Wednesday 29 July 2009

Gloria Killian for the National Prison Reform Committee


To: the President of the United States, Members of the U.S. Senate and Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, see more...

Started by: ACTION COMMITTEE FOR WOMEN IN PRISON

Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has proposed a National Commission to study the American Criminal Justice System and correct its flaws. As originally proposed the Commission membership did not include prisoner advocates, former prisoners, the wrongfully convicted, or prison rights organizations. I have decided to try for an appointment to the Commission as it is critical that our voices be heard. Please support me by signing this petition. Thank you.

Eliminate Mandatory Minimum Sentencing, which has turned America into #1 Jailer in the world and threatened our own people within -- no longer "the land of the free" as 1 in 31 Adults are in Corrections, probation or parole. This does not count many other groups. Write your Congressmen/women. Write Sen. Jim Webb and participate on his Criminal Justice Commission -- citizens are needed, and those exonerated who have spent decades as innocent people trapped in America's jails and prisons - Hell-holes that rival Abu Ghraib in it's treatment of human beings.
We are nominating Gloria Killian, wrongfully convicted, wrongfully imprisoned for 17 1/2 years for a crime she did NOT commit, and exonerated for Sen. Jim Webb's Criminal Justice Reform Commission to overhaul a broken criminal justice and prison system. Only she has more real life experience as a result of the failed policies that no one on the commission has or anyone else nominates. The alarming rate of growth of women and girls being incarcerated is an issue since the history of prisons is they were built for men, not women who have special gender specific needs and issues. It's time to recognize this. The future of this nation depends on honestly facing this crisis.

Gloria Killian: Biography


Gloria Killian was released from prison on 8/8/02 after serving more than 16 years on a sentence of 32 years to life for a crime that she did not commit. Throughout her trial and incarceration she always maintained her innocence. In March 2002 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that her conviction was based solely on perjured testimony and overturned her conviction. In 2008, Christopher Cleland, the District Attorney who prosecuted her, was tried by the State Bar of California and found guilty of unethical conduct in her case.


As a former law student, Ms. Killian was assigned to the prison law library where she worked for 14 years, providing legal assistance to other inmates. She worked extensively with battered women, as well as others, and developed specialized legal services for many different areas of the prison. She was instrumental in the founding of the USC Law Project at the California Institution for Women.


During her time in prison, Ms. Killian published several articles including two that were featured in the USC Law Review, entitled Equal Justice for Some, and Justice: One Woman's Perspective. The second article was co-authored with Brenda Aris, the first battered woman to be granted clemency in the State of California. Ms. Killian also drafted the media and outreach campaign that led to the release of Ms. Aris.


Since her release, Ms. Killian has been tirelessly advocating for the humane treatment and release of the women that she left behind. She works as a consultant to agencies in the criminal justice and public policy fields, and has been the keynote speaker at several symposiums. She has testified for Select Committees of the California Legislature, and spoken extensively about the issues and concerns of incarcerated women. She has lectured at USC Law School, Loyola Law School, Southwestern Law School, Vanguard University, and Arizona State University, among many others.


MS Killian is now the Executive Director of her own non-profit organization, the Action Committee for Women in Prison (ACWIP). Along with public education and advocacy work, ACWIP provides Christmas gifts for the inmates at the California Institution for Women and in the Fire Camps, in conjunction with All Saints Episcopal Church. ACWIP also provides toys for the children of women in prison, when they come to visit their mothers. She is a member of the Girls Collaborative, which works with at risk teen-agers, AKA Angels and ALL of Us or None. She serves on the California Nursing Association, Correctional Medicine Taskforce, the National Commission on Crime and Delinquency Taskforce on Incarcerated Women, the Advisory Panel for the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the steering committee of Free Battered Women and the Women in Criminal Justice Network. Ms Killian is the co-director of the Prison Ministry at All Saints Episcopal Church.


Ms. Killian's experiences with the criminal justice system and the advocacy work that she is doing were featured on 48 Hours which aired in September, 2003 on CBS. She is also profiled in a new book, Paths to Freedom by Alexis Powers, and she was featured on the Montel Williams Show twice. She has appeared on numerous radio shows and commentaries A movie is currently being developed about Ms. Killian's life and she is writing a book about her journey to justice.

Source (www.change.org)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello Gloria,and to all the women who are wrongfully convicted! because of a flawed system.
I want to share with you about our daughter who was wrongfully convicted of murder, she is innocent of this crime.When our daughter's boyfriend was murdered in 2003 in their home, she wasn't home, he was alone in the house. His ex-girlfriend had been threatening him and our daughter with great bodily harm, my words on this are light compared to what she said and also in a letter(which our daughter kept and the police took that). Our daughter took a polygraph and passed with a high score, at that point you would think that the police would of dropped her as a suspect, but they didn't. the decedants ex-girlfriend also took a poly,and she flunked it royal!!. She admitted on the stand that she had found out where they were living and a few weeks before his death, she went to the home to get her child support money, but no one was home, so she vandalized the home and wrote on his truck, "Deadbeat Father". This woman is a violent person(and is a schizophrenic that takes meds for this). She has writen slanderous posts on various forums about our daughter,through the years.She makes some pretty incriminating statements, as if she had been at the residence on that date, there are some things she knows and you would of had to be there to have this pertinent info. On another note, our daughter's ex-husband was stalking her at this time and stated in my presents that he would like to kill this guy!. I know we have a real "Who done It" case, was it the ex-girlfriend or was it our daughter's ex-husband... We know that their was at least 2 individuals in that house that early morning and they came with murder on their minds. Had our daughter been there at the house, we know that she would of also been murdered.
How can a person be convicted without any evidentuary evidence on them. The decedant was bludgeoned to death, and the police took our daughter's clothing she was wearing, shoes, hat, jacket and did the forensics and not one spot of blood was on them or her! The DA said that the crime had just happened, but that is not true to the state of his body! The EMT said that he had been dead for sometime, he had dried blood on him. This is not a crime that "Just Happened"!!!. We had poor representation!. We have just found out that some key evidence that the Tec collected he destroyed before her conviction!!. The judge in her case at her conviction (2nd trial) said had she come before me and not a jury, I would of found her not guilty because of lack of evidence!!!(he even still lowered her bail even though she was convicted)this is very rare judge action.First trial ended in a hung jury. On March 2009all the appeals ran out and her bail and she turned herself in. I say she is the bravest person I know, she is innocent of this horrible murder but she still turned herself in! walked away from her life to do a sentence for someone/s else. We have wrote so many Legislators and the Govenor, but to no avail!, no one is listening!. Our daughter is only 34 and has 2 wonderful children that miss her tearably!. We want true and fair justice for our daughter and the real murderers need to pay for what they did to a great kind person and father! Nothing ever linked our daughter to this crime, except she came home and found him dead!
She always cooperated with the police and even would call and go down to the station to see if she could help in any way, but they only wanted a quick fix, and she was the "Scapegoat". The DA has railroaded our daughter, and lied in the court room and made mis-statements to miss lead the jury and unfortunantely it worked in his favor!! I will never forget his antics and his smirks in the court room, almost laughing at her!! This is not justice! I am writing the story of our daughter's trials and it gives me some little comfort as I write, I still cry!
It's a bad dream you can't wake from.