Dear Supporters,
Warm greetings! Harvard law school senior lecturer / retired judge Nancy Gertner and Sentencing Project executive director Marc Mauer, collaborated on a strong piece for the November 7, 2019 Boston Globe OPINION column. (See the link to the article below.) I appreciate the significance of their using my name and decades-long struggle to open up the article and illustrate their argument. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend you take a moment to connect with it now. It would be great for you, as well, to show your support by thanking them for highlighting my struggle for liberation as an example of excessive sentencing and the critical need for this state's legislature to change Massachusetts law now. (Contact info follows the link below.)
Thanks for your continuing support and helping this petition to grow!
One love! - Arnie
The link to the Opinion is: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2019/11/07/opinion/taking-second-look-life-imprisonment/
Contact information:
Nancy Gertner
email: ngertner@law.harvard.edu
postal: Judge Nancy Gertner, Harvard Law School, Langdell Library 328, 545 Massachusetts Av, Cambridge MA 02138
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Marc Mauer
email: staff@sentencingproject.org
postal: Marc Mauer, Executive Director, The Sentencing Project, 1705 DeSales St, NW, 8th Floor, Washington DC 20036
OPINION Excerpt:
"Arnie King has been serving a sentence of life without parole in Massachusetts since 1972 for the murder of John Labanara. King was a high school dropout addicted to drugs and alcohol. He was seeking his next high the night he killed Labanara. Over the last 47 years, King has changed his life. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston University, has spoken to at-risk youths about making better choices in their lives, and has received awards for his community leadership, including the anti-racism leadership Award from Simmons College. Still, despite the time he has served and his rehabilitation, he has failed to secure a sentence commutation from the governor that would make him eligible for parole. A recent hearing in the Massachusetts House of Representatives shed light on this little-known aspect of mass incarceration. While there has been a great deal of attention in recent years to the impact of the drug war on growing prison populations, in fact, the main drivers of the prison system now are excessive sentences for violent offenses..."