“Statement for the June 6th Rally,” by Shakaboona.
My name is Shakaboona. At the age of 17, I was certified as an adult for the charge of robbery homicide, given an unfair trial, and was wrongly convicted. I was sentenced to life without parole imprisonment as a child offender. I now have been incarcerated behind bars for 27 years of my life. Currently, I have been in prison longer than the worldly-known, now-deceased Nelson Mandela of South Africa. I wish to tell you that life-without-parole sentence is ‘death by incarceration’ and must be abolished in the state of Pennsylvania because it violates international human rights laws. It is applied in a racially discriminatory manner against Black and Latino peoples. It is morally wrong and shocking to the conscience of civilized people, and it violates the infliction of cruel punishment clause under the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Today, the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration has officially launched its Campaign to Abolish Death by Incarceration Sentencing, and to require parole eligibility as a part of sentencing for all prisoners serving such terms. Our Campaign to Abolish Death by Incarceration is a righteous struggle. This is so because it is our moral duty as human beings to oppose any law that violates our inherent human rights, that is shocking to our conscience, and that perpetrates racial injustice, for an unjust law is no law at all.
As we wage the Campaign to Abolish Death by Incarceration Sentencing, I simply want to emphasize that our argument to abolish death by incarceration sentencing should be primarily a human rights one, and secondarily a moral and Pennsylvania constitutional argument. There are approximately 6,000 human beings sentenced to the death penalty sentence called life without parole, or death by Incarceration, in Pennsylvania. If that is of no concern to people, then people’s thoughts of America being a nation of morals, faith, and human rights is a figment of their imagination, and humanity is truly at loss.
From this day onward, let us use all of our passion, creativity, and might to abolish death by incarceration of prisoners in Pennsylvania. Let us fight the good fight, and let us struggle to win. From the belly of the beast, this is Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall. Thank you for listening.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
