Good evening everybody. Salutations. This is Matthew Garcia. I’m calling from SCI Chester. I’m from Philadelphia. I have a petition online with change.org for the Derek Lee case, where the PA Supreme Court is ready to rule on the eligibility for parole for people under the second degree. I’ve been in jail for twenty-seven years. I didn’t even have a gun yet I have a life sentence because of felony murder. I have social media, which is Matthew Garcia on Facebook, Mattraw, which is M, A, T, T, R, A, W, underscore 1980 on Instagram, and at Matthew Garcia poet on Tiktok. You can see multiple people supporting me and supporting this serious issue where we’re trying to get eligibility for parole for lifers so we don’t have to die in here. I’m an individual that does a lot of things for the community, published author. I have my own nonprofit organization called The Real RAP Program, which is the real restorative art program. We just did a book bag giveaway.
My brother Congo, which was on Prison Radio, did a Black August initiative for us just the other day. If you go to the social media you can find all of this information. I’m on multiple podcasts that’s on there with conversations of convictions. I need help. There’s not a lot of people supporting. I love what Prison Radio is doing. I’m so grateful for their support. I feel like a lot of people just think that this bill and this PA Supreme Court ruling is just in the bag and it’s not. We need to make noise about this. We need to bring more awareness about this. I am not an anomaly.
There’s other individuals, actually 700 plus, that didn’t even have a firearm, touch or harm anybody, but because of this law that’s in Pennsylvania and Louisiana, we have life sentences without the eligibility for parole; and I was only 18 years old with a three week discrepancy from being a juvenile. Please help. Please help support this petition that I got online with change.org. Again, thank you so much for y’all time and energy, and thank you Prison Radio for all the support you do for the men and women behind bars. Power to the people.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
