss<http://www.denverpost.com/ci_803\
8593?source=rss>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Here's Amy's essay on her tour of the Varner Unit, including Death Row, and
seeing Damien Echols:

Thanks once again, Amy:


Varner/Varner Super Max



As I walked through the gate of the Varner Unit I took notice very quickly of
the red brick on the outside of the building. It gave the building a more laid
back feeling and a feeling of life, not imprisonment. Prisons in Arkansas
consist of so much white; it was nice to see a bright color intergraded in to
the structure.



The chapel was absolutely beautiful and gave you the sense of a real church, and
not just an extra room in a prison made of white brick to hold church services
in. I felt that as a prisoner, going to the chapel would give me a sense of not
only being in a real church, but a sense of being free from cells and fences to
worship God, if only for a little while.



The chapel had a wonderful setup to accommodate all types of religions. There
were beautiful colored and detailed rugs lined up on the floor near the front of
the chapel set up for inmates of the Buddhist religion.



There was a white tub used for baptism and an area for a band for music.



The chapel also had a closed circuit television set up for Death Row inmates to
watch the services.



I immediately thought of Damien Echols, a Death Row inmate I know, and I wished
for him to be able to come to the chapel and see it in person. I imagined him
being able to sit on one of those beautiful rugs to practice his Buddhist
beliefs.



During my tour of Varner, I was amazed at how it is really set up like a small
town. Our corrections book teaches us that prisons are built like a small town
and operate the same way, just behind a fence of razor wire. The barracks were
the homes. There was a public library, a school, a college, Vo-tech and the
vegetable processing plant was the local factory were everyone in the town
worked. The Warden served as Mayor of the town and the rest of the
administration and guards served as the City Council, fire fighters and police
officers.



The recreation yard served as the local public park and reminded me a lot of
Saline Counties own Tyndall Park. It had soccer field, baseball fields, a
basketball court, benches and a set up for horseshoe games.



I thought about all the beautiful work my Uncle Lynn and Aunt Peggy had done at
Tyndall Park when my Uncle was Mayor of Saline County. I wished they could come
to Varner and do all the same beautiful work and landscaping they had done at
Tyndall Park.



The recreation yard was busy just like a summer day at Tyndall Park would be,
with people playing soccer, baseball, basketball, horseshoes and sitting around
on the benches chit chatting and enjoying a beautiful afternoon. The only
difference was the people were all dressed in prison white uniforms, and not
regular colorful shorts and shirts.



The school was very much like a regular school with classrooms, a computer lab
and a gym. There is one teacher to every fifteen students. They have a
graduation just like a regular school and even have a cooking class as I did in
Home Economics in Junior High School.



Walking into the Varner Super Max Unit, I felt like a pirate on a ship walking
the plank. I was scared and nervous, and I had no idea what would happen at the
end of my walk.



When the tourist guide announced we were on Death Row I was extremely shocked.
It was not like what I had imagined or seen on television and in the movies. It
was a large, three tiered white brick building with single cells aligning two
sides of the wall. The cells had solid metal, pale bluish doors with a small
window.



It was silent at first, but became noisy as we began walking through the
building. There was hooping and hollering and whistling at the girls. Some guys
were hollering, "Hey girl in the red shirt and the green shirt!" I was the girl
in the green shirt.



One guy was ranting and raving about his rights being violated. Most of the
students were snickering and laughing under their breaths, but I felt sad
because I knew what he was talking about and what he meant.



As we turned around to come back down Death Row I looked up at the second tier
and noticed a sad looking man staring back at me. At first I thought it was
Damien Echols.



Being an avid supporter that Damien and his friends, Jason Baldwin and Jessie
Misskelley, also known as The West Memphis Three, are innocent of the crimes
they are in prison for, my heart sunk to my guts. It breaks my heart to think of
Jason and Jessie in prison for life and Damien being executed for crimes they
may not have committed.



However, we turned the corner to view the visitation room for Death Row inmates
who are allowed to have contact visits, and there was Damien sitting in a
visitation cell with his wife Lori. He was dressed in his prison whites and they
seemed to be in deep conversation.



The visitation cell reminded me of an old standard jail cell with nothing but
metal bars all around. Damien appeared to look well as he glanced up at our
class with his pale face for just a second.



Seeing him there visiting his wife gave me a better feeling than the man I
thought was him looking down at me from his cell. I was happy to see him looking
as well as he can be under the circumstances and visiting with Lori. I smiled at
him; hoping he would just know I had all the hope in the world for him.



My overall impression of the Varner/Varner Super Max Unit was great. The feel of
a small city atmosphere gave me a more comforting feeling than the Cummins Unit
did. It really was a small city just like the city I live in. The only
difference was it was surrounded by a metal razor wire fence and the people are
not allowed to leave the city.



The administration seemed very proud of their facility and compassionate about
their inmates in giving them the best care possible. My impression of the
inmates and their life at the Varner/Varner Super Max Unit was more comforting
than I had originally thought it would be. There life is structured by time,
place, work and education. The movement in the prison halls, of walking along
the yellow lines on each side of the hall, is really the same as the structured
lanes on the highway in which we drive along going to and coming from a
destination.



The only question I was really left with after the tour was care of the Death
Row inmates. How much counseling and psychiatric care do these inmates receive?
I know they receive spiritual counseling, but do they receive any psychiatric
help with medication? Do they receive any counseling about the crimes they
committed and the right and wrong way of life?



While I know these inmates committed horrific crimes and most of them could care
less about being a good person; can they receive rehabilitative help if they
want it even though they will most likely die there? If not, are these guys just
locked up there to go crazy and mad?



The Varner/Varner Super Max tour did not impact me as much as the Cummins Unit
tour did. The surroundings and the administration really put my mind at ease
about any horrible thoughts I originally had about it.



The only bad impact it had on me was the wondering about the impact on Damien
Echols life it had, and what effect it will have on him in the future if he
should ever get out of prison.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Man-o-man - does this sound eerily familiar, or what?  Well, at least Tim Master
is free, and hopefully, he'll stay that way.

If Colorado can effect justice, maybe Arkansas can, too!

