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How You Can Help Inmates Seeking Legal Assistance |
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Many inmates are
seeking specific legal assistance, and you may
be wondering how you can help. If you are
an attorney or paralegal, certainly your advice
may be useful, and we ask you to please contact
the inmate directly. You might also
consider writing to politicians to oppose the
mandatory sentencing guidelines that are filling
up our prisons, or, consider writing to a
governor to protest an impending execution.
You might start a petition regarding prisoners'
rights. Perhaps you would organize a vigil
of protest at an institution where the death
sentence is to be carried out. We have
prepared this page to assist you in your quest
to assist the incarcerated with their legal
battles. If you know of any potentially
useful organizations, please
contact us
so we may include them here. |
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Questions To Ask Yourself |
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1) Could the inmate you are trying to
help benefit from DNA testing? |
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The
Innocence Project helps inmates through
DNA testing. To date, 108 inmates have
been exonerated.
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2) Is the inmate you are trying to help
on death row? |
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Many organizations, such as the
Campaign to End the Death Penalty,
exist which are trying to abolish the death
penalty. They may be able to offer advice on
behalf of the inmate with whom you are working.
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3) Was the inmate you are trying to help
represented by a public defender or otherwise
received inadequate representation? |
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The
ACLU
provides statistics and resources regarding
inadequate counsel. |
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4) Are you interested in creating a
petition to support prisoners ' rights? |
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The
Petition Site
allows ordinary
citizens to reach the world with their message. |
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Words to Consider... |
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"An execution is not simply death. It is just as
different from the privation of life as a
concentration camp is from prison. It adds to
death a rule, a public premeditation known to
the future victim, an organization which is
itself a source of moral sufferings more
terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most
premeditated of murders, to which no
criminal's deed, however calculated can be
compared. For there to be an equivalency, the
death penalty would have to punish a criminal
who had warned his victim of the date at which
he would inflict a horrible death on him and
who, from that moment onward, had confined him
at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not
encountered in private life." ~Albert
Camus, 1957
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Additional Resources |
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Thousands of people visit our site each day. If you have a particular legal question or
concern, we encourage you to post it on our
Forum where someone may
respond with the answer you are seeking. We also suggest visiting our
Resource Directory to
locate additional organizations that may be able
to help.
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