Meet Jason

If you met Jason today, you would never know he has spent nearly thirty years behind prison walls.

You would notice his kindness before anything else. The way he listens instead of waiting to speak. The way he remembers the little things about people. The way he quietly encourages others without asking for recognition. You would meet a man who has dedicated decades to becoming someone worthy of the life he hopes, one day, to live outside those walls.

Jason is thoughtful. Gentle. Funny. Deeply compassionate. He has an extraordinary ability to make people feel seen and valued, even while living in a place designed to strip away hope.

That is who he is.

But that is not who people see when they search his name.

In 1996, Jason was just 32 days past his eighteenth birthday.

Legally, he was an adult. Developmentally, he was still a teenager.

He entered prison wearing a size 11 shoe.

Today, nearly thirty years later, he is almost forty-eight years old. He stands 6’5”, wears a size 14 shoe, and has spent far more of his life inside prison than outside of it.

The teenager who walked into prison no longer exists.

The man who remains does.

Jason has lived every day carrying the weight of a tragedy that resulted in the loss of another person’s life. No amount of time will ever erase that pain. He has never been able to undo what happened, and he has never stopped wishing he could. His remorse is not something he performs—it is something he lives with every single day.

This petition is not about denying that tragedy.

It is about asking whether one tragic mistake made by an eighteen-year-old should erase an entire lifetime of humanity.

Over three decades, Jason has transformed himself. He has devoted himself to personal growth, education, emotional maturity, faith, health, and becoming someone capable of giving more to the world than he once understood how to. Everyone who knows him today describes the same man: compassionate, dependable, humble, generous, and deeply committed to helping others.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable parts of this story that the former Chief of Police involved in the original investigation wrote, before his passing, that serious mistakes were made across the board. Questions have also been raised about the quality of Jason’s legal representation at the time and the fairness of the proceedings that resulted in a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

These facts do not erase the tragedy.

But they do matter.

Justice should always protect society. It should hold people accountable. But justice should also be honest enough to recognize transformation when it happens.

If the purpose of prison includes rehabilitation, what do we do when someone has actually rehabilitated?

If redemption is impossible, then why ask people to change?

Jason has spent over thirty years proving, day after day, that people are capable of profound transformation. He cannot change what happened in 1996. None of us can.

What he has changed is himself.

This petition is not asking anyone to forget the past.

It is asking you to consider whether a man who has demonstrated genuine remorse, extraordinary personal growth, and decades of positive transformation deserves the opportunity to have his case looked at through the eyes of justice, fairness, and mercy.

Please stand with us in asking that Jason’s case receive the careful, compassionate review it deserves.

Because people are more than the worst day of their lives.