More
Political
Prisoners

NORMA JEAN CROY
Norma Jean is serving time for the alleged crime of "conspiracy to murder" Bo Hittson, a Yreka, California, deputy sheriff. Norma Jean Croy is a Shasta Native American Indian and a lesbian, who has been incarcerated since July 1978. She was sentenced to life in prison. Norma Jean Croy never conspired with anyone to commit murder; in fact, she never carried nor fired the gun that killed officer Bo Hittson.

LOUIS RODRIGUEZ
Illegal, irresponsible, unethical, biased, and sloppy investigation procedures were used to manufacture this criminal case around him and to acquire his conviction and death sentence. The chief prosecution witness against Rodriguez was mentally unreliable and known to have lied numerous times to police and while testifying under oath at Rodriguez's preliminary hearing and trial.

RED CARPITCHER
American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Red Carpitcher is serving 38 years for sexual abuse-a crime his accuser now says never happened. The daughter of Carpitcher's girlfriend says she fabricated a story of child molestation to the Roanoke County jury that convicted him in 1999. A jealous 10-year-old at the time, she says she was angry because Carpitcher was spending too much time with her mother. She just wanted the live-in boyfriend out of the house. She didn't relize her words alone would put a 44-year-old man in a super-maximum security prison for what amounts to a life sentence.

See http://www.vadoc.com/stories/carpitcher.htm

MANUEL REDWOMAN
Manuel Redwoman is a 35-year-old Native American incarcerated at Montana State Prison. His heritage is 1/2 Northern Cheyenne, 1/4 Lakota, and 1/4 Arapaho. He is in prison for having fatally shot a recidivist child molester who was after a very young boy (the boy was a relative of Manuel). His own people, the Northern Cheyenne, have honored him for protecting his family, as a warrior is supposed to do. Despite the fact that the dead man's mother pleaded to the judge that her son was mentally ill, and Manuel should not be sentenced to jail for protecting his family, Mr. Redwoman received a longer than normal sentence for his conviction. When he advocated for spiritual rights behind bars, Manuel became a "problem prisoner" and received several years in solitary confinement.

See http://www.geocities.com/honoryourspirit/manuel

Editor's note: My thanks to Harvey Arden for providing the aforementioned information in his book "Have You Thought of Leonard Peltier Lately?" These are political prisoners who were not published in the second edition of True Democracy, the edition in which Leonard Peltier, Standing Deer Wilson, and Eddie Hatcher were published. If you know of any more political prisoners, other than those who are incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, please make me aware of them. Thank you.