Let's Write Letters Urging Compassion For These Aging Persons

John Bennie Williams, 88,
is legally blind.

The late Desmond Tutu once said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." 

Charles Zellers, incarcerated since 1994, has long been working for justice for deserving men and women behind bars, and is developing a program called H.O.P.E. "Helping Offenders who are Parole Eligible in Virginia." 

He recently sent me the names of just some of the incarcerated he knows about who are over 80 years of age, many with significant disabilities, and all of them deserving of compassionate release.

"I would understand keeping these men incarcerated if they were a proven threat to others or to themselves," he writes, but he believes they have clearly "aged out of crime" and that each of them is deserving of pardon by the outgoing governor and/or by the next administration.  

Cecil Adrian Allison, 1001820 (Greensville) Born 1941

Cordell Banks, 1160003 (State Farm) Born 1941

Edward Brown, 1120322 (MCV) Born 1937

Stanley J. Callis, 1075677 (Hospital) Born 1940

Charles Manuel Campbell, 1012686 (Marion) Born 1940

George Edward Cooley, 1135561 (Deerfield) Born 1938

Antonio S. Galicia, 1141440 (Buckingham) Born 1937

Eugene Samuel Mapson, 1132140 (State Farm) Born 1942

Jackson David Shifflett, Sr., 1175707 (Sussex I) Born 1933

James Timothy Smith, 1047569 (State Farm) Born 1940

Jay Richard Timmons, 1003927 (Greensville) Born 1938

John Bennie Williams, 1091323 (Deerfield) Born 2/24/33 Fell 3/2/76 Legally Blind

Robert Lee Woody, 1106065 (Deerfield) Born 1938

John Clinton Wright, 1171177 (Pocahontas) Born 10/24/27 6th Grade Education

Zellers writes:

There are many additional parole eligible offenders who are under 80 (born after 1941). Each of these "old-law" persons (incarcerated before parole was abolished in 1995) has served at least 26 consecutive years, and some for many more. They are no longer being corrected but warehoused. 

Keeping offenders incarcerated/warehoused without proving each, one on a case by case basis, is a continued threat to society is dead wrong, and shows nothing more than mere hate for these persons who have been incarcerated 26 or more consecutive years for a violent or sexual offense.

Please share this information with as many people as possible who can get this story out to many people within the United States and the whole world, so maybe someone will intervene. Some of these parole eligible offenders are legally blind, paralyzed, or are essentially in bad health and should clearly be granted release.

The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) spends over a billion dollars annually to keep men and women warehoused when many of us could be free, paying taxes and doing good in our communities.

In addition, mental health, dental, and medical services are terrible within the VADOC. We have not had a pay raise in well over 30 years. Our pay is only from 27¢ to 45¢ per hour for up to 30 hours of work per week. And Virginia has stopped providing free soap, weekly stamped envelope, free legal postage, etc. Commissary has became prioritized and their prices are outrageous and continue to escalate.

Here's a link to contact Governor Northam https://www.governor.virginia.gov/constituent-services/communicating-with-the-governors-office/

Or pardons@governor.Virginia.gov

Here's how to contact the Parole Board https://vpb.virginia.gov/contact/