Thursday, March 18, 2021
Fiction vs Fact on Shawna Forde number 2
Moraga had helped Gaxiola and another man steal between 400 to 500 pounds of marijuana from Flores a few months prior to his death, she wears the same size shoes as the bloody ones found at Gaxiola's house and she somewhat resembled the description provided by Gonzalez, the attorneys said
This is Gina Moraga at Alex Gaxiola's trial. Hmmmm... But there's more!
Could this be a case of mistaken ID? I think so!! Moraga was Alex's girlfriend.
Fiction vs Fact number 1 on Shawna Forde
Forde's DNA was also found on an item of jewelry belonging to Gonzalez and found in Forde's Honda Element after the slayings.
https://tucson.com/news/local/crime/forde-convicted-in-killing-of-arivaca-man-daughter/article_6ae561fe-386c-11e0-9555-001cc4c002e0.html
The link is to the news journal depicting Forde as guilty. Now let's read the actual truth about Forde's DNA on the silver ring. Bear in mind, there were several pieces of jewerly & only 1 had a partial match to Forde's DNA.
Start with the last paragraph on page 3 of Shawna's appeal. What do you think of Shawna's DNA matching the DNA on the silver ring now? The DNA could match you or I with odds of 1 in 2,000. Why didn't Shawna's lawyers jump on this? Well, they were court appointed if that tells you much. And it should. Wait till you read & see my next Fiction vs Fact on Shawna!
By now most of you may have realized we are experiencing some problems posting on this blog. We will likely be moving to a new location soon. I will keep you posted on that. I will be doing some reasons why i believe Shawna is innocent of said crimes. I will be using facts, not made up BS. I will list links to whatever i use as backup. I will only use facts from Shawna's trial transcripts & appeals as back up. I encourage you to send me your questions concerning her innocense or guilt. What "Facts" or information have you thinking she's guilty or innocent? Let's find the answers from her transcripts & appeals. So much is not common knowledge on this conviction, it will blow you away!! ~Rae
Monday, March 15, 2021
LifeLines Quarterly Magazine Spring 2021
Dear Friends,
Well, we are back in the electronic format for this issue but I hope we will be back to a paper copy next time. I am sorry I haven’t got room for all the articles you have sent me- please keep sending them, and I will publish them as soon as I can.
The post has been intermittent, and sadly I had no entries at all for the art competition this year. I hope some of you can send me poems and essays for our next competitions.
Please be assured that LifeLines is still offering the usual support and services – please use the contacts page for email addresses and phone numbers or contact your co-ordinator.
Thank you for your letters and messages; I hope that you are all keeping well.
Sue Drysdale Copy date for the next Wing is 26th April 2021
Vice Chair’s Message
Dear LifeLines members and our friends in the US
This e-Wing has been put together by Wing editor Sue Drysdale in response to the current Covid lockdown in Britain: we want to reduce the workload of the severely stretched Royal Mail and help most members avoid a trip to the post office.
I’d like to begin with a very warm welcome to all the new members who have joined since the last newsletter. We’re delighted to have you on board. Many joined after seeing a BBC video featuring LifeLines members that was linked with news coverage about the horrifying spate of Federal executions greenlighted in the last months of the Trump administration. It is some comfort that many new friendships will hopefully spring from that very dark time. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those executed, the remaining Federal prisoners and with co-ordinator Patrick Ballin, who has offered compassion and support to all affected. President Biden has declared his intention to end Federal executions and opened a conversation about the death penalty, so we shall watch developments with cautious optimism.
Thank you as ever to all LifeLines office-holders – trustees, co-ordinators, regional group organisers and others who do valuable work to keep things running smoothly - who continue to do a wonderful job in the current very challenging circumstances. We welcome longtime member Edmund Conybeare back to the committee, on which he served many years ago, and thank you too to all the trustees and Michele Baxter who were involved in the superb redesign of the LifeLines website. Take a look here: www.LifeLines-uk.org.uk
You’ll see below details of the next LifeLines Zoom event, in April. Do join us if you can! It’s a great way for us to connect with each other and make something positive out of a grim situation.
