Humanity for Prisoners

We must talk. This shaky economy is doing a number on us! I think that it is important for you to know how we use donations. Last Thursday I was in Jackson to testify in a commutation hearing for Mr. R., WHO WAS WRONGLY CONVICTED AND GIVEN IMPROPER MEDICAL CARE! In a letter just before the hearing he said: I will never be able to find the words that will express my gratitude in my heart for all you have done and still do for me, I shall never forget again the way love and peace can change a life. On September 23 I will be in Jackson to testify in a commutation hearing for Mr. K., WHO WAS SUFFERING EXCRUCIATING PAIN AND DYING IN PRISON! In a recent letter he said: I know that no one has worked as hard as you have and without your intervention I’d still be back where I was before. Words will never be able to cover my gratitude for all you have done. BOTH OF THESE MESSAGES COULD BE DIRECTED TO THOSE WHO SUPPORT US! We do not receive foundation grants. I am asking YOU to hold us up w...

The five-word message from Fargo, North Dakota, attorney David Chapman: We lost the hearing. Unbelievable. It's the most recent disappointing chapter in a hellish story about a Bosnian family in Fargo. Mevludin Hidanovic was enjoying a day at the Red River Valley Fair with his family when a skirmish broke out at another location on the fairgrounds. Yet, he was arrrested. Hidanovic was convicted in January, 2007, on a charge of engaging in a riot, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. This all came after he refused to accept a deal from the Prosecutor to plead guilty and accept a 30-day jail term. Six months later, HFP got involved. That was when we learned that a juror came forward after the guilty verdict and admitted to the media that she had found him guilty due to race. That was when a woman who witnessed the fight came forward, after seeing his picture on the news, and said she knew it was the wrong person. That was when the family members voluntarily took a lie de...

I am asking you to focus your thoughts and your prayers on a courtroom in Fargo, North Dakota, at 1:30 PM Central Time today. The case of Mevludin Hidanovic came to our attention over a year ago. Mevludin is a Bosnian who was wrongly identified as the instigator of a fight in an amusement park, and subsequently wrongly convicted. Because of this conviction, he now faces deportation...something that would split up a beautiful family, because his wife and children are American citizens. HFP's involvement early on was to assist in obtaining media coverage, and we were quite successful. But nothing was successful in the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court of North Dakota. And yet, we thank God for attorney David J. Chapman, who never gave up. Recently, he persuaded the state to consider a new trial for Mr. Hidanovic, based on ineffective counsel. Again, HFP got involved. We found one of the leading eyewitness identification experts in the country to assist attorney Chapmen....

4:00 AM I can't sleep, and by 4 this afternoon I'll be paying the price. I was troubled by their words: -Those of a mom whose son (in prison) cannot get DNA testing to prove that he was not the father of a dead new-born, left in a toilet by his frightened step-daughter; -Those of a mom whose frightened son (in prison), driving through snowy white-out on a pitch-black night, felt his car hit something but told no-one. The pedestrian died; -Those of a daughter whose battered mom is going to prison because her father, while struggling to kill her mom with a shotgun, took the blast himself. He died. -Those of my friend whose Bosnian husband is threatened with deportation over a wrongful conviction, and who drives four hours one way to see him in a federal facility, only to encounter uncaring prison officials and heartless prison rules, concluded by a husband-wife conversation via video cam, limited to 20 minutes. I was encouraged by your words: "We were touched, once again, ...

The first words in the mission statement of HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS ARE: Seeking rightful resolutions to wrongful convictions... This week, we'll be rolling up our sleeves to do just that! Tomorrow, Wednesday, a legal team from the Toronto-based ASSOCIATION IN DEFENCE (Canadian sp.) OF THE WRONGLY CONVICTED will be in Detroit for a strategy session regarding Ray Gray. Gray is now 56, and has served 35 years in prison. This fine group of legal experts believes he is innocent. HFP is proud to have been invited to participate in that conference. Gray is a fine artist, and a number of his paintings were on display for our benefit art exhibit a couple years ago. On Thursday, my car will head south again. I will be traveling to Jackson to testify at a public hearing, scheduled by the Michigan Parole Board, for Ron Ross. Ron, now 42, was convicted of a safe cracking and has been in prison for nine years. He is a Master Gardener, and has used his gifts to develop a prison garden pr...

Dr. Samuel Johnson: The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. Perhaps the best way to accomplish that this week would be to do something for a prisoner. I know of a prisoner advocacy agency that MUST raise $10,000 yet this week. Slow economic conditions and summer contributions, combined with a strong surge of requests for help all resulted in an unexpected financial crisis. A Christian organization, hearing of our plight, has already awarded a grant of $2,000! May God bless those generous, considerate people. That leaves a balance of $8,000.00. Perhaps you know of a church, a club, an agency, that has a contingency fund for situations like this. September will be here in a minute, accompanied by a new set of monthly bills. You know that I don't regularly use these "start-of-the-week" quotations to raise money. I'm merely calling a critical situation to your attention. Dr. Johnson's statement stands on its own. HUMA...

