
Jack HellerHuntington, IN, United States
Feb 10, 2017
Friends,
I believe that when I petition has accomplished its goal, it's time to transition and close the petition. I will do so, probably no later than Tuesday. However, I may open a Facebook page just for the purposes of posting news updates as they occur, as I suppose that some of you will be interested in what happens going forward in Keith's case. I'll let you know here when I get such a page done.
This morning at the law offices of Loevy and Loevy and of the Exoneration Project in Chicago, Elliot Slosar, Keith's attorney, Keith himself, many of his family members, and a few supports held a live-streamed press conference to discuss the journey and the pardon itself. I don't know where a link is to the complete press conference, but you can certainly find excerpts from it with a Google search of "Keith Cooper" for the last 48 hours.
Even today, I heard details that I had not known about: Keith's mother Barbara mortgaging her home to try to help him, his kids sleeping in a park after they lost their home, former Governor Pence ignoring the family's last effort to get him to pardon Keith before transitioning out of the office. Yet you can find video from the parole hearing of 2014 of Keith forgiving his accusers, the victims of the robbery who first agreed with the Elkhart detective that Keith was the perpetrator.
That sounds grim, and there was a lot of emotion today, but the dominant emotion was joy! Keith has his good name back! He is with his family. Play the video I am linking with this update, made after the press conference . . . pure joy! And since I know they are seeing this . . . Keith and Nicole . . . that kiss!
After the press conference, we all went to a restaurant to celebrate. I got to meet a number of Keith's family members--his sister, mother, wife, daughter, and others--fifteen, I think, in all, and I couldn't keep track of them all. All who also went through this ordeal with Keith. Keith has been exonerated, and their faith has been validated.
I plan to do 2-3 additional updates in the next few days before I close this petition. One will be working through some of the main stories of the past week, primarily links. One--probably the next one--will be last strategies for anyone who wants to advocate further for Keith's compensation and full exoneration. In this, I do intend to address the remaining battery conviction, but that will take a bit longer than I want to work on tonight. And a third update would be to announce the Facebook page when I get it done.
Today, we added about 10 new signatures to the petition. Thank you, new signers, but the pardon is done!
And thank you all for your help in this effort.
Cheers,
Jack Heller
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