Post by CCADP on Oct 3, 2005 11:48:06 GMT -5
The first time I wrote Jimmy was in January of 2000. I threw the letter away. I was fearful about getting involved. I didn't know if I could trust the Internet information about Jimmy's case. Also, even though I was staunchly opposed to the death penalty, I was heavily influenced by the common perceptions in the U.S. of people on death row: What if he were some cold, calloused killer? What if I help him get off death row and he comes after me someday? These thoughts seem ludicrous to me now, but they were very real at the time. We have been trained to think of death row inmates as monsters, as people who aren't fully human, as a bunch of depraved serial killers. But when you visit death row, all you see are humans -- some guilty, some innocent, but all very much human beings.
It wasn't until August of 2000 that I sent Jimmy my first letter. At the time I had no idea where that letter was about to take me, the journey on which I was about to embark. It wasn't much later at all that I began to seriously research Jimmy's case. I started gathering documents, thousands of pages of documents: the appeal brief, the trial transcript, numerous police statements made by witnesses. I traveled to the courthouse in Philadelphia for the first time in 2001. I had to know for myself that Jimmy was innocent. I couldn't proclaim this to the world unless I had done the necessary research. I'd hate to think about all the hours I spent pouring over the documents -- for several months I was nearly obsessive about it. I found that the evidence supporting Jimmy's innocence was so compelling, one had to wonder how it was that they even had a trial -- not to mention how Jimmy ended up on death row. I still can't believe it. I still can't believe that in the U.S. a person can get a death sentence with a case as ridiculously weak as that against Jimmy. But it has happened at an alarming rate: We now have over 120 people who have been released from death row.
I have visited Jimmy several times, and exchanged countless letters with him. He is anything but the monster that I once feared. Jimmy loves his family deeply, and worries about them incessantly. His hope for freedom one day is tied directly to his passion for his family members -- his longing to be with them, his desire to share in their daily lives. Jimmy is a warm individual who always shows sincere interest in his friends, asking how they are doing, remembering details about their lives. Jimmy can be strong-willed and can dig in his heels, and sometimes I think I like this characteristic most of all because of my own strong-willed streak. It's that kind of strength that has helped him maintain some sanity and dignity in the midst of this mind-boggling madness, in the midst of a brutal world that would put him in a cell with a sentence of death hanging over his head for all these years, inspite of his obvious innocence.
I once asked Jimmy how he has been able to cope. He told Jim (my hubby) and me that when he was in the Philadelphia county jail awaiting sentencing after being convicted, he contemplated many things, including writing "Innocent" in blood on the wall of the jail cell and killing himself. A jailer who apparently noted how distraught Jimmy was and who perhaps also had an inkling of Jimmy's complete innocence, took Jimmy aside and told him, "You know, in this life we all are given a hand of cards, and we have to play the hand that's dealt us." I don't suppose those words did much to comfort Jimmy, but they gave him the necessary framework through which he began to make decisions about his response to this tragedy.
I can't imagine what it must be like to be charged, convicted and sentenced to die for a crime one didn't commit. I can't fathom it. I don't even like it when someone thinks I said something I didn't say, so what if people thought I killed someone I didn't kill? I would be devastated. As sensitive as Jimmy can be, I know this has hurt him as deeply as it would me.
It also has to have been so disheartening to have his musical dreams stolen from him. Jimmy and his group, Sensation, had incredible potential, and at the time of Jimmy's trial, he was about to sign a singing contract. It's sad that Jimmy doesn't sing today; he refuses to sing on death row. I've never gotten to hear his singing voice. But I dream of a day when Jimmy will be released, of the day when he will have something to sing about. Surely freedom can't be too far away, surely the world's citizens won't allow the U.S. government to take his life. Surely justice is around the corner, and Jimmy will be singing soon. I can't wait.
- Tonya Sneed; Peoria Illinois
It wasn't until August of 2000 that I sent Jimmy my first letter. At the time I had no idea where that letter was about to take me, the journey on which I was about to embark. It wasn't much later at all that I began to seriously research Jimmy's case. I started gathering documents, thousands of pages of documents: the appeal brief, the trial transcript, numerous police statements made by witnesses. I traveled to the courthouse in Philadelphia for the first time in 2001. I had to know for myself that Jimmy was innocent. I couldn't proclaim this to the world unless I had done the necessary research. I'd hate to think about all the hours I spent pouring over the documents -- for several months I was nearly obsessive about it. I found that the evidence supporting Jimmy's innocence was so compelling, one had to wonder how it was that they even had a trial -- not to mention how Jimmy ended up on death row. I still can't believe it. I still can't believe that in the U.S. a person can get a death sentence with a case as ridiculously weak as that against Jimmy. But it has happened at an alarming rate: We now have over 120 people who have been released from death row.
I have visited Jimmy several times, and exchanged countless letters with him. He is anything but the monster that I once feared. Jimmy loves his family deeply, and worries about them incessantly. His hope for freedom one day is tied directly to his passion for his family members -- his longing to be with them, his desire to share in their daily lives. Jimmy is a warm individual who always shows sincere interest in his friends, asking how they are doing, remembering details about their lives. Jimmy can be strong-willed and can dig in his heels, and sometimes I think I like this characteristic most of all because of my own strong-willed streak. It's that kind of strength that has helped him maintain some sanity and dignity in the midst of this mind-boggling madness, in the midst of a brutal world that would put him in a cell with a sentence of death hanging over his head for all these years, inspite of his obvious innocence.
I once asked Jimmy how he has been able to cope. He told Jim (my hubby) and me that when he was in the Philadelphia county jail awaiting sentencing after being convicted, he contemplated many things, including writing "Innocent" in blood on the wall of the jail cell and killing himself. A jailer who apparently noted how distraught Jimmy was and who perhaps also had an inkling of Jimmy's complete innocence, took Jimmy aside and told him, "You know, in this life we all are given a hand of cards, and we have to play the hand that's dealt us." I don't suppose those words did much to comfort Jimmy, but they gave him the necessary framework through which he began to make decisions about his response to this tragedy.
I can't imagine what it must be like to be charged, convicted and sentenced to die for a crime one didn't commit. I can't fathom it. I don't even like it when someone thinks I said something I didn't say, so what if people thought I killed someone I didn't kill? I would be devastated. As sensitive as Jimmy can be, I know this has hurt him as deeply as it would me.
It also has to have been so disheartening to have his musical dreams stolen from him. Jimmy and his group, Sensation, had incredible potential, and at the time of Jimmy's trial, he was about to sign a singing contract. It's sad that Jimmy doesn't sing today; he refuses to sing on death row. I've never gotten to hear his singing voice. But I dream of a day when Jimmy will be released, of the day when he will have something to sing about. Surely freedom can't be too far away, surely the world's citizens won't allow the U.S. government to take his life. Surely justice is around the corner, and Jimmy will be singing soon. I can't wait.
- Tonya Sneed; Peoria Illinois