Many will never feel the flood of emotions that erupt in the soul upon watching a prisoner step into freedom. But, in Muskegon, Michigan this week, nearly two dozen people had that experience. Mr. Keith Weiner, #125162, was freed, after serving over 30 years! We would not have known about this commutation, except the fine group that worked on this project needed some help filling out commutation forms. It was our pleasure at HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS to not only assist, but to send a letter of recommendation. Now you MUST read this. It's a summary of the account provided to us by Dr. Roger Sellon, one of the people who had worked so hard for this prisoner's freedom: "20-some family members and friends were in the parking lot at 7:30 AM, many of them carrying signs that read, "welcome home Keith!" Once inside, stories and hugs were shared as we talked of our history with this inmate. Whether a blood relative or a friend, for a brief time we were all family. ...

I did a television interview this week on a local cable channel. I don’t suppose many people will see it, but I gave it my all. The interviewer asked me about Michigan’s high recidivism rate. That’s a fancy word that tells you that many of the people released from prison go back there again. I couldn’t wait to answer. "The system is askew!" I talked about the Michigan Parole Board, and laid much of the blame on the board. Let me tell you why. The Michigan Parole Board members, in their interviews with prisoners being considered for parole, want to hear the inmates confess to their crimes and show remorse. Stop to think about this for a minute. Prisons are full of con artists. The man/woman who knows how to work the system weeps, wails, confesses the crime, shows remorse, and jumps through all of the required hoops, then wins a parole. Is it any wonder that this rogue winds up in prison again? Does it take someone with a college degree to figure this out? But then ther...

I was having breakfast today with one of the very fine newspaper reporters in this state, and one of the topics of discussion was the treatment of the mentally ill in Michigan prisons. I had been working on a case in which a mentally challenged prisoner was beaten by guards at Huron Valley. I asked the Michigan State Police to investigate, and Detective Sergeant Dale Smith reported back to me that the behavior of the guards was justified because the prisoner started the fracas. That doesn't surprise me at all, and that is not the issue. Simply stated, here's what has happened in Michigan. We closed the mental institutions, thinking we knew of a better plan for the mentally ill. Instead, many of those persons wound up sleeping under bridges, which led to their arrest and incarceration in county jails. Additional problems led to the placement of many mentally challenged people in the Michigan prison system. The results were predictable. Prisoners don't know how to handl...

"Please accept my small donation but my huge thanks for the incredible work you do in several capacities to help the wrongly convicted and the imprisoned. You will always have my deepest respect and support as you often stand alone to bring a better quality of life and hope to the forgotten and discarded. God bless and enrich your life as you bring your special talents to your crucially important mission."

I received this heart-breaking letter from our dear friend Chanda: Chanda Hidanovic: A Family Divided I won’t stop speaking until I am heard. No one should have to suffer the pain of wrongful conviction. We live in a country that prides itself in having the fairest judicial system. Other countries have based their judicial system on ours, as though we have the best. Immigrants move to our country because they have heard their whole lives how the United States is the best place to live. Yet we still hear those stories about people who have spend 25 years in prison and were exonerated due to DNA evidence. I never paid much attention to those stories. I listened for a minute and thought to myself how awful it would be not to have people believe in your innocence. Then I would dismiss it to the back of my mind. That has all changed. My husband is in prison for something he didn’t do. I am 100 percent positive he is innocent because I was right there with him. Mevludin Hidanovic was charged...

Quotes from letters similar to those received daily at our office: "We here at this unit have a problem: getting adequate footwear. We are diabetics, and the head of our region will not refer us to 'brace and limb' for evaluation, although this system has policies and guidelines for footgear for diabetics." "I've been married since January, 1995. Unfortunately, my wife and I have not seen each other since the day we were married. She lives in San Diego, and wants to come to Michigan to visit me. Do you know of a church or an organization that could assist us?" "I'm stuck in prison and don't know where to go. In the early 1990s a sergeant with the Detroit Police Department contacted me, and informed me that the Prosecutor never provided me with all the evidence in my case. I asked him if he would assist me in getting those items. He said yes. Almost immediately after our conversation he died! How can someone assist me?"

I had just made my fourth and final prison visit in one day! It felt like I had been working for a week! Who says the emotions can't drain more energy than physical labor? I walked to my car in the parking lot of the Hiawatha Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, Michigan. It was 6:15 P.M. The weather was perfect, sun shining, temperature at 73 degrees, a slight breeze ruffling my hair. I stopped, transfixed by the typical, majestic U.P. nature scene, especially the tall, stately, pines. Then I did an about turn, and my eyes were drawn to the familiar sight of rolls and rolls of shiny, ugly barbed wire atop prison fences. And that's when the wave of guilt hit me! Who was I to be so privileged to leave four wonderful guys, whom I had visited in three different prisons, and step out into freedom? Why did each one of these treasured friends have to be subjected to the humiliation of a strip search and sent back to their cells following our brief time together, while I could r...