To our friends in the US, we know you’re still having to endure many restrictions and difficulties as a result of the pandemic, with visits, mail and daily routines all severely affected. We’re keeping you in our thoughts and wishing that you stay safe and well. To all LifeLines members, please never doubt you are making a difference for the better and thank you for being there for your friends. Let us all hope that wherever we are, Spring will be the start of a brighter time for everyone.
Warmest wishes, Jan Hall
Facebook and Twitter
Follow us on Twitter - @LifeLines25 - or on Facebook; just search for the LifeLines group and one of the Administrators will approve you, pending a membership check.
LifeLines Conference News
Coming soon to a screen near you…again!
LifeLines Zoom Event Saturday 17th April
The first LifeLines Zoom event last October was such a success that we’re having another, on Saturday 17th April from 2 to 4pm. Robin Konrad, Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Habeas Institute, will be guest speaker, and the afternoon will also include other features of interest to LifeLines people, and time to talk informally with one another. There will be more details of the event on the LifeLines website and sent to you from your co-ordinator nearer the time.
Pre-registration - NB You must register for the event by 10th April at the latest. Please email LifeLines membership secretary Nichola Glasse on nichola@glasse.org.uk who will check your membership status and confirm your booking has been received. If you’re not a member, please give the name of a member who will vouch for you. About a fortnight before the event, Nichola will email you a link, and you must click on that to complete your pre-registration and receive joining details for the conference. Attendance is free, but donations are much appreciated. Donate here: www.lifelines-uk.org.uk
Guest Speaker Robin Konrad will be joining us from her home in Montgomery, Alabama, where she is Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Habeas Institute. The NHI works to educate lawyers, law students and the public about habeas law by developing and putting into practice the best standards for habeas practice.
As an alumnus and former faculty member at Howard University School of Law, Robin is passionate about racial and social justice. She has helped develop NHI’s pipeline programme between Howard students and public defender offices and is committed to ensuring that prisoners have quality representation when challenging their unconstitutional convictions.
We hope you can join us!
Some Old ‘Meant to Be’s
Realities of what happened to us,
It’s so very hard to explain,
Those reasons we aren’t together
A face without a name
I think about it very often
The facts seem a little unclear
A million questions to answer
Yet none of them are near
I was born to walk in darkness
You were bathed in the light
Born to two different worlds
Demons we both would fight
Though separate we are together
The regrets can never be freed
Shadows in every corner
Living some old ‘meant to be’s
R.E.H.
2020 in 6 words
A Facebook prompt led members to sum up last year in 6 words- here are a few of them:
Look for new ways going forward
Grateful for friendship across the ocean
Very grateful for what I have.
COVID ravaged but on the mend!
Feel like the world's gone mad
Unpredictable; Transformative; Clarity; Community; Change; Ugh.
Learning to truly count my blessings.
Community spirit, love, care, wildlife, environment
Pulling together for our communities.
Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day.
Friends matter, letters matter, you matter
Enjoy small pleasures, see kindness everywhere
Time to breathe and appreciate Nature
Sincerely grateful for what you have
A year of tears and heroes
Thanks but no thanks, wretched 2020
Pillow
You are the comfort zone to many minds and hearts.
You are the last who simply cannot speak, see, or hear.
You don’t judge. You allow the mind to lay down its head;
To feel as a heart, our fears, our tears, our dreams, our nightmares.
Like our heart, it is the center before our day is complete.
In the midst of it all, you soak up the tears and heal the inner silence of thought. How we all rest on you. “Pillow Talk” you do not do. You are the mind’s security blanket.
In hunger and in fear, you gave me your comfort and ear.
As I tossed and turned, you still understood.
For 55 years you allowed me to reflect without a word.
My head thanks you for your protection on stormy nights, lonely days, you amaze.
Like the heart, you see not, hear not, yet like the heart this is where life truly rests. Pillow, you have listened to my many thoughts.
You wait for me, not hate for me. Like a cello that’s mellow, in tune with my thoughts; Music only heard in my thoughts, you covered my tears.
Yes, Pillow. You’re special in ways that matter most days.
Gregory Esparza Sr. Ohio
The Samuel Johnson Essay Competition 2021
We are pleased to announce that we are now accepting entries for the Samuel Johnson Essay Competition. Please send your entry to Sue Drysdale, The Wing Editor
Deadline : Monday 5th July 2021
LifeLines Poetry Competition 2021
We are now accepting entries for the LifeLines Poetry Competition 2020.
