Humanity for Prisoners

I’d like to share a beautiful story...a story not written by me.   I feel certain that Luis Ramirez would be honored to have us pass along what he has written, but I can't ask him.   He's dead.   This message came to me from Texas Death Row in the early days of HFP. I was so touched by the experience that I vowed to keep the story alive. We generally re-publish it during the holiday season. May it remind us, again, that the names on death row represent real people. And, that the death penalty is dead wrong! Anyway, here’s my gift to you today...a story from the late Luiz Ramirez: (In all caps, just the way he sent it)   I CAME HERE IN MAY OF 1999...A TSUNAMI OF EMOTIONS AND THOUGHTS WERE GOING THROUGH MY MIND.   I REMEMBER THE ONLY THINGS IN THE CELL WERE A MATTRESS, PILLOW, A COUPLE SHEETS, A PILLOW CASE, A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER AND A BLANKET.   I REMEMBER SITTING THERE, UTTERLY LOST.   THE FIRST PERSON I MET THERE WAS NAPOLEON BEASLEY.   ...

I’m in my car running errands today (yes, at age 88, I can and may still drive, thank you!), the radio is on, and of course it’s December, so I’m hearing Christmas music. As many of you know, I’m an old radio broadcaster, so when Burl Ives came on singing “Have a Happy, Jolly Christmas,” it felt like old times. We played that tune every season when I was in that business. But, it was the topic, not the recording, that hit me today. I’m no longer in the radio business, I’m in the business of befriending, helping and supporting incarcerated men and women in Michigan. And, b ased on the hundreds of prisoner messages crossing our desk this month, a “Holly, Jolly Christmas” just isn’t in the cards.   Doug is running out of patience, waiting and hoping that the Parole Board will recommend a commutation of his sentence: “…today marks ten months, three weeks, one day, twelve hours, and about fifteen minutes since the counselor called me into his office and started this commutation. But w...