Wednesday RoundUp: Prison Articles Around the Web

Get Involved

1. Annual appeal | Prisoners of the Census
2. The Conversation Project: Beyond Bars « Wilsonville Public Library Blog

Drug War

1. ACSblog | Prison policy/Incarceration | American Constitution Society

Prison Issues

1. 3 caught with prison escapee face charges of helping him | Philadelphia Daily News | 12/16/2009
2. Fulton County Jailer Charged with Excessive Force After Striking a Handcuffed Inmate with a Milk Crate | webnewswire.com
3. Unsupervised prisoner release imminent « Prisonmovement's Weblog
4. Correctional Management and Prison Issues - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com
5. Sentence commuted for woman convicted of manslaughter | Bradenton Sarasota Drigg

Death Penalty

1. The death penalty debate - KFOR

Wrongful Convictions

1. The Associated Press: DNA testing clears man who served 28 years
2. DNA evidence may free prisoner after 35 years
3. Florida Issues: The Florida Actual Innocence Commission
4. Study says widen access to DNA tests - The Boston Globe

prison, crime, law, murder, rape, death penalty, death sentence, death row, capital punishment, innocence project, innocence, wrongful conviction, exonerated, dna testing

Monday Roundup: Must Read Articles About Prison

Wrongful Convictions/Exonerations

1. Lake Wales News > News > Local > ‘I’ve been waiting ... for this miracle’
2. Former detective won't say Tuite was overlooked | The San Diego Union-Tribune
3. Sarasota Criminal Justice Reform: Why are innocent persons sentenced to prison?
4. Re: We need to know why innocent people are sent to prison
5. Fighting Wrongful Convictions | BU Today
6. Professional Responsibility: More allegations of prosecutorial misconduct; Second Circuit rules protected by immunity
7. D’Alemberte Petitions for Innocence Commission | The Jacksonville Observer
8. Connecticut searching for any wrongful convictions

Take Action

1. 12 Days of Christmas: Make That Call for Leonard Peltier
2. idealist.org - Spiritual Care Giver: Visit Immigrant Detainees
3. Carlton Gary (Georgians For Alternatives to the Death Penalty) - Fax a Letter

Death Penalty

1. ExecutedToday.com » 10 executions that defined the 2000s
2. Update: Parole board still deliberating in Carlton Gary case, may not issue decision today
3. Fewer Texas inmates sentenced to death -- latimes.com

In Prison

1. The Bloodhound Cell Phone Detector 'Sniffs Out' Contraband Cell Phones in
2. Inmate is found dead in Rockville jail - washingtonpost.com
3. Two Reality Shows Lift Veil on Cook County Jail
4. Privatizing prisons - American Police Beat Magazine
5. California Slashing Millions from Prison Education « Prisonmovement's Weblog

Investigation Procedure

1. Fingerprint trouble plagues others besides HPD | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Technorati Tags: prison, crime, law, exoneration, wrongful conviction, wrongfully convicted, innoent, innoence, murder, rape, death penalty, death row, death sentence, capital punishment

From The Innocence Project

It has been a remarkable year at the Innocence Project. We've freed innocent Americans and won policy reforms that will prevent countless wrongful convictions.

We couldn’t have achieved these victories for justice in 2009 without the partnership of our online community. I’m writing to ask for your support in our pursuit of freedom and justice in 2010.
 
Please donate today -- your gift could open the prison door to free an innocent person.

Looking back on 2009, I’m incredibly proud of how much we’ve accomplished. Here are just a few examples from a successful year:

— Steven Barnes of New York was exonerated in January, ringing in the New Year with an astounding story of freedom and survival.

— Ernest Sonnier of Texas was freed in August after serving 23 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

— So far this year, 18 people in the United States have been exonerated through DNA testing. The growing number of exonerations -- 245 to date -- has brought an increased need for our services. We currently represent over 250 clients across the country and we receive more than 300 new requests for assistance each month. Our intake staff works tirelessly to evaluate each and every request.

—The Innocence Project helped pass 19 state laws this year -- from evidence preservation reforms in Nevada, North Carolina and Oregon to exoneree compensation laws in Mississippi, Nevada and Texas.

—The National Academy of Sciences released a report this year calling for sweeping changes to our country’s forensic science system. We worked with dozens of partners to advocate for reforms that will ensure that our courts rely on solid science.

—Our work doesn’t end when clients leave prison. This year, our social work team worked with 40 people recently freed from prison, easing their adjustment to life after exoneration and helping them secure housing, jobs, transportation and health services.

We’ll be sure to keep you updated by email as events unfold in 2010. But the exonerations and reforms don’t just happen -- your support makes them possible. Nearly half of our funding this year came from generous and committed individual donors.

Please donate to the Innocence Project this holiday season. We’re working hard to make freedom a reality for wrongfully convicted Americans and to bring about critical changes in the system. Will you join us?

Thank you and Happy Holidays,

Barry Scheck
Co-Director
The Innocence Project

P.S. — a donation to the Innocence Project makes a wonderful and meaningful holiday present. Click here to make a gift donation in the name of a friend or relative.

