Humanity for Prisoners

Maurice Carter's birthday appeared on my calendar this week. We were so busy tackling a couple of prisoner issues that the day went by almost unnoticed. Maurice would have understood. After all, we were doing the work that he dreamed about. The formation of INNOCENT!, now known as HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS, was the idea of Maurice Carter, who served 29 years for a crime he did not commit. He wanted to form an agency that would help others in situations similar to his. After many years in prison, he finally found help, but he pointed out that many do not. And so we began, at first attempting to help just those claiming wrongful conviction. But it soon became apparent that others needed help. There were other prisoners like Maurice, for example, suffering from maladies like Hep C, and unable to get treatment. Maurice was diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 1995, and didn't get treatment until 2003 when he collapsed in his cell. They didn't bother to tell him that he had the ...

And the ride never ends. Seemed like a quiet week...a week with no rides. But we reached a little high on Wednesday. No money in the mail...just letters from prisoners. But when I opened one of the envelopes, it was actually a check from a prisoner. That just moves me, every time, without exception. It is a huge sacrifice when a prisoner sends 50 bucks to HFP. That's more money than the prisoner makes---not in a day, not in a week---in a month! The nose dive came on Thursday. Our friend Harry had been complaining about lazy prison officials who were refusing to crack down on problems in his joint and threatening to take things into his own hands. I received an email message from another prisoner in that facility saying that it finally apparently happened. Word was that Harry not only got into a fight, but seriously injured another inmate. That makes me sad. It makes me angry. It's easy to blame Harry, and that's what the Parole Board will do. They warned him bef...

I just cannot find anyone willing to take on the prison system, and I find that quite amazing. It's not that attorneys are all that busy anymore. Granted, the well established legal eagles have thier clients and their business, but we keep hearing that newcomers in the legal field are having difficulty getting started. Why can't we find one of these young, hungry attorneys to consider some of these cases? Our paralegal intern, Linda, believes strongly that an attorney could make a good case in a class action suit on behalf of Michigan prisoners seeking appropriate medical care. Our friend Harry, who is behind bars, is ready to blow the whistle on his facility. He claims to have kept a log of prison situations including rapes, assaults, robberies, drug incidents and other illegal activities. He says he'd be willing to stand up for what's right and expose the guilty staff members and complacent guards who "passively allow these things to happen while they're ...

Anyone who has been in business is braced for occasional disappointment. Stuff happens. A deal falls through. A major account is lost. A key person switches loyalties. Each time it's difficult, but you learn that you must press on, and that usually better days are ahead. For a prisoner, such types of disappointments become monumental. This is especially true when legal support collapses. A few weeks ago one of our friends informed me that his attorney apparently took him to the cleaners. Not only did he fleece the prisoner and his family of thousands of dollars, but he also failed to produce. There were huge promises, and with that came a substantial downpayment. But then red flags started popping up. Failure to call at agreed upon times. Failure to show up for meetings. Failure to accomplish promised legal goals. It's one thing in business to grab your bootstraps and start again. It's another thing when you're in prison, and you've placed all your hop...

Brenda was determined to find out, first hand, what's going on with her son. He's in prison in Michigan's Upper Peninsula...she lives way down near the bottom of the lower peninsula. He's been complaining that he's dying, and she started believing the claims when she heard that he was bleeding, contantly, and that he had lost 45 pounds in 15 days. She didn't have a car worthy of the trip, and so HFP quietly collected a few bucks so that she could rent a good car and properly insure it for the long trip. Our UP Representative promised to look after her, and provide food and lodging if necesary. We wired the money to her, and she departed from Benton Harbor last Wednesday with our prayers. No word. Nothing. Brenda called me this evening and could hardly speak. Here's the story. Just three hours from the prison she was involved in a traffic accident. Two kids who admitted they were texting ran a red light, and crashed into the driver's side door. Bre...

The idea seemed so simple. Tell the supporters of HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS just exactly where we stand. Lay our cards on the table. And so at the end of February we frankly stated that we weren't sure how much longer we could continue. Due to lower contributions in January and February, our wonderful year-end surplus was gobbled up. Going into March it appeared we would have to raise about $10,000 to stay afloat. And it seemed to have worked. The newsletter arrived in the mail boxes of our more than 300 supporters, and they responded. In the first week we raised several thousand dollars. And the exciting thing was that a number of people responded to a suggestion of one supporter that we form a 100 CLUB, whereby supporters would pledge to contribute $100 a month. The idea was that if we could get 100 people to do this, we wouldn't have to be fretting about fund-raising each month and instead could spend our time doing what we do best: advocating for prisoners. Then came...

I'm sitting here with my early Sunday morning cup of coffee, thinking about the words of Jesus specifically dealing with prisoners. In Matthew 25, Jesus did not say, "I was a model prisoner, and you visited me." He did not say, "I was of the same race, and so you visited me in prison." He did not say, "I was a believer, a man of faith, and so you visited me." Here at HFP, we take that to mean that our expression of love to prisoners must be unconditional. This is on my mind this morning, because we're trying to help Ronnie. By his own mother's confession, he's been a bad apple. He gets in trouble. He gets tickets. The prison staff moved him to an unpleasant spot, where they keep trouble-makers. But there's something else. Ronnie may be dying. Because he's such a trouble-maker, he's not first in line to get appropriate treatment for his problems. But now his health issues are serious, and he's afraid of dying. Perhap...

Our wonderful Paralegal intern Linda was suggesting to me that some attorney just might wish to take on the State of Michigan with a class action suit, representing the many prisoners who cannot seem to get appropriate medical care. It was fresh in her mind, because our office was hit with several outrageous cases in the past week. I was explaining that we have tried broaching the subject with some excellent attorneys who specialize in civil cases, but with no success. Apparently it's not easy to win against the state. But, Linda insisted, somebody's gotta help these people. And then the phone rang. The woman on the other end of the line was so hoarse I could hardly understand her. She apologized, saying that she had been crying since she opened a letter from her son today. Ronald, in the Michigan Prison System, was wondering why she hadn't received his earlier letters. By the time he wrote this note he had been sick for 14 days, bleeding rectally. And that's not...

Yep, it just happens in this business. I've been following this guy and his case for years. I'm convinced its a wrongful conviction, which he has been claiming from the start. And while it's true that the police and the prosecution were determined to put this guy away, I think his own defense attorney made a serious blunder. I think the jury might have seen things differently if the attorney had not been so confident of winning that he failed to line up the best expert witnesses in the business. And because he didn't, jurors believed the testimony of a junk scientist hired by the state. So here's where I'm at a loss for words. What do I say to this prisoner now, after -a jury found him guilty -none of his appeals were successful -an appeal to the Supreme Court was turned down -higher courts have now ignored his claims of ineffective counsel -it appears that his very last open door is slamming shut? His highly successful attorneys believe in his inn...