We haven’t hit 1000 signatures yet, but we’ve done great in the first week Darren’s petition went online. We’re at 640!
Now we need as many people as possible to write letters and send emails to Gov. Newsom. Please let him know that you support commutation of Darren’s sentence and why. He can be reached via email through this link:
https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/gov40mail/
To call or write:
Governor Gavin Newsom
1303 10th Street, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841
Fax: (916) 558-3160
Here’s a letter from Darren asking for your support:
As I say I am sorry having served 30 years in prison, and having achieved my own personal conversion of self through education, I am a totally different person – a changed man. As you read this, please ask yourself “after 30 years, am I different?” After living 30 years with any kind of life experience, no person is the same anymore. I myself have grown up. I was a 19 year old high school dropout 32 years ago, who drank whatever alcohol I could buy or bum, and I didn’t have the slightest idea how to cope with the pain of having been molested by my stepfather, or of having been thrown out onto the streets by my mom and my biological dad. Lost and abandoned, I made the worst choices of my life, and have spent the time since then working to express the sorrow and shame I feel because of those choices, and to show the effort I have made and continue to make, in offering amends for my crimes.
To affect these changes in the world, I committed to improving myself in order to have the agency to give back to the community. I earned my GED at Old Folsom prison, and then started taking college classes there. After the 1994 change of law that discontinued Pell grant funding for prisoners, I began to enroll in every self-help class I could. In 2008, state law restored funding for community college classes for prisoners, and I eagerly started enrolling in classes again. Eventually I earned six associate degrees. I’ve then enrolled in the first ever come in-person bachelors degree program offered in the California state prison system, and earned my BA in Communication Studies graduating Magna Cum Laude. I also work as a peer educator in the credentialed Public Health Information Program, where I teach the men here about infectious diseases present in the prison environment. During the pandemic, I helped to found the Inmate Leadership Legacy Council, which donated lunches for first responders at two different hospitals, and then donated hundreds of teddy bears to the Children’s Hospital. Most recently, I have joined the Paws for Life program where I volunteer as a certified dog trainer, rehabilitating shelter animals for adoption.
I am a productive person, engaged in doing good in our shared world, and I pray that, if you have read these paragraphs, you’ll give a little of yourself by signing the petition in support of my release.
Thank you,
Darren Robinson