Our goal is to sign up 25 new monthly donors in the month of December. Whaddya say? Can you chip in a little a month to support people in prison in PA.
Monthly sustainers are a critical part of community organizing and help us gather unrestricted funds. This money is used for: direct assistance to people in prison and returning citizens (hard to write a grant for that) stamps, printing newsletters and commutation kits, speaker stipends as well as transportation costs to visit prisons, the state capitol and faraway meetings and conferences.
As of December 2020 we have 34 persistent givers making everything we do possible!! They are donating at levels of $5 up to $30 a month!
Your $5 a month becomes $60 over the year. Your $10 a month becomes $120 over the year. Your $20 a month becomes $240 over the year. Your $25 a month becomes $300 over the year. Your $30 a month becomes $360 over the year.
If you sign up to be a monthly sustainer giving at least $10 a month in December, you can get a free print! If you are already a sustainer and want to up your giving by $5 a month you get a print too! After you sign up, we will email you to get your print order and shipping or Pittsburgh pick up details. You can view all the print options by looking at the print sale website below.
Let’s Get Free is raising a whopping $40,000 to amplify the message that ‘Life Sentences are Death Sentences’ in Pennsylvania. PA has one of the largest populations of people sentenced to die in prison in the US–5,300. We need to build public awareness to strengthen our movement to bring our people home. We need to push our cause outside of our committed justice bubbles. We want lawmakers and residents across PA to see a few of the faces who have been sentenced to die.
Help us reach the unthinkable!! One billboard on the turnpike for 2 months can make 1 million impressions. Millions of people who have never thought about this issue will be exposed.
The billboards will be launched in conjunction with each of the four sessions of merit review and public hearings in 2021. These hearings are important stages in the commutation process, one of the only ways for people with life sentences to be released from prison.
The Math
Each billboard lease for 2 months is : $3000 3 billboards for 2 months : $9000
Multiplied by 4 equals $36,000 to rent for billboards for the whole year. Total cost of printing 3 boards: $3,900
This totals: $39.900
We have already raised $7000 for the billboard campaign. All the remaining money that does not go to billboards will go to ads on city bus shelters and public buses.
We have been working to transform the amazing art we received from our art contest into public service announcements. Don’t you want to see this art and messaging raising awareness about Death by Incarceration on buses all across the state? We do!!
If 2,000 people donate $20 bucks – We got this! If 1,000 people donate $40 bucks- We got this! If 500 people donate $80 bucks -We got this! If 250 people donate $160 bucks– We got this!
Also!!! The women on the billboards are featured in a series of short films that will be accessible on our website.
The women featured on this image are Tameka Flowers, Charmaine Pfender and Sarita Miller. Their images will not be posted on billboards without their consent. This graphic was designed by the People’s Paper Coop and the stills are from footage shot by Tusko films.
GRATITUDE ACROSS THE LATITUDES Community!!
With your contribution, this messaging will truly be an effort of the grass roots! Help us shift the punishment paradigm and bring our loved ones home.
Let’s Get Free is proud members of the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration. If you are a part of the movement to end death by incarceration and want to join our committee to work on future messaging –> Email: letsgetfreepa@gmail.com——————————
[Image Description of Billboard: This graphic is rectangular and has an orange pink sherbert back ground. Featured on the right of the image are photographs of three faces: Tameka, Charmaine and Sarita. Tameka is a Black woman with her hair pulled back in a neat pile on top of her head. She has a cross necklace. Char is a white person that appears gender neutral with a round face and short hair. Sarita is Black woman with straight hair that frames her face and ends at her shoulders. All the faces are wearing expressions as if in conversation. In big letters on the left the words: 5300 people in PA are sentenced to die in prison. To the bottom right are the words yellow: End Death by Incarceration. Underneath in white: letsgetfree.info]
We learned just last week that our beloved elder Russell Maroon Shoatz contracted COVID 19. Maroon is a prisoner in Pennsylvania and a former Black Panther who has been imprisoned since 1970. He is 77 years old. He has been living with stage 4 colon cancer since last year.
Just as he was exiting the prison walls last week to get the tumor removed at a hospital, he was stopped at the door and asked to take a COVID test. He tested positive. Immediately they sent him to a small gymnasium where others with COVID are being quarantined in the prison. When he got there, he found 29 senior prisoners who said to him: “welcome. We’ve been waiting for you, we figured it wasn’t long before you got it too.”