FREE THE WEST MEMPHIS 3!
----- Original Message -----
From: Sandrine Ageorges<mailto:sandrine.ageorges@...>
To: PrisonNewsNetwork@yahoogroups.com<mailto:PrisonNewsNetwork@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: PRUP@yahoogroups.com<mailto:PRUP@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 4:24 AM
Subject: [PNN] CO - We should be ashamed


opinion
We should be ashamed

By Gail Schoettler
Article Last Updated: 01/23/2008 09:07:36 PM MST

Imagine losing 10 years of your life in a Colorado prison. Imagine
suffering that terrible existence knowing you were innocent of the
crime for which you'd been convicted. Imagine losing all those years
because a prosecutor withheld evidence from your lawyers that might
have exonerated you. Then imagine how we'd all feel if this person
had been executed for the crime he did not commit.
The case of Tim Masters makes me shudder. He was accused of murdering
a Fort Collins woman when he was 15. Later, he was convicted of that
crime because of his violent teenage writings and pictures. But
important evidence was withheld from the judge and the jury.
Now, DNA evidence has shown he was not the killer. I'm sure Masters
is thrilled to be free. But that doesn't bring back 10 years of his
life, 10 years when he could have gone to college, started a career,
married and had children. It doesn't relieve the prosecutors of their
unconscionable dereliction of duty, withholding evidence that might
have kept a terrible injustice from occurring.
Fortunately, there were people who believed Masters was innocent and
spent 10 years proving it. But what about others who are also
unjustly in prison or even on death row with no one to champion their
cause? What about those who may have been executed because no one had
DNA evidence to demonstrate their innocence?
For the last several decades, America has gone through a frenzy of
self-righteous support for the death penalty. We have seemed to
believe that execution evened the scales. When he was running for
president, George W. Bush ballyhooed his toughness on crime by
telling us how, as Texas governor, he'd approved more than 150
executions. One must wonder how many of those executed might have
been proven innocent if DNA evidence had been available.
Recently, we've been having second thoughts about the death penalty,
based on the number of convicted people who have been proven innocent
by DNA testing and by doubts about the humanity of lethal injection,
which may be, in reality, excruciatingly painful and cruel.
No one should be imprisoned or executed because of false testimony,
incompetent investigators, withheld evidence or inept attorneys.
Today, DNA gives us a tool that must always be used to determine
guilt or innocence, whatever the cost.
As we reconsider the cases of those wrongly accused and convicted,
perhaps it's time to also re-evaluate whether the death penalty is
appropriate in a country that values justice and human rights. If
even one innocent person is executed, it is one too many. If we want
to demonstrate our own humanity, maybe it's time to consider other
means of punishing violent criminals, besides the spectacle of a
nearly public execution.
Tim Masters' case is a nightmare. Imagine if it were you or your
child caught in this web of incompetence and deceit. If Masters
hadn't been 15 years old at the time of the crime that he did not
commit, he might have been dead by now, at the hands of the state of
Colorado, rather than just the victim of 10 years in a prison cell he
should never have occupied.
We Coloradans have some soul-searching to do over our justice system.
That's the very least we can do after the terrible injustice our
state has done to Tim Masters.

Gail Schoettler
(gailschoettler@...<mailto:gailschoettler@...>) is a former
U.S.
ambassador and Colorado lieutenant governor. Her column appears twice
a month.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_8057474?source=rss<http://www.denverpost.com/ci_805\
7474?source=rss>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Feds Should Aid States With DNA Analysis
By LAURIE KELLMAN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 23, 2008; 1:57 PM

WASHINGTON -- Marvin Anderson and other men exonerated by DNA
evidence said Wednesday they want Attorney General Michael Mukasey to
start doling out federal money to help states analyze evidence that
led to other convictions.

"It's fear," Anderson, of Hanover, Va., said of the bureaucratic
resistance to clearing the way for such analyses. DNA evidence
exonerated Anderson in 2001 of a rape conviction, after he was
sentenced to 210 years in prison and served 15. "No one wants to
admit a mistake has been made."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said he will grill
the new attorney general next week on why some $14 million Congress
has set aside for those analyses has not been spent.

Congress made the money available nearly four years ago as part of
sweeping legislation named for Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person in
the United States exonerated from a death row crime through DNA
analysis as evidence.

"The bottom line: DOJ is denying people with claims of innocence with
the chance to prove it," Bloodsworth, said in a statement submitted
to the committee. Like Anderson, he attended the hearing.

Bloodsworth was released in 1993 after DNA evidence cleared his
conviction in the murder of a 9-year-old girl.

Altogether, more than 120 people have been freed from death row,
Leahy said _ a number that points to the need to tighten forensics
practices and give innocent people the resources to prove it.

Other witnesses told stories of being turned down by the Justice
Department for the grants, sometimes without explanation.

"I expect to hear that the department now intends to implement the
law and to solicit and award the millions of dollars of Bloodsworth
grants that have been delayed these past years," Leahy, D-Vt., said
during a Senate hearing, referring to Mukasey's first appearance as
attorney general before the panel next week.

John Morgan, deputy director of the Justice Department's National
Institute of Justice, told the panel the agency wants to see the
grant money reach the states, but the law had constrained the states
from applying properly for the grants. Leahy and the others scoffed
at that explanation, saying the department chose to not help the
applicants.

Whatever the reason for the hangup, Morgan said a newly passed
appropriations law for this year goes a long way to fixing those
problems, Morgan said. The agency was sending out a request for
states to apply for the grants, and hoped to award the money this
fiscal year, he said.

Leahy called Wednesday's session in part to respond to Justice
Department Inspector General Glenn Fine's report last week that more
broadly found that lax oversight by the department caused charges of
negligence and misconduct at some police forensic evidence labs to
remain unchecked. Critics said the gaps raised questions about the
accuracy of DNA evidence used to convict or clear suspects in
criminal cases.

The audit found the Justice Department doesn't require allegations of
wrongdoing at state and local police labs to be reported to
independent investigators. Moreover, 34 percent of independent
investigators charged with overseeing the labs lacked the authority,
ability or resources to do so, according to the report.

© 2008 The Associated Press

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/23/<http://www.wash\
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The penal system imprisons children for life
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The penal system imprisons children for life
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
By: Vanessa Alarcon

No 'justice' for the working-class under capitalism

Forty- two states currently have laws allowing minors to receive life sentences
without parole.

