If you are on Facebook, please subscribe to this page!

Free the Texas 4! A new Facebook page to help four lesbians in Texas who’ve been horribly railroaded. Please “Like” this site! http://www.facebook.com/groups/231503693594085/

You can also read about this case here.

-Bob Chatelle

We need more prosecutors like Craig Watkins and Mike Ware. Mike is now working on the Four Lives Lost case, sponsored by the NCRJ.

2011 is drawing to a close.  If you wish to deduct your contribution to the National Center for Reason and Justice, you must act soon.

You can mail your check (made payable to NCRJ) to NCRJ, POB 191101, Roxbury MA 02119.

You may donate via PayPal or Google Checkout at the NCRJ web site: http://ncrj.org/donate/.

Without your support, the NCRJ cannot keep up its fight for justice.

Thank you!

-Bob Chatelle

Thanksgiving is behind us and many of us will soon be sending cards to friends and family. Please consider sending cards to one or more prisoners as well. It means a great deal to those behind bars, especially for those who are innocent.

Here are some addresses: http://bobchatelle.net/please-write-to-a-prisoner

If you see errors in this list, please let me know and I will correct ASAP.

-Bob Chatelle

If you have donated in the past, you should have received the following letter. If you have not yet donated, please consider becoming a donor. You may send a check to NCRJ, POB 191101, Roxbury MA 02119. Or you may donate via Google of PayPal at our website: http://ncrj.org/donate/

Here is our current letter:

November 11, 2011

Dear Friend,

NCRJ has had an exciting year.

• In San Antonio, Texas, four young lesbians languishing in prison on false convictions of child molestation now have hope of exoneration and freedom. We secured them an excellent pro bono lawyer. We worked with a journalist whose in-depth article brought national attention to their case. We’ve helped strengthen a group of local supporters. And we are broadening media coverage and support in sympathetic communities.
• In upstate New York, an experimental filmmaker nabbed for inadvertently downloading what police called child pornography had emptied his bank account before he found us. Thanks to NCRJ, his defense committee can now raise tax-deductible contributions. And NCRJ is educating artists about the overreaching government surveillance that demolishes the lives of innocent people like this man.
• In New York City, the courts will soon hear the appeal of a daycare teacher, a Guyanese immigrant, browbeaten into confessing to the rape of a four-year-old. NCRJ publicized her story and found her a top-notch attorney.

In these and all our other cases, coercive police tactics, junk science, homophobia, racism, inadequate defense for the poor—or all of the above—feature prominently.

That is why we need your support.

NCRJ is the only organization that helps people falsely accused of crimes against children. No wonder appeals for our help keep streaming in.

But we need to do more, or those appeals won’t abate. We also must work to prevent more injustice, and more tragedies.

Last year NCRJ committed itself to combating the unjust laws and policies that grow out of the same hysteria, public credulity, and political opportunism that feed false accusations. These policies—such as sex offender registries and civil commitment—do not enhance public safety, but fan more hysteria.

The laws are unjust not only to the falsely accused but also to the guilty who have paid their debt to society and are trying to live productive, crime-free lives.

Toward our two goals—helping the falsely accused and moving toward fairer laws—we are building new strategic alliances and strengthening old ones for mutual benefit. This year we will:

• Collaborate with criminal justice advocates—especially Innocence Projects—to synergize resources, media contacts, expertise, and experience. This way we can exonerate people and spread the word about false convictions for sexual abuse or murder in accidental child deaths.
• Reach outside our usual bailiwick. We’re educating and seeking support from gay and lesbian activists, racial justice groups, artists, and academics.
• Make alliances for rational sex laws. These friends include the national Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL) network. We’re already visiting their chapters and learning from their personal and legislative experiences.

All this work requires travel, research, and staff and board time: money.

Please help us with a tax-deductible donation of $1,000, $500, $150 — or whatever you can afford. You can use the enclosed self-addressed envelope, or go to ncrj.org and donate by credit card. If you choose the credit-card option, please consider becoming a monthly sustainer via PayPal.

We are grateful for your partnership in progressing towards our biggest goal: to make NCRJ obsolete, and shut our doors.

Sincerely,

Michael R. Snedeker
President of the Board of Directors

Mr. Gary Lanigan, Commissioner
Department of Corrections
POB 863
Trenton NJ 08625

Dear Commissioner Lanigan,

The National Center for Reason and Justice (NCRJ) is a 501 (c)(3) organization that fights for justice and due process of law. Our focus is those who have been falsely accused or wrongfully convicted of crimes against children.

Recently, one of our supporters sent us a copy of a disturbing letter he had received from an inmate at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center (ADTC) in Avenel, New Jersey.

We are very concerned. Outraged, would be a better word. The letter describes an institutional shakedown on November 3^rd by the Special Operations Group (SOG). The letter details needless destruction of property and cruel and unlawful physical assault and battery, as well as various forms of gross psychological abuse inflicted by those in positions of power upon those powerless to redress the abuse. We understand that the abuses were documented in many grievances and incident reports filed by inmates, therapists, and custody staff.

We also understand that SOG complained about the policy of the ADTC that permits participants of the Hobby and Music programs to keep music and art supplies in their housing areas. Confining these materials to the Art and Music rooms would effectively kill these valuable therapeutic programs, because the Art and Music rooms lack the space and time slots to accommodate all of the participating inmates. We hope that you will not alter the current polices.

Our primary concern, however, is the violent and unlawful behavior of SOG staff. A full and fair investigation of the events of November 3^rd is in order. We urge your office to take action to assure that such atrocities do not recur, at ADTC or elsewhere within the New Jersey Correctional System. Apologies must be issued and restitution must be afforded. We also demand an investigation into the history and suitability of some of your staff members to hold positions of public trust and responsibility.

Sincerely,

Robert B. Chatelle
Executive Director, National Center for Reason and Justice

Those of you with strong stomachs may wish to read the letter from the inmate.

Bee has had some terrible health problems over the past couple of years. He’s lost too much weight.