Melvin Ray, AKA Bennu Hannibal Ra-Sun is one of the nation's most prominent incarcerated organizers and has led countless protests, strikes, and online campaigns both inside and outside the walls of the Alabama prison system, fighting for sentencing reform, labor rights, parole reform, and basic human rights for men and women incarcerated across the nation. His work has been recognized by national and international media, including features on Vice, Al Jazeera, and, most recently, in the 2025 HBO documentary, The Alabama Solution. 

Melvin is serving a life-without-parole sentence following a capital murder conviction in January 2001. Convicted at age 30, he has now spent 25 years in prison. Melvin Ray maintains his innocence and seeks the opportunity to return to court to demonstrate that his conviction was wrongful... but long before this conviction, the odds were stacked against him.

At 16, Melvin, along with five other friends, was arrested, interrogated without a parent or attorney present, illegally certified as an adult, isolated from his family for months, and pressured into pleading guilty to dozens of unsolved burglaries. Two decades later, those unlawful convictions would be used to enhance his sentence to life without parole, under Alabama’s Habitual Felony Offender Act. You can read more about his legal case here.

Melvin now seeks to establish in court that his prior felony convictions were illegal, that his sentence enhancement was unlawful, and that his murder prosecution was without legal foundation. 

Sign this petition urging the Alabama courts to reconsider the juvenile convictions used to enhance his sentence and to grant Melvin a lawful resentencing.

NOTE: The donation box below does not go to Melvin Ray.