There are at least 2,225 people serving life without parole in U.S. prisons for
crimes committed before they were 18- years-old. Some were as young as 13 when
convicted of a crime. An estimated 59 percent of these child offenders received
life without parole for their first criminal conviction. These offenders are 97
percent male, and 60 percent are African American. In 26 states, life without
parole is a mandatory sentence for committing first-degree murder. Ninety-three
percent of youth offenders sentenced to life without parole are convicted of
murder, but 26 percent are convicted of "felony murder." This law makes any
participant in a felony criminally responsible for deaths that occur during the
crime. In other words, 26 percent of the young people who receive life without
parole did not pull the trigger.
Nationwide, Black youth receive life without parole sentences at a rate
estimated to be 10 times greater than that of white youth (6.6 versus 0.6). In
California, Black youth are 22.5 times more likely to receive this sentence than
white youth. In Pennsylvania, Hispanic youth are 10 times more likely to receive
the sentence than whites.

At least 132 countries have rejected life without parole sentencing for youth.
In the 13 countries outside of the United States that retain this harsh
punishment, there are only about a dozen individuals serving the sentence.

Repression, not 'rehabilitation'

Over 2.2 million people are in jails or prisons in the United States, and an
additional 4.8 million are on probation or parole. Nearly 70 percent are men of
color, almost all of them from working-class communities. The pretense of
"rehabilitation" has been largely dropped from the prison system. In California,
this word was simply deleted from the Corrections

Department's mission statement.

This trend is not simply a vestige from an earlier era. The tendency to lock up
young people of color is one that the U.S. capitalist state constantly
reinforces and intensifies.
For example, Rep. Adam Schiff (D, Calif.) is backing House Resolution 3547, a
piece of "anti-gang" legislation. If passed, it would broaden the legal
definition of "gang-related" activities and toughen the sentences meted out for
such convictions. Among its most horrendous provisions, the bill would allow
federal courts to sentence minors as young as 13-years-old to life in prison
without parole. HR 3547 is just another expression of institutionalized violence
against young people of color-another way to lock them up and throw away the
key.

Take the case of the Jena 6: one of the Six, Mychal Bell, has been sentenced to
18 months for fighting with a white student. Four more are facing second-degree
battery charges and another is facing juvenile charges.

It would have been far worse if a mass movement had not arisen to defend the
Six. Bell had faced at least 22 years, and the others faced attempted murder
charges.

Here in New York City, the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism)
collected over 6,000 signatures demanding the charges be dropped and that the
prosecutor of the Jena 6 case be fired. Activists from other organizations
conducted similar campaigns across the country, collecting tens of thousands of
signatures and holding protests to coincide with the Six's court dates. ANSWER
organized a national day of action to defend the Six, with protests in more than
13 cities on Nov. 7. Responding to the groundswell of pressure, on Dec. 24, the
Congressional Black Caucus demanded that outgoing Louisiana Governor Kathleen
Blanco pardon the Six. She refused.

Despite the many efforts to support the Jena 6, we cannot minimize the pressure
that the racist system brought down on them. As part of his plea bargain, Bell
reportedly has offered to testify against the other five, which we very much
hope he does not do.
The prison system has been a tool for the ruling class to manage politically the
high-tech revolution that began in the late 1970s. It has, on the one hand,
forcibly pushed together the newly unemployed workforce, as well as the urban
communities where jobs are scarce. On the other hand, it has provided the
capitalists with a racist tool to terrorize the rest of the workforce against
fomenting mass resistance.

But in the end, just like the socialization of production during capitalist
development leads to working class unity and organization, the mass
concentration in confinement of the most oppressed will lead to unity of
purpose, tactics and training behind prison walls.

The Attica prison rebellion in 1971 showed the possibilities of what unity and
organization can achieve behind prison walls. Malcolm X became a revolutionary
in prison. Mumia Abu-Jamal works every day to bring revolutionary consciousness
to all our brothers and sisters behind bars

There are few crimes more glaring than what is being perpetrated against our
class by the bosses and their penal system. The working class demands of
solidarity and unity must extend to our whole class, inside and outside of the
system.
http://www.pslweb. org/site/ News2?JServSessi onIdr004= 1r0fdf5w81. app7b&page=
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Bringing AWARENESS to the FrontLines  The American Industrial Prison Complexes
and Criminal Justice
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bush Seeks Surplus via Medicare CutsPersonally, I can't wait to make even more
financial sacrifices to support an illegal war and illegal aliens....


  Baby Boomer Beware! Your President is out to cut your retirement health care
coverage before you ever get it.

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             Bush Seeks Surplus via Medicare Cuts
             By Robert Pear
             The New York Times

             Thursday 31 January 2008

             Washington - In his new budget, to be unveiled Monday, President
Bush will call for large cuts in the growth of Medicare, far exceeding what he
proposed last year, and he will again seek major savings in Medicaid, according
to administration officials and budget documents.

             Over all, the 2009 budget is likely to be the first $3 trillion
spending request by a president.

             Health care savings are a crucial part of Mr. Bush's plan to put the
nation on track to achieve a budget surplus by 2012. But before then, the
officials said Wednesday, the White House anticipates higher deficits in 2008
and 2009, reflecting the current weakness of the economy and the cost of a
stimulus package.

             The president's budget will not seek money for another full year of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pentagon officials said the administration
would request $70 billion for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1. That would
be enough to continue combat operations for several months, until the next
president takes office.

             Mr. Bush has repeatedly said that the costs of Medicare and
Medicaid, which dwarf spending for lawmakers' pet projects, are unsustainable.
The two health programs account for nearly one-fourth of all federal spending,
and their combined cost - $627 billion last year - is expected to double in a
decade.

             Budget documents show that Mr. Bush will propose legislative changes
in Medicare to save $6 billion in the next year and $91 billion from 2009 to
2013. In his last budget, by contrast, his legislative proposals would have
saved $4 billion in the first year and $65.6 billion over five years.

             The president's budget also takes aim at Medicaid, the insurance
program for low-income people. He would pare $1.2 billion from it next year and
nearly $14 billion over five years.

             Those figures do not include tens of billions of dollars that Mr.
Bush wants to save through new regulations. Such rules are not subject to
approval by Congress, but could be revised by a future administration.

             Congressional Democrats often pronounce Mr. Bush's budget dead on
arrival, and they have no reason to make unpopular cuts in this election year.

