This is Dennis “Solo” McKeithan, calling from SCI Phoenix in Pennsylvania, and I’d like to give a updated report on what’s happening with my struggle.
Firstly, I would like to thank all the people who have contacted me and the Philadelphia District Attorney, from all over the country and from other countries as well, in support of my struggle to gain my freedom from this wrongful conviction, from this gross miscarriage of justice. As many of you know, for four decades, I have been imprisoned for a crime of robbery I did not commit, a crime that was void of any physical injury to anyone – not a scratch. I was falsely arrested and wrongfully convicted, and excessively sentenced to a death penalty in numbers: 110 years for one robbery.
You might ask, how could that be happening? And the answer would be a corrupt police department; the infamous 39th and 35th District in Philadelphia, PA; a corrupt police officer, John Fleming; a corrