Appreciation
Since the SLP:BG project began, more than 100 students have worked with people trying to extricate themselves from life and de facto life sentences. For the students, the work quickly becomes a privilege as the people they work with give openly and generously of themselves. And while it is clear that the students, despite putting their hearts and souls into the work, actually gain far more then they give, it is common for the people they are working with to send letters to the faculty expressing gratitude for the care, effort, and commitment the students put forth on their behalf.
Here, with the authors’ permission, are some examples:
By Frank Pruitt
By Greg Mingo
By Bobby Ehrenberg
By Pete Andreu
In Their Own Voices
While every effort is made in drafting a clemency application to bring someone’s humanity to life, the people we have worked with urged us to videotape them so that people reviewing their clemency applications would actually see and hear them in their own words. Relying on friends and colleagues at Bard College, CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, WITNESS.org, and others willing to provide pro bono service, we have created and submitted many videotaped interviews with our clemency applications.
The following are videotaped interviews of some people who were granted clemency:
The following are videotaped interviews of some people whose clemency applications are still pending:
Each videotape is posted with the permission, and at the behest, of the people who were interviewed.