             But lawmakers say they feel obliged to pass a Medicare bill in the
first half of this year, to spare doctors from a 10 percent cut in Medicare fees
that would otherwise take effect on July 1. Lawmakers say that bill could easily
become a vehicle for other changes in Medicare and Medicaid.

             Most of the Medicare savings in the budget would be achieved by
reducing the annual update in federal payments to hospitals, nursing homes,
hospices, ambulances and home care agencies.

             The budget would not touch payments to insurance companies for
private Medicare Advantage plans, even though many Democrats and independent
experts say those plans are overpaid.

             In the next five years, the largest amount of Medicare savings, by
far, would come from hospitals: $15 billion from an across-the-board reduction
in the annual updates for inpatient care; $25 billion from special payments to
hospitals serving large numbers of poor people; and $20 billion from capital
payments for the construction of hospital buildings and the purchase of
equipment.

             In addition, the president's budget would reduce special Medicare
payments to teaching hospitals, including many in the New York area, by $23
billion over the next five years.

             To justify prior budget proposals, the White House has often cited
the work of an independent federal panel, the Medicare Payment Advisory
Commission. The panel voted this month to recommend that Medicare payments to
hospitals be increased about 3 percent in 2009, to reflect the expected increase
in the cost of goods and services hospitals use. Under the president's budget,
Medicare payments would not keep pace with those costs in 2009 or any subsequent
year.

             The advisory panel found that the special Medicare payments to
teaching hospitals were excessive, as the White House contends. But it
recommended a much more modest cutback than Mr. Bush will propose.

             Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital
Association, said the president's proposals showed "great insensitivity to
teaching hospitals" across the country. The proposals "would undermine our
ability to train young doctors at a time when the nation is facing a shortage of
doctors," Mr. Raske said.

             Under the president's budget, Medicare payment rates for nursing
homes would be frozen in 2009, and payment rates for home health agencies would
be frozen at current levels through 2013.

             William A. Dombi, vice president of the National Association for
Home Care and Hospice, a trade group, said the proposal could affect many of the
three million Medicare beneficiaries who receive home health services each year.

             "Under the proposal," Mr. Dombi said, "75 percent to 80 percent of
home health agencies would be doomed. They would not be able to meet payroll.
They would not be able to operate."

             Within 15 days of sending his budget to Congress, Mr. Bush is
supposed to submit legislation to strengthen the financial condition of Medicare
and to reduce its reliance on general revenues, which include income taxes. The
2003 Medicare law established special procedures to ensure that Congress would
consider such legislation.

             House Democrats want to eliminate this requirement, saying it is a
Republican device to undermine Medicare's status as an entitlement.

           -------

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GOP Exodus in House Bodes Ill for Fall Success Judge Hits Government on Indian
Money Delay Obama Closes the Gap on Hillary Before One-on-One Debate Battle
Concussions Tied to Stress Disorder Do the Suburban Enclaves Need an Umpteenth
Plan? Saul Landau | Afghanistan - The Next Disaster Matt Renner | Telecom Group
Key Player in Immunity Battle Robert Scheer | Obama, Clinton and the War Romney
Accuses McCain of "Dirty Tricks" Democrats Grill Mukasey NYT's Reporter Claims
Rove Influenced 9/11 Commission Report Soldier Suicides Reach Record Level,
Study Shows Bush Seeks Surplus via Medicare Cuts -------------- t r u t h o u t 
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

This was too precious not to pass along...



   A nurse on the pediatric ward, before listening to the little ones chests,
would plug the stethoscope into their ears and let them listen to their own
hearts. Their eyes would always light up with awe, but she never got a response
equal to four-year old David's comment.

   Gently she tucked the stethoscope into his ears and placed the disk over his
heart. 'Listen', she said...........'What do you suppose that is?' He drew his
eyebrows together in a puzzled line and looked up as if lost in the mystery of
the strange tap - tap - tapping deep in his chest. Then his face broke out in a
wondrous grin and he asked, 'Is that Jesus knocking?'


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

This is the best I have ever heard it explained!


One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside
people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance,
self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and
ego.
The other is Good.  It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness,
benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, do I
give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. John 14:27



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

FACTOR 8 ALERT

Last month the Japanese government announced that it would compensate tainted
blood victims in Japan.  Now from Scotland comes the announcement of a
government inquiry into tainted blood infections there.... For years, victims
have been fighting for an official inquiry (they ever protested against former
president Bill Clinton's visit to Glasgow in 2006 as reported by the BBC.) 
Hopefully, the victims will get some answers....

Both Japan and the United Kingdom received blood and blood products from
Arkansas prisons.

Tell your friends what happened...  Remember, people are still dying.

Kelly
www.factor8movie.com<http://www.factor8movie.com/>

Hepatitis C Tainted Blood Probe Gets OK

Feb 6 2008 By Natalie Walker
Glasgow Daily Record

AN INQUIRY will finally be launched into Scotland's tainted blood scandal.

It follows a judge's ruling yesterday which overturns a 2006 refusal to
investigate the deaths of two Scots from hepatitis C.

Lord Mackay of Drumadoon found that government ministers and the Lord Advocate
had acted in a way "incompatible" with the human rights of Eileen O'Hara and Rev
David Black.

Both died in 2003. They were among the thousands of patients given contaminated
blood in the 70s and 80s.

The previous Labour administration had refused to hold an inquiry into the
deaths, saying "no further practical lessons" could be learned. But following
the Court of Session ruling, the SNP repeated their vow to set up an
investigation.

Eileen O'Hara's two daughter's welcomed a "major step" in their fight for
justice.

Annette O'Hara, 39, of Bishopbriggs, near Glasgow, said: "We are delighted that
at last we get an opportunity to find answers to the questions we've had for
many years."

Her sister Roseleen Kennedy, 42, of Scotstoun, Glasgow, said: "This has been
about finding out the truth."

Eileen, who died aged 72, received contaminated blood during heart surgery.

David, a haemophiliac, died at the age of 66, from liver cancer caused by
hepatitis C.

Solicitor advocate Frank Maguire, who acted for their families, said there were
an estimated 4000 victims of contaminated blood in Scotland.

He warned that many of them would not even know they have hepatitis C, adding:
"Nothing has been really done about tracing people."

Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini and ministers are expected to make an announcement
within weeks.

Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said: "The new administration has made clear
we're committed to establishing a public inquiry."

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Just like a bad penny, huh?    Been pretty sick, but I'm some better now.  Had
more than 2,000 emails, and I'm working my way through them, but thought I'd
best let you folks know I'm still alive, since I've received so many messages
from folks wondering what happened to me.

I'm desperately trying to catch up, and will be back on track soon, God
willing.....

Been catching up some on the digest, and I'm really intrigued about the digging
up of the pool.  Wouldn't it be something if it turned out to be the key to the
case.....  Exciting stuff!

Back to work.  Love you guys, and I'll be back in the groove asap.

Hugs,
Linda

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Description
The John Greschner Defense Committee
This committee is dedicated to freeing prisoners who have been incarcerated for
more than 20 years. Both Federal and State justice system hand out sentences
that are unjust and need to be reduced. All of these prisoners are asking for
clemency and pardons, and or commutations so please send in your letters of
support of their freedom to the address below.
US Pardon Attorney
Roger C Adams
500 First Street NW Suite 400
Washington DC 20530
Phone: (202) 616-6070

Please send donations for printing legal materials to be sent in to the
prisoners. and for photo copying the materials for the prisoners. They send us
materials that need to be photo copied and we lack funds and stamps.
The address of the Committee is
853 #2 Sonoma Ave Santa Rosa, CA. 95404
Please make donations pay able to The John Greschner Defense Committee C/O (care
of), Roxanne Davenport Greschner.

John Greschner has been incarcerated for 40 years and has been tortured at the
hands of a repressive regime that has stolen his life. Since the time in his
life when he was housed at USP Marion Ill and tortured there he has done much to
better him self and other prisoners. He and many other Prisoners have been the
blunt end of years of abuse, such as medical neglect. His friends have all been
harmed by the same type of treatment while being housed by the FBOP and State
prison systems. His current address is
John Greschner
V-12545/ federal Reg # 02550-135
CSATF/SP
ASU 161L
PO Box 5248
Corcoran, CA. 93212
Please send stamps and funds to John.
Federal Prisoners
Send funds to:
Federal Bureau of Prisons
Insert Valid Committed Inmate Name
Insert Inmate Eight Digit Register Number
Post Office Box 474701
Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001
Ronald Del Raine is serving a 209-year sentence for a crime that happened almost
41 years ago. And letters to the pardons commissioner would help to aid us in
fighting for his freedom. Federal Reg # 85462-132. He is 77 years old and needs
assistance from folks all over the world. He can only receive money and he
cannot receive stamps. His current address is
USP FLORENCE - HIGH

U.S. PENITENTIARY

P.O. BOX 7000

FLORENCE, CO 81226
. There are many other prisoners who we will put on our list to free at a latter
date. These prisoners are now on our list to aid in their freedom. Send them
funds The location of these Federal Prisoners can be obtained at www.bop.gov
click on to the inmate locator and type in their Federal Reg #. Their current
addresses are

Edgar Hevle Federal Reg # 13950-116
USP FLORENCE ADMAX

U.S. PENITENTIARY

PO BOX 8500

FLORENCE, CO 81226

Tyler Bingham Federal Reg # 03325-091
USP FLORENCE ADMAX

U.S. PENITENTIARY

PO BOX 8500

FLORENCE, CO 81226

Barry Byron Mills Federal Reg# 14559-116
USP FLORENCE ADMAX
U.S. PENITENTIARY
PO BOX 8500
FLORENCE, CO 81226

Tommy Silverstein Federal Reg #14634-116
USP FLORENCE ADMAX

U.S. PENITENTIARY

PO BOX 8500

FLORENCE, CO 81226

Leonard Peltier # 89637-132
USP LEWISBURG
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 1000
LEWISBURG, PA 17837

Oscar Lopez-Rivera # 87651-024
FCI TERRE HAUTE
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 33
TERRE HAUTE, IN 47808

Bill Dunne # 10916-086
USP BIG SANDY
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 2068
INEZ, KY 41224

George Martorano #12973-004
FCI COLEMAN MEDIUM
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 1032
COLEMAN, FL 33521

State prisoners
JOHN PERROTTI
TCI*167712
PO BOX 901
LEAVITTSBURG
OHIO 44430

JOHN CASTILLO JR.
#1045776
GEO FACTILY
4000 N. 10TH. ST.
BRIDGEPORT,TEXAS 76426
Scott Seelye
oid# 100679
970 Picket ST. N.
Bayport, MN. 55003-1490
Scott Seeley can only receive money and not stamps. He is a prisoner who
survived USP Marion Ill. And the torture that happened there. Please send him
money and please write letters to representative in the State of MN where Scott
is located as well as the London office of Amnesty International. Please write
to and say action requesting that "the funds for victims of torture (an
international effort to assist third world victims of gov torture) be utilized
to assist with medical, psychotherapy and recovery in the case of the Native
American, Scott Seeley and Leonard Peltier, that this request is based upon the
documented incidences of gov employed tortures spanning 30 years of
incarceration and documented in State and Federal investigations and the current
and past denials of medical care by prison officials.

Pilar Gimeno
Amnesty International
International Secretariat
1 Easton Street
London, WCIXO DW
United Kingdom

Send a copy to Rep Karen Clark
MN House of Representative Room 303
175 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. M.L. King Blvd
St. Paul, MN 55155 USA

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Description
The John Greschner Defense Committee
This committee is dedicated to freeing prisoners who have been incarcerated for
more than 20 years. Both Federal and State justice system hand out sentences
that are unjust and need to be reduced. All of these prisoners are asking for
clemency and pardons, and or commutations so please send in your letters of
support of their freedom to the address below.
US Pardon Attorney
Roger C Adams
500 First Street NW Suite 400
Washington DC 20530
Phone: (202) 616-6070

Please send donations for printing legal materials to be sent in to the
prisoners. and for photo copying the materials for the prisoners. They send us
materials that need to be photo copied and we lack funds and stamps.
The address of the Committee is
853 #2 Sonoma Ave Santa Rosa, CA. 95404
Please make donations pay able to The John Greschner Defense Committee C/O (care
of), Roxanne Davenport Greschner.