This means that there are 30 seniors with COVID in a dank, cold gymnasium in a prison in PA. They are being held under the most inhumane conditions imaginable. 30 men including Maroon had access to only one bathroom. Maroon was put in a space without a light and had go to the bathroom on himself because he couldn’t risk getting up and falling.
Maroon’s family and the community mobilized and we won his transfer to the infirmary. But we need him to come home.
But this human rights catastrophe is repeating itself across the state and across the country because prisons are a death trap in the age of COVID. Prisons are on lock down in PA right now because the virus is spreading like a storm. Country’s around the world like Iran and Turkey but the United States has refused to decarcerate it’s mostly black and latinx prison population.
Russell Maroon Shoatz is no danger to his community. He has stage 4 cancer and he has COVID. The civilized and humane thing to do is to allow him to go home to his family. We are asking for his immediate release and for the immediate release of all other aging prisoners over the age of 50 and those with pre-existing conditions for whom incarceration is a death sentence. We ask for the immediately and unconditional release of Maroon!!
Continue to Call Governor Tom Wolfe Contact: (717) 787-2500
Let them know that Russell Shoatz’s (DOC# AF3855) health is rapidly deteriorating. and demand immediate release. They track the calls from different phones and how many times they same number calls so please keep calling and activate your networks.
It’s time to put some pressure on Governor Tom Wolf to sign the commutation orders that were recommended to him on September 4th.
Please take a few moments to call ️ his office (717-787-2500 ) and contact him via his online form
You can write your own message or use the script below. We need to flood his office with requests so our people are returned to us ASAP!
Dear Governor Wolf,
Please Sign the Commutation orders for Avis Lee, Mildred Strickland, Henrietta Harris, Kevin Butler, Daniel Cummings, Reid Evans, Wyatt Evans, Francisco Mojica and Gregory Stover.
These nine commutation applicants went through a rigorous screening process over the last 3 years and were recommended by your appointed board. A month may not seem like a long time to you but, after serving 30 to 40 years, every additional minute is an eternity.
The risk to these people of being exposed to covid-19 is extremely high in the state correctional institutions and they would be much safer once released. It would be truly tragic to become infected while waiting for your approval.
Please sign the orders today! ️ Your name and any credential or PA town etc.
[Image Description: Governor Wolf is seated at a desk in the bottom right hand corner of the graphic looking down as he is writing. White letters in a hand written font state,” Dear Governor Wolf, Please sign the commutation orders that were approved last September 4th. Thanks! Love with a little heart, me”]
Let’s Get Free is excited to announce our new initiative called Let’s Go Home! We have people in our network coming home, and hope to have more coming soon. We are cooking up many different ways to secure housing for our growing Pittsburgh community. So far, our motto is “Buy us a house or give us one or let us manage your property” 🙂 Yes our ideas are lofty!! But we are gonna bring them to fruition with your support!
Our first effort is called the Spare Room Solidarity Project. Do you have a spare room or rooms that you could make available to an amazing person returning from incarceration?
We were really inspired when we read about Impact Justice’s Homecoming project and also because we have reached out to the Pgh community before for solidarity housing and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
We are looking for people who can make a commitment for at least six months, preferably a year. Members of Let’s Get Free have provided this type of housing and support in the past, and we are creating an information session and webinar explaining what it means to sign up for a project like this.
Please sign up here if you are interested in learning more about our new Spare Room Solidarity Project. We are planning to do our first orientation in October.
Most presently our friend Amy needs a homeplan – a promise of a place to live
A member of our LGF Prison Advisory Board- Amy Pencille is currently working her way through the extensive Commutation Process and is in need of a Home Plan. Amy has been a part of our network for 3 years! This means providing a promise of a place to live after she is released. (Which could be years away)
The catch is because everything with the courts is so nebulous we simply need you to promise her a space and then as time goes on we can find an additional homeplan if something changes in your life. A home plan is simply a promise in the form of a letter sent to the person in prison.
The first week of September saw the first ever virtual hearings of the Board of Pardons. The hearings took place on zoom with hearing participants sent a special link. The public was able to watch a live stream of the zoom on the BOP website. A schedule was sent out weeks before listing over 200 cases to be heard, most of them pardons. The pardons cases are all people who are not in prison.
There were technical problems throughout the process resulting in the postponement of many of the pardon cases. It was a relief that the board chose to continue with the commutation cases.
Henrietta Harris, Avis Lee, Mildred Strickland, Gregory Stover, Francisco Mojica, Reid Evans, Wyatt Evans, Daniel Cummings and Kevin Butler were all recommended to the Governor.