Please send your poetry to: The Wing Editor, 5 Glusburn Bridge, Glusburn, Keighley, West Yorkshire, BD20 8DP by Monday 5th April 2021. The editor can also be contacted by e-mail at thewingeditor@gmail.com. The 1st prize is $40, 2nd prize is $25, and 3rd prize is $15.
The competition is open to all prisoners on the row, but no more than three entries per person, please. Remember, you must be the author and your poem cannot have been published elsewhere.
Winning entries will be published in a future issue of The Wing; other entries may be printed later. Please let us know if you would prefer to have your work printed anonymously and let us know how we should send your prize money, should you win. Good luck!
Appreciation: Art Giles 1959-2020
'Give Light and people will find the way'
- a quote sent by Art, November 2016.
As I am finishing this, a fantastic rainbow arcs down the hilly streets of my Yorkshire town over the local church where I requested Art, and others, be remembered in an All Souls service, last Sunday.
It's always going to be special writing to someone on the Row and being part of their life, but befriending the thoughtful, intelligent Art - who has died in his sixty-second year - has been a privilege.
We began our correspondence the year I turned fifty. He'd been on the Row since my schooldays, yet his letters exuded a warmth and resilience that spoke of a heart at peace.
He stressed the importance of celebrating the beauty and happiness in the everyday, and consequently I began to look at my life and its blessings with a new appreciation.
There were sketches, quotes and word pictures, but never discussions on politics - I never developed the courage to attempt that! - even if Art's letters once or twice touched on them.
I would not have known from his letters of the (harsh) daily routine of the Row.
He never complained, had enormous resilience, and, despite illness, continued to have an interest in the world in general, and a concern for the needs of those close to him, in particular. (It was a revelation to me, for instance that he helped teach a Law Class, encouraging fellow inmates to continue contesting their sentence, right up to the end, as he did.)
One of his last kindnesses was to ask a friend, stateside, to contact me when he died.
When I passed on news of his passing to Mary, the Coordinator who'd originally put us in touch with each other, I thanked her - "it's been a really special experience" - and then I understood that quote: "Give people the light and they will find the way"; everyone IS special, but sometimes people need the warmth and sunshine of friendship to see our own worth.
(Thanks, Art; I was one of those people!)
Clare
Dancing Pixies
On the very first January morning the bleakness of my drab prison cell was transformed into a festive party room;
Filled with petite winged Pixies of shimmering bright lights.
Around they went, dancing on the walls and ceiling, jumping, bouncing, joyous and almost magical.
Each moment seemed choreographed in a gleeful, mischievous dance.
Though they were truly just reflections of the sun shining off the ice coated prisms created on the pointed razor wire atop the high fence outside my cell
These brilliant bursts of colour brought life and hope, if only for just a brief time.
I encourage you to look for the dancing pixies in life;
Those we lose sight of when times are full of plenty…
And we grow up.
John E Robinson Sr, Kansas
Apache Blessing
May the sun bring you new energy by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away your worries,
May the breeze blow new strength into your being,
May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.
And here are my AZ Statelines:
Hello Everyone,
Happy New Year to you all :)
So, it's a mixed bag from Arizona this Spring.
The Pandemic is continuing to cause problems and restrictions and to cast uncertainty over the details, and date, of the planned Central Unit Move - for the present, it seems to be off the agenda.
All those on the row now have tablets but, in addition to issues with them (hard and software wise), there has been a huge problem with the new Securus eMessaging platform which replaced the basic, but bulletproof, JPay email. The problems are legion and they have caused a breach whereby many writers at this end are simply unable to communicate with their penfriends by email any more. If you haven't heard from your friend by email, this is probably the reason. I encourage all writers who are having difficulty at either end to post each other a letter explaining the situation, if you haven't already. Fingers crossed that Securus sorts the bugs out soon.
In terms of legal issues, Arizona continues to move toward reinstituting executions. In October, Mark Brnovich, the Attorney General, said that his office and the ADC have found a compound pharmacist to administer pentobarbital - source: AZCentral.com. Executions have been on hold in Arizona since 2014. However, this whole process will take time, as with all things row-related, and is by no means a foregone conclusion.
If I have missed anything, let me know for next time.
Best to you all,
Bryonie
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