John Greschner has been incarcerated for 40 years and has been tortured at the
hands of a repressive regime that has stolen his life. Since the time in his
life when he was housed at USP Marion Ill and tortured there he has done much to
better him self and other prisoners. He and many other Prisoners have been the
blunt end of years of abuse, such as medical neglect. His friends have all been
harmed by the same type of treatment while being housed by the FBOP and State
prison systems. His current address is
John Greschner
V-12545/ federal Reg # 02550-135
CSATF/SP
ASU 161L
PO Box 5248
Corcoran, CA. 93212
Please send stamps and funds to John.
Federal Prisoners
Send funds to:
Federal Bureau of Prisons
Insert Valid Committed Inmate Name
Insert Inmate Eight Digit Register Number
Post Office Box 474701
Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001
Ronald Del Raine is serving a 209-year sentence for a crime that happened almost
41 years ago. And letters to the pardons commissioner would help to aid us in
fighting for his freedom. Federal Reg # 85462-132. He is 77 years old and needs
assistance from folks all over the world. He can only receive money and he
cannot receive stamps. His current address is
USP FLORENCE - HIGH

U.S. PENITENTIARY

P.O. BOX 7000

FLORENCE, CO 81226
. There are many other prisoners who we will put on our list to free at a latter
date. These prisoners are now on our list to aid in their freedom. Send them
funds The location of these Federal Prisoners can be obtained at www.bop.gov
click on to the inmate locator and type in their Federal Reg #. Their current
addresses are

Edgar Hevle Federal Reg # 13950-116
USP FLORENCE ADMAX

U.S. PENITENTIARY

PO BOX 8500

FLORENCE, CO 81226

Tyler Bingham Federal Reg # 03325-091
USP FLORENCE ADMAX

U.S. PENITENTIARY

PO BOX 8500

FLORENCE, CO 81226

Barry Byron Mills Federal Reg# 14559-116
USP FLORENCE ADMAX
U.S. PENITENTIARY
PO BOX 8500
FLORENCE, CO 81226

Tommy Silverstein Federal Reg #14634-116
USP FLORENCE ADMAX

U.S. PENITENTIARY

PO BOX 8500

FLORENCE, CO 81226

Leonard Peltier # 89637-132
USP LEWISBURG
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 1000
LEWISBURG, PA 17837

Oscar Lopez-Rivera # 87651-024
FCI TERRE HAUTE
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 33
TERRE HAUTE, IN 47808

Bill Dunne # 10916-086
USP BIG SANDY
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 2068
INEZ, KY 41224

George Martorano #12973-004
FCI COLEMAN MEDIUM
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 1032
COLEMAN, FL 33521

State prisoners
JOHN PERROTTI
TCI*167712
PO BOX 901
LEAVITTSBURG
OHIO 44430

JOHN CASTILLO JR.
#1045776
GEO FACTILY
4000 N. 10TH. ST.
BRIDGEPORT,TEXAS 76426
Scott Seelye
oid# 100679
970 Picket ST. N.
Bayport, MN. 55003-1490
Scott Seeley can only receive money and not stamps. He is a prisoner who
survived USP Marion Ill. And the torture that happened there. Please send him
money and please write letters to representative in the State of MN where Scott
is located as well as the London office of Amnesty International. Please write
to and say action requesting that "the funds for victims of torture (an
international effort to assist third world victims of gov torture) be utilized
to assist with medical, psychotherapy and recovery in the case of the Native
American, Scott Seeley and Leonard Peltier, that this request is based upon the
documented incidences of gov employed tortures spanning 30 years of
incarceration and documented in State and Federal investigations and the current
and past denials of medical care by prison officials.

Pilar Gimeno
Amnesty International
International Secretariat
1 Easton Street
London, WCIXO DW
United Kingdom

Send a copy to Rep Karen Clark
MN House of Representative Room 303
175 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. M.L. King Blvd
St. Paul, MN 55155 USA

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I received the following request from a good friend, and am forwarding it,
hoping that someone can help.  I wish I could do this, but my health is just too
unpredictable, so I couldn't be reliable enough.
If you are willing to undertake this site, please reply to either the "FROM" or
"REPLY TO" addresses in the message below and please NOT to me, as I am trying
to dig out from under more than 2,000 e-mail messages....
Peace and Blessings,
Linda
From: djkendrick@...<mailto:djkendrick@...>
Reply-to: rayhillprison@yahoogroups.com<mailto:rayhillprison@yahoogroups.com>
To: rayhillprison@yahoogroups.com<mailto:rayhillprison@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: 3/21/2008 3:16:34 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: [rayhillprison] Help wanted.



   Anyone out there who would like to run a website for a guy on Death Row at the
Polunsky Unit in Texas?

   All fees paid by the offender.  Someone who has a basic knowledge of running a
is website needed.  Also needed is someone who is dedicated and willing to be
involved for the long-haul.

   Please contact me if interested.  ONLY serious responses please.

   Deb K.







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL
Home<http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom0\
0030000000001>.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Memories of Clinton, past......



       FROM 2001
         February 9 - One Clinton critic says the former president will become a
'poster child on how not to leave the White House.' NBC News' Lisa Myers
         reports.

         By Lisa Myers
         NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT

         WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - Twenty days after he left the presidency, there
were new questions Friday about whether the Clintons removed even more
government property from the White House without disclosing it.
         The new questions come to light from a government list of furniture the
Clinton's returned to the White House on Wednesday night.

         IT INCLUDES not only $28,000 in gifts listed on their financial
disclosure sheet but also six new items that the Clintons had not even reported
taking with them: a gaming table inlaid with the presidential seal, a television
armoire, two prints and two more tables. The Park Service says virtually all the
items taken and returned are in fact government property.

         A spokesman for the former president says the gifts were given to the
Clintons when he was president-elect, before he officially took office, so they
didn't have to be disclosed. She says the Clintons considered them personal
gifts but sent them back "just to be safe."

         However, The Washington Post reported Friday that the Clintons started
shipping White House furniture to their new home in New York more than a year
ago, without revealing it.

         Clinton critics see a pattern.

         "We have never seen a President leave office in a more tawdry fashion,"
said Chuck Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity. "In fact, Bill Clinton will
go down as the poster child on how not to leave the White House. I mean, you
cannot top what he has done in the last few days, the last three weeks - it's
beyond the pale."