Dennis Horton, Lee Horton and Eric Eisen were held under advisement. (They do this when the board has unanswered questions that would impact their decision.)
Edwin Dejesus, Harry Jeffries, Richard Marra, Michael Rinaldi, Felix Rosado, David Sloughenhoupt, Joseph Spinks and James Strapple were denied.
Here are some stats for the 22 that were up for commutation from our beloved data diva Elaine Selan:
RESULTS Recommended 9 1st D- 2/2nd D-6/Robbery -1 Not Recommend 8 1st D-1/2nd D-7 Under Advisement 3 2nd D-3 Case Not Heard 1 Murder Continued 1 Murder Not Continued 0 Reconsideration N/A Revocation 1
Avis Lee’s Hearing – After all of the anticipation the hearing lasted about 3 minutes.
The next Merit Review is scheduled for November 5th at 3pm. The next Public Hearings are scheduled for the second week in December 9-11th.
Debrief with us! The hearings were a lot!
On September 17th at 6pm, join Let’s Get Free and Amistad Law Project in debriefing what happened at the public hearings, reflecting on our wins, our losses and the road ahead. You can expect a breakdown of what happened at the hearings last week from organizers at Let’s Get Free and Amistad, space to express your feelings, observations, and questions about the hearings, and time to imagine the changes we want to see at the Board.
[Image description: Black and white headshot of Avis Lee who is smiling surrounded by flowers and the words Avis Lee 5 Yes Votes She is coming Home]
YES. YES. YES. YES. YES. Avis Lee is coming home!! Let us all rejoice in her homecoming. It is with great pleasure we share the news of her unanimous vote for commutation from the PA Board of Pardons.
All the women who went before the board last week had favorable reviews! Mildred Strickland at the age of 75 will be returning to Philadelphia to be with her grandchildren. Henrietta Harris whose case was held under advisement last year was commuted of her life sentence and given a hit of 12 months for an escape.
The Amistad Law Project wrote this overview of last weeks decisions which you can read here. 9 longtimers out of 22 were recommended to the governor. There is still a long way to go but considering there were essentially no commutations for a period of 30 years in PA, we are feeling the joy!
Avis said yesterday was the best day of her life. Like a giant weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She sends gratitude for each prayer, each sign, each painting, each email, each letter, each raised voice for freedom and all the acts of love and support so many have offered her over the years.
We now await the governor to sign on to her application which could take 30 days to 6 months. The governor is not obligated to any time frame.WE ARE SPEAKING 30 DAYS INTO EXISTENCE.
Please consider chipping into her Decarceration Fund. Let’s Get Free is more than proud that Avis will be our first official employee!!
The photo above shows advocates on August 27th holding signs at the City County Bldg in Pittsburgh. The signs read “We believe in second chances. Yes on Commutation – Reunite Communities. Commute deserving Lifers. Commutation is a legal process to reduce a sentence. commutation is a second chance” Rallies held in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg a week before the hearings were meant to demonstrate physical support for people coming before the Board of Pardons.
This spreadsheet shares the schedules for this weeks first ever virtual public hearing. Over 200 cases will be heard the vast majority are people seeking pardons from marijuana related charges. 22 people seeking commutation from life and long term sentences will be heard. The spreadsheet is much easier to read if you download it onto your computer.
The Amistad Law Project will be live tweeting from the hearings. Follow along here
The applicants have an interview with the board of pardons the day before their hearings. They will be virtual as well and no public is allowed to attend. The applicants are not allowed to attend their own public hearings – even virtually.
The following info tracks people in the extended CADBI network who are coming before the board.
Tuesday September 1: 2pm Henrietta Harris – Interview
Thursday September 3 11 – Avis Lee, Mildred Strickland- Hearing 12 – Richie Marra, Horton Brothers – Hearing 2pm – Felix Rosado, Kevin Butler – Interview
Friday September 4 10 – Felix Rosado, Kevin Butler – Hearing 12 – Votes heard for all cases probably in Alphabetical Order like the merit review.
According to the BOP spreadsheet, the Board’s vote on all cases [pardons and commutations—all 202] will be made on Friday, 9/4 at 12pm. In other words, voting will not take place on the same day as the hearings, with the exception of those cases heard on Friday morning.
If the applicant receives 5 yes votes (we will rejoice) and will then wait for the governor to sign on to the application. Once signed, the person will be transported to their Community Corrections Center by the DOC.
