Everybody knows that convicted felons can’t vote, right? W*R*O*N*G!!! Pennsylvania is one of the 15 or so states in the country where that’s simply not true: only people IN prison for a FELONY cannot vote here. But who knew?

Here are links to flyers you can distribute anywhere in PA, or here in Philadelphia. Email them to friends, circulate through your office, print and post them where you worship, volunteer or shop, staple them to telephone poles, … whatever. Just do something to help spread the word! May 2 is the last day to register for the May 17 primaries.

You might know him as the leader of Morgan Lewis’ litigation practice, overseeing lawsuits all around the globe. Or you might have run across him while he was Board Chair for the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, where he was (and remains) a major supporter. But you might not know that as a pro bono attorney, Gordon Cooney and another young ML&B attorney Michael Banks, represented a man on death row convicted of a brutal murder, fought off 8 death warrants, achieved a new trial, and WON IT, achieving freedom for their client after 18 horrific years. Read the story here. 

When he retired as its Board Chair, UWGPSNJ honored him by creating a Fellowship in Criminal Justice in his name. Each year it provides a $10,000 stipend to 1-2 people with lived experience in PA’s criminal justice system, who then work with PLSE to spread the good news about pardons in Pennsylvania and the hope they provide.

Earlier this month, Danea Langston Brooks was selected as the 2022 Cooney Fellow. She’s a proven entrepreneur who is passionate about public service, but her criminal record from thirty years ago has stopped her not only from being the developer of affordable housing she could be, but also caring for her brain-injured brother and elderly mom. She’ll be working in Germantown with Why Not Prosper and focusing her efforts on outreach to formerly-incarcerated women and mothers whose futures are totally limited by their pasts.

Welcome, Danea! And thank you, Gordon!

Late last year, we opened a new front on the “decriminalizing marijuana” front – where, by the AOPC’s count, there were more than 57,000 convictions between 2009 and 2019 – by calling for amnesty – a blanket pardon. We’ll have an update on that next month – but THIS month, we’re proud to report that we were invited to testify on a legalization bill that has bipartisan support in Harrisburg.

On March 1, PA State Rep. Amen Brown (from Philadelphia) and State Senator Mike Regan (representing parts of Cumberland and York Counties) led a hearing titled “Cannabis and Social Justice: The Impacts of Criminalization.” Invited to give testimony about the harms inflicted by criminal records, PLSE’s Lead Researcher and Mitigation Specialist Andrea Lindsay noted that cannabis arrests dating back years and decades continue to cause thousands of Pennsylvanians and their families major problems with employment, housing, health, and education. As the Inquirer reporter summarized her testimony: “That is why mass expungement is necessary.”

How’s the PA Board of Pardons doing on its expedited review of marijuana/paraphernalia-only convictions, announced on October 1, 2019? As of March 16, 2022, 248 such applications had been recommended to the Gov. Great news for those 248, for sure!, but with 56,752 still to go, just since 2009 – and the 1960s and 1970s the high season for arrests and convictions, . . . .

Fifty years ago, then-Governor Ronald Regan pardoned a felon who had so many convictions for petty crimes, and so many escapes from jail (5!), that for his last one (burglary while drunk) he was sentenced to 15 years in California’s most notorious maximum security prison, the big house, San Quentin.

A nobody then, a somebody now, the ex-offender credits the pardon with changing his life … and that pardon has since brought music to the ears of millions. He even wrote what should be the National Anthem for Pardons, Branded Man. Take a listen. ”But no matter where I travel, the black mark follows me…” You’ll find the lyrics at the end of this newsletter.

On receiving the pardon, Merle Haggard said, “Well, you can imagine yourself, you got this tail hanging on you, and suddenly you don’t have it anymore. It’s just wonderful not to have to walk up and say, ‘Pardon me, before I do this I want to tell you that I’m an ex-convict.’” 

50 years later, that fact of life – having to check the box – hasn’t changed at all. But it is changing, big time, here in PA.

You’ll remember that last year around this time, PLSE published two pathbreaking reports on people serving life sentences without parole (LWOP) for second-degree murder (meaning they didn’t directly cause the death). It shone the spotlight on the very high number of people serving those sentences who were under 21 at the time of the crime, how many had already served over 40 years and represented no threat to society if released, how many had already served more time in prison than the ones who actually did cause the death, and how disproportionately people of color were serving those sentences.

We’re so glad to note that, this past year, the Board approved more applications for clemency from lifers - 19! - than in any one year ever before, at least in this century. Earlier this month, Nancy Leichter – whose husband was killed by two boys aged 18 and 19 – called again for reforming the mandatory sentencing law, and gives PLSE a shout-out. You can read her op-ed here.

Our story last month about the efforts to reform the parole system in Pennsylvania generated several questions about parole and what PLSE is doing in that arena. The short answer is: not so much. While the Board of Pardons is responsible for reviewing applications for commutation (shortening or ending probation, parole and imprisonment) and the same application form is used (which PLSE championed to be way easier), we are only (at this point) helping people apply for pardons (full forgiveness of the crime) after they have completed their sentences.

But all of us should know that, just like Meek Mill, hundreds if not thousands of people on probation or parole are sent back to prison for “technical violations” – a horror not only for them, but for all of us. Here’s a link to the powerful 2017 report by Ted Koppel and Frontline/The New York Times. It drives home the power of the individual parole agents, all of whom are operating under what the state calls a policy of “rehabilitation” but which, for many, sure looks like one of oppression.

I'd like to hold my head up and be proud of who I am

But they won't let my secret go untold

I paid the debt I owed them, but they're still not satisfied

Now I'm a branded man out in the cold

When they let me out of prison, I held my head up high

Determined, I would rise above the shame

But no matter where I travel, the black mark follows me

I'm branded with a number on my name

If I live to be a hundred, guess I'll never clear my name

'Cause everybody knows I've been in jail

No matter where I'm living

I've got to tell them where I've been

Or they'll send me back to prison if I fail

Now I'm a branded man out in the cold