Technorati Tags: innocence project, donate, donation, innocence, wrongful conviction, exonerated, barry scheck, prison, crime, law

New Student Group at Brown Focuses on Prison Issues

Brown University is home to a new student group that meets to discuss prison issues and conditions. The meetings are open to the public and events are posted on Facebook.

Bruce Reilly served nearly 12 years in Rhode Island’s Adult Correctional Institution (ACI) for killing a community college professor in 1992. Now out of jail, he recently sat in a small meeting room in the J. Walter Wilson building on the Brown campus with about a dozen Brown students, talking of his experiences with racial divisions in prison and his current work advocating for better treatment of inmates.

Reilly’s visit was sponsored by the Prison Discussion Group, a new student organization that meets every Sunday night to learn about current issues and conditions in Rhode Island prisons. Coordinated by Becky Mer ’10, the group grew out of concerns among members of a Swearer Center service activity, SPACE, that brings arts into local prisons.

Each meeting features a speaker who has worked with prison inmates, followed by questions and then discussions of often controversial aspects of prison management and life. Topics of the meetings include legal, social, and political background on the Rhode Island criminal justice and prison systems, details on how the ACI operates, federal laws pertaining to prisons, the international criminal justice system, and undocumented immigrants in the criminal justice system.

Read the rest: Behind the razor wire | Today at Brown

Technorati Tags: brown university, prison discussion group, prison issues, prison conditions, inmate, prison, crime, law

NCADP Annual Conference - Last Day For Early Bird Registration

NCADP Annual Conference!
January 14-17, 2010

The Seelbach Hilton Louisville Hotel
500 Fourth Street
Louisville, Kentucky

Friday's the last day for Early Bird registration! After Dec 4, registration returns to the regular rate. Save $50, and join luminaries like:

Martina Correia, Troy Davis' sister
Tony Amsterdam, who successfully argued the Furman case
Sister Helen Prejean
Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Hip-Hop Caucus
Rev. Barry Lynn, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Conference Registration: $175 ($225 after December 4, 2009), includes Award Dinner.

Check the Conference website for more info!

Technorati Tags: NCADP, conference, death penalty, capital punishment, death sentence, prison, crime, law

Win a Phone Call From Sister Helen Prejean

Texas Moratorium Network is having a drawing for someone to win a phone call from Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking" and one of the world's leading advocates for abolishing the death penalty. Invite your friends to become a fan of the Texas Moratorium Network Facebook page and to enter the drawing, which will be held on December 15. It is free to enter.

Click here to enter the drawing.

Read more here: Texas Moratorium Network

Technorati Tags: texas, helen prejean, drawing, contest, win, prison, crime, law, death penalty, capital punishment

Centurion Ministries: Freeing the Innocent

Here's a great article about Jim McCloskey and Centurion Ministries, a group devoted to freeing innocent prisoners:

Jim McCloskey has spent the past 30 years in and out of prisons. His offices at Centurion Ministries in Princeton, N.J., show why: The pictures and newspaper articles covering the walls tell one story after another of Mr. McCloskey's tireless work to free innocent men and women from life sentences or death row.

But McCloskey says it took a couple of detours until he finally found, as he puts it, "a life of authenticity – what I think of as a calling."

After graduating from Bucknell University and a three-year stint in the US Navy (where he was awarded the Bronze Star for valor), McCloskey began to climb the corporate ladder.

But after 13 years, even though he'd achieved success, he felt unfulfilled. So, at the age of 37, he surprised his friends and family by entering Princeton Theological Seminary to become an ordained Presbyterian minister.

In his second year at seminary, McCloskey served as a student chaplain at Trenton (N.J.) State Prison. Ministering to dozens of inmates, he heard many stories of woe and regret. But one inmate in particular, Jorge de los Santos, convicted of murder and serving a life sentence, made a deep impression.

"His cries of innocence haunted me," McCloskey says. "And he challenged me to do something." After spending some long nights of soul-searching, McCloskey made another life-changing decision. Convinced of Mr. de los Santos's sincerity, he withdrew from seminary for a full year to devote himself to proving de los Santos's innocence.

Living on his savings, McCloskey dug in. And his work paid off. Through persistence, he uncovered duplicity in the testimony of the star witness – another inmate incarcerated with de los Santos at the local county jail, ironically similarly named Delli Santi (of the saints).

"Neither of them were saints," McCloskey says with a laugh. But "while Jorge was a drug addict, he wasn't a murderer."

In his research on the case, McCloskey discovered a deal between the witness and the district attorney's office that the jury had never heard about. McCloskey's diligence led to Delli Santi's admission that he had falsely accused Jorge to avoid prison time.

At the time of the trial, the witness, Delli Santi, walked out of jail immediately after testifying falsely. And de los Santos went to prison. Even the judge in the appeals court concurred that this case had serious flaws. He remarked that the jailhouse testimony "reeked of perjury and the prosecutor knew it."

De los Santos's conviction was overturned – and an innocent man walked out of prison after seven years of wrongful incarceration. His cries had, indeed, been heard.

With that victory, McCloskey knew he had found his calling.

Read the rest: He helps innocent prisoners win their freedom | csmonitor.com

Technorati Tags: centurion ministries, jim mccloskey, innocence, wrongul conviction, wrongfully convicted, exonerated, prison, crime, law