As Shohn's parents and family, we need your support and help now to gain his release from the horrible ordeal that has been like a really bad dream for well over a year now. No family should ever have to go through having a loved one mercilessly ripped from their lives the way Shohn has been from ours. We spend our time these days with the constant thought of how to gain justice and restore his freedom and good name, and get him home where he belongs. He is only 23, and a hardworking, family and sports loving young man.
Mexico has no regard for their own justice system, or the rights of the people it affects. Once you have seen the system from the inside as we have, you understand the plight of the Mexican people, and anyone that winds up in the system's grasp. We want to gain Shohn's release foremost, but ultimately we hope to expose, as the important documentary Presunto Culpable (Presumed Guilty) has recently portrayed, the corruption, cynicism, and impunity that reign within the Mexican legal and justice system.
Please join us, and help us show the world that democratically established individual guarantees and Human Rights must be observed for our world to be a place where we can have hope for the future of our children.
Legal defense anywhere is costly. For now, we'll just say that the cast of characters and official fees in Cd. Juarez have been astounding. Additionaly, we travel to Cd. Juarez various times per week to visit Shohn, keep his spirits up, and provide for many basic needs. We have to take him food, and we do his laundry, and provide any of the other items he needs to have some little bit of home in his cell. Shohn is a talented carpenter and had kept busy doing wood working and carpentry there, but the prison carpentry workshop was destroyed by fire recently and has not been restored yet.
Due to the ever present danger in Cd. Juarez, we have to take precautions when going over, that include arranging for a trustworthy and reliable driver from the point of entry, as we must travel through to the southern edge of the city to arrive at the prison. Juarez is statistically identified as the most dangerous city on earth. That fact that is down played by all of the government figures, and they would like for the world to ignore the dozens of executions and torture victims found or killed daily in their city.
We ask you to join us in any of the events and grass roots activities we will post on this site. Please join in the signing of petitions to the Mexican judiciary to call for them to make the right decision as this case makes it's way before them. Many have asked if they could help financially, so we have provided a PayPal button to securely donate to this cause. In kind donations and volunteer donations of time, goods, or services to help us bring about gatherings and events would be great help, too. We appreciate your support by taking part actively, or financially to help bring Shohn home to his family and back to the work he loves. Please continue to keep our family in your prayers at this critical time.
Tammy and Kevin, This is heartrending. I am going to try to get this message and blog to some politicians. It needs to get some national publicity and a spotlight on this injustice. Why don't WE ALL send this blog address to any political person we know PLUS send it to anyone in the .gov email systems. Someone will take it up for a "cause" and perhaps some progress will be made.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Tammy, have you contacted former Gov. Bill Richardson? This is right up his alley & he's good at it...love, chris & becky
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry this ever happened. My aunt is a federal public defender in Alpine. I told her what I knew about Shohn's situation and she suggested applying for a transfer to a US prison to finish out his time. I'm sure I don't have the whole story, but I just thought I'd put that out there for you. Above all, I'm praying for your whole family.
ReplyDeleteJodi, thank you for taking the injustice done to Shohn to heart. He is innocent, and has gone through one appeal already. The upcoming Amparo, in Mexican law, is a constitutionally guaranteed review of his case by a real panel of judges, designed to correct and overturn a wrongful decision that clearly violated his basic rights and individual guarantees, including that of a fair and impartial hearing. There is no evidence against him other than the words of two soldiers, whose own testimony is rife with impossibilities and contradictions. He has been fighting for his good name and justice, and it is important we support him in this noble effort by signing the petition that will be posted here tomorrow. If Shohn came back to serve his wrongful conviction in the US, he would carry the burden of a felony throughout his entire life. He is young, but a hard worker who had already established his own dirt work and concrete business. He would lose his clearance for some contracts that his reputation earned him the opportunity to carry out. He would lose many other rights and privileges he is entitled to if he is wrongly burdened with a felony record. He is a very good guy, an innocent victim of a very corrupt and cynical system and the arbitrary decision of a sole magistrate who was not even present in the hearings for more than a few minutes during the proceedings against him.
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