Photos below depict the Harrisburg rally from last Thursday where 200 photos of people supporting commutation applicants were displayed on the steps of the Harrisburg Capital building. Each poster has brightly colored words stating “Yes to Commutation. Reunite Communities” with a color photograph of a different friends, family members and supporters holding signs of support for release. Read more on this coverage from the Pennsylvania Capital Star.
Week of Events to Support Fair Commutation and People in Prison Virtual Gallery Tours of the End Death by Incarceration Art Contest: Sundays in August August 23 and 30th at 11am, 12pm & 1pm EST – 30 minutes
Contact to set up ASL or plan a specific group tour that fits your schedule. [letsgetfreepa@gmail.com]
Write letters of support to the 22 Commutation Applicants Tuesday August 24 – 9am
This Tuesday morning, Letters from Home will be dedicated to sending messages of support to the people waiting for their hearings on September 4th. You can try to imagine how emotionally full this time of waiting can be. If you can’t make the 9am zoom gathering you can access the spreadsheet here. You can find a tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet that says “commutation”. Zoom Link for Letters from Home at our Link Tree
The Final August Premiere of the Life Cycles Toward Freedom Films featuring Stanley Mitchell and Saleem Holbrook Tuesday August 25th from 7 – 8:30 EST. Register here.
Featuring 3 new short films and special guests Stanley Mitchell and Robert Saleem Holbrook. If you have already seen the films tune in around 7:45 to see the 10 minute film about the Unger Ruling in Maryland which led to the release of 260 aging people with life sentences in 2012. Stanley was one of the people released 12 years ago.
If you don’t want to register and enter our zoom room, the events will be live streamed on our youtube channel
Yes on Commutation Rally Thursday August 27th 9am City County Bldg – Pittsburgh
Join members of Let’s Get Free and the Dignity Act Now!Collective Pittsburgh in supporting applicants coming before the PA board of pardons on September 4th. Avis Lee, co creator of Let’s Get Free, is finally coming before the Board of Pardons after 40 years in prison. This is her 6th attempt at commutation! Because of COVID 19 these hearings will be held virtually and we will be unable to show the court support in the way we would ordinarily if allowed to enter the hearing.
Outside Film Screening and Social Distance Hang Sunday August 30th – 7 – 8:30pm Register Here (not necessary but helpful) We are gonna social distance and wear masks 🙂
400 Roup Ave. In the parklet behind the Aldi in friendship.
Bring your own chair. Bring your own food 🙂 We will have fresh juice and beverages and snacks and bug spray! We will also have t-shirts for sale! We will screen the life cycles movies and more. Movies start at 8:30. Katina, a good friend of Tameka Flowers is coming all the way from Greensburg to talk about Tameka who is featured in one of the films. Rain date the following Sunday – September 6th.
[Image Description: Naomin Blount and Brandon Flood are pictured at the top and bottom of the is graphic which revelas only thier eyes and noses. The center of the graphic has event information which is listed below]
Tuesday August 18th from 7 – 8:30 EST. Featuring 3 new short films and special guests Naomi Blount and Brandon Flood. If you don’t want to register and enter our zoom room, the events will be live streamed on our youtube channel
This Screening is endorsed by: Re/Creation, The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, ALC Courtwatch, Families for Justice as Healing, Three Rivers Community Foundation, Amistad Law Project, End Solitary Santa Cruz County [CA, USA], California Coalition for Women Prisoners, College and Community Fellowship, Human Rights Coalition Fed-Up!, Women of Color Global Women’s Strike, The Philadelphia Justice Project for Women and Girls, Reconstruction Inc, Pittsburghers for Public Transit and Islamic Communication Network.
Virtual Tours of the End Death by Incarceration Art Gallery
[Image description: This announcement for the gallery show is spelled out in mint green refrigerator magnets on a black fridge.There are bright yellow and purple flowers off to the left. A photograph of a painting of an anatomical heart is stuck to the fridge with a magnet. ]
Sundays in August August 23rd and 30th at 11am, 12pm & 1pm EST 30 minutes
Take 30 minutes of your day to view some of the 63 pieces of art submitted to our art show including 18 artists creating from prison and 27 artists working in solidarity.
Contact to set up ASL or plan a specific tour that fits your schedule. [letsgetfreepa@gmail.com]
[Bright purple, pink red and orange make up the water color portrait of a women breaking apart bluish grey bars with the quote, ” Second Chances are first choices for Redemption” – Kristen Edmundson, Kristen is currently serving Life Without Parole at SCI-Muncy. Artwork by Morgan Overton