         There was also more uproar about the pardon of fugitive billionaire Mark
Rich. Time magazine reported Friday that Rich's ex-wife, Denise, gave
         the Clinton presidential library at least $400,000 and, sources said,
pledged even more.

         "We need to find out why," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of the
House Government Reform committee, "and I don't think Bill Clinton has given
         a proper explanation as to why he pardoned Marc Rich."  Rich pardon
probe widens.

         GOLF CLUB CONTROVERSY

         And if that weren't enough, there was also a new controversy over the
fact that Clinton played golf Wednesday at what many say is a segregated
         golf club - exclusive Indian Creek Country Club in Miami.

         The Democratic mayor of Indian Creek Village, Len Miller, said Clinton
should not have played there.
         "This club does not like people like me," he said, "people who are
Jewish or people who are of color."

         Clinton spokesman Jake Siewert said that the President doesn't condone
discrimination and that he pardoned Marc Rich on the merits of his
         case. He also said the former president deserves some space.

         "I think he has a right to a little bit more of a life as a private
citizen now," Siewert said. "And it might be time for the media to lighten up a
little bit."
         But even the president's friends complain that he keeps giving
ammunition to his enemies.

         Said one embarrassed Democrat: "This is a nightmare. It will never end."


Those last words are downright prophetic, if the Clinton's are allowed to
pollute the White House with their presence, again.  And, remember - NOT
everything they stole made it back where it belongs.  The Clintons are in fact,
still in possession of STOLEN GOVERNMENT PROPERTY.

And their staff VANDALIZED the White House on their way out of town:

White House Vandalized In Transition, G.A.O. Finds
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: June 12, 2002
The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said today that
''damage, theft, vandalism and pranks did occur in the White House complex'' in
the presidential transition from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. The agency put
the cost at $13,000 to $14,000, including $4,850 to replace computer keyboards,
many with damaged or missing W keys.

Some of the damage, it said, was clearly intentional. Glue was smeared on desk
drawers. Messages disparaging President Bush were left on signs and in telephone
voice mail. A few of the messages used profane or obscene language.

''A Secret Service report documented the theft of a presidential seal that was
12 inches in diameter from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building,'' next to
the White House, on Jan. 19, 2001, the accounting office said.

Six White House employees told investigators that they had seen graffiti
derogatory to Mr. Bush on the wall of a stall in a men's room. Other White House
employees saw a sticker in a filing cabinet that said, ''Jail to the thief,''
implying that Mr. Bush had stolen the 2000 election. The report said all these
employees were members of the current White House, but did not make clear
whether any had also worked in the Clinton White House.

The accounting office said similar pranks were reported in prior transitions,
including the one from Mr. Bush's father to Mr. Clinton in 1993. ''We were
unable to conclude,'' it said, ''whether the 2001 transition was worse than
previous ones.''

The accounting office interviewed more than 100 government employees, but said
it could not establish who was responsible for the damage and the pranks.

''Any intentional damage at the White House complex, which is a national
treasure, is both inappropriate and a serious matter,'' the report said. ''The
theft of or willful damage to government property would constitute a criminal
act.''

The investigation was undertaken in response to a request from Representative
Bob Barr, Republican of Georgia, one of Mr. Clinton's harshest critics. ''The
Clinton administration treated the White House worse than college freshmen
checking out of their dorm rooms,'' Mr. Barr said today.

The Bush White House was deeply disappointed with the report. Alberto R.
Gonzales, counsel to President Bush, had demanded that the accounting office
provide more detail, including the full text of graffiti and other messages that
were ''especially offensive or vulgar.''

The accounting office said such details were unnecessary and inappropriate. But
Bush administration officials said the details would have revealed the
''mind-set or intentions'' of Clinton administration pranksters. Moreover, in a
response much longer than the actual report, the Bush administration said, ''It
appears that the G.A.O. has undertaken a concerted effort to downplay the damage
found in the White House complex.''

In several instances, it appears, Clinton and Bush administration officials
simply disagreed about the normal condition of federal offices. Bush officials
said they had found offices full of trash, broken furniture and filthy carpets.
Clinton administration officials insisted that the dirt and damage reflected
normal wear and tear.

The accounting office confirmed that $9,324 had been spent to repair or replace
various items and to clean offices. That included $4,850 for 62 keyboards,
$2,040 for 26 cellphones and $1,150 for professional cleaning. In addition, the
White House and the General Services Administration estimated that it cost
$3,750 to $4,675 to replace missing doorknobs, medallions and office signs and
the large presidential seal, the accounting office said.

Julia M. Payne, a spokeswoman for Mr. Clinton, referred questions to Jennifer
Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee.

''The real scandal here,'' Ms. Palmieri said, ''is how much time and money the
Republicans have wasted in a vendetta against the Clinton administration. It's
troubling that the White House cooperated so enthusiastically with this
investigation, but refused to provide the G.A.O. with records of the energy task
force headed by Vice President Cheney.''

I worked for the federal government when this happened, and part of my jobs was
filing GAO Reports.  I saw the report.  This REALLY happened, no matter what
lies you find about it on the Internet.

Here is the actual first page of the report itself, from the GAO website, for
the doubters:




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GAO-02-360 The White House: Allegations of Damage During the 2001 Presidential
Transition, June 7, 2002
The White House: Allegations of Damage During the 2001 Presidential Transition 
GAO-02-360<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02360.pdf>  June 7, 2002  (215 pages)
PDF<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02360.pdf>


Damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks occurred in the White House complex during
the 2001 presidential transition. Several Executive Office of the President
(EOP) staff claim that they observed (1) messy offices containing excessive
trash or personal items, (2) numerous prank signs containing derogatory and
offensive statements about the president, (3) government property that was
damaged, and (4) missing items. Further, EOP staff believed that what they
observed during the transition was done intentionally. Some former Clinton
administration staff acknowledged that they observed some damaged items and
prank signs. However, the former Clinton administration staff said that (1) the
amount of trash found during the transition was what could be expected; (2) they
did not take the missing items; (3) some furniture was unintentionally broken
before the transition, and little money was spent on repairs and upkeep during
the administration; and (4) many of the reported observations were not of
vandalism. This report makes several recommendations regarding the prevention
and documentation of vandalism during future presidential transitions.

Subject Terms
Crimes
Presidential transition
Property damages
Crime prevention



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THOUGHTS TO PONDER, AS YOU SELECT YOUR CANDIDATE....

Linda Tant Miller


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

A VERY POWERFUL POST!


http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-<http://www.latimes.com/n\
ews/printedition/opinion/la-oe->
hall27mar27,1,3039092.story?track=rss
From the Los Angeles Times
A sentence too close to death

Wrongly convicted, I am proof that the state should reconsider
execution.
By Harold Hall

March 27, 2008

Ialmost died for someone else's crime. Had the jury listened to the
prosecutor, I would have been sent to death row, and even might have
been executed by now. Instead, I spent nearly 20 years in prison
before new evidence proved my innocence and I was able to walk away a
free man.

I'm far from the only one who lost decades of my life wrongfully
imprisoned. Dozens like me have been exonerated by DNA or other new
evidence. Just last week, 56-year-old Willie Earl Green was released
in Los Angeles after the sole eyewitness in his case recanted. He'd
done 24 years of a 33-year-to-life sentence at San Quentin.

I was 18 years old in 1985 when the police in South L.A. arrested me
for a double homicide and rape. I was interrogated for 17
excruciating hours, handcuffed to a chair and denied food and water.
The police claimed that they had evidence proving my guilt. I was
young and scared and desperate to stop the abuse -- so I told the
police what they wanted to hear. I was wrongfully convicted based on
that coerced confession and the false testimony of a jailhouse
informant.

The jury sentenced me to life in prison without parole. Some might
say I was lucky; I had escaped the executioner's needle.

But after spending nearly 20 years in a living hell, I can't really
see it that way. No matter which prison I was in -- Lancaster,
Folsom, Corcoran -- I was under constant surveillance, stripped of
any privacy or autonomy. I was at the mercy of the prison guards, who
could make my life as miserable as they wished. I lived in constant
fear of prison lockdowns, which could last for months; we would not
be allowed out of our cells and could take only "bird baths" in the
cell sink.

I refused to let my family visit me. Contact with the outside world
had become unbearable. I didn't want to hear stories of family
outings or other outside news. That life was over unless I could
prove my innocence. I had not been sentenced to execution, but I had
been sentenced to die in prison.

Because I was sentenced to life without parole, exoneration was my
only chance for release. I repeatedly asked for DNA testing of the
evidence in my case, but for years my request was denied by the
courts. In 2003, a court looked again at the jailhouse informant and
granted me a new trial. As a result, the DNA evidence was finally
tested, proving my innocence. In 2004, I was finally free.

I returned to Los Angeles a very different man. Living in prison
without hope of parole is a horrible punishment that breaks a person
down. I maintained my sanity, but I met inmates who would gladly have
accepted execution rather than continue living in those conditions.

As horrible as this sentence is, it does give the state an
opportunity for redemption: When an inmate like me proves his
innocence, at least the state can set him free. No one can give me
back those 19 years of my life, but I am thankful I am here today.

Ruben Cantu was not so lucky. Cantu was just 26 when Texas executed
him in 1993. Now, even the prosecutor who sent Cantu to his death
thinks that he was probably innocent, the victim of mistaken
eyewitness identification and a court system that sacrifices accuracy
in the name of efficiency. We know that 127 innocent men and women
have been freed from death rows in the U.S. since 1973. What we will
never know is how many innocent people have been executed.

On Friday, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of
Justice will hold its third and final hearing about problems with the
state's death penalty, including the length of appeals, access to
lawyers and wrongful convictions. The commission will then begin
three months of deliberations and draft a report to the Legislature.
Among the questions the commission must grapple with is this: Can
California's broken death penalty be fixed, and if so, at what price?
But given all the problems -- and the stakes -- the commission should
tell the Legislature, and the people of California, that it is time
to reconsider whether we need to seek executions at all.

We have an alternative. Sentencing people to die in prison of old age
and illness punishes without pretending that we have a foolproof
legal system. I'm a living example that we don't. Sadly, Ruben Cantu
cannot say the same.

Harold Hall works for the Indigent Criminal Defense Appointments
Program of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.

Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times ._,_.___

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear friends;

I've just visited the web site of one of my friends on which I found a banner
that really excited me, and which I plan to place on every page of my web sites.

Description:  The banner runs continuously and rotates photographs of missing
children. The images are updated automatically by our web server to assure that
only current information is displayed. The banner links to www.missingkids.com,
providing more information on each child.

You can get the html for this banner, to copy and paste onto your own websites
from this link
http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US\
&PageId=683<http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageC\
ountry=en_US&PageId=683>

The Missing & Exploited Children web site offers a WIDE VARIETY of other website
banners too, if you are looking for something about internet dangers for kids,
or any other issue involving the exploitation of children.  Here's a link to the
page from which you can select the type of banner you'd like to use on your site
http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US\
&PageId=251<http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageC\
ountry=en_US&PageId=251>

Peace and Blessings,
Linda Tant Miller

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

There used to be an excellent activist named Manuella Theiss who worked hard for
prison reform, and was on several Yahoo Groups lists.  I lost track of Manuella,
and have recently been contacted by someone who is looking for her.

If this reaches Manuella, or if you know how to contact her, please tell her
that Shanna Baldwin Moore is looking for her, and she can contact her at
shanna@...<mailto:shanna@...>

PLEASE don't respond to me, but refer your response to Manuella or Shanna.

Peace and Blessings,
Linda Tant Miller

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi,

I just got word from my stepmother that my dad is near death.  He got pneumonia,
and his heart is only working at 20%.  They asked her about whether or not to
resuscitate him if his heart stops, and she said "no", because they told her it
would break lots of bones and cause him lots of pain, and his broken bones won't
heal.  It's a broken knee that hasn't healed for 3 years now, that's the source
of his current health crisis.

I'll be going to Whidbey Island tomorrow, and I don't know how long I'll be
gone.  If I get a chance to get on his computer, I will check in and let
everyone know how things are going.

Please pray for God to ease his suffering, and his passing.  I can't believe
he'll really die - I can't imagine a world without my Dad, but it's a day that
comes to most of us, if we live long enough.  I am just grateful that I've had
him this long.  Life gets really hard when you get old and start losing the
people you most love.  Hold yours close and show them your love every day,
because you don't always have any warning before you lose them.

Peace and Blessings,
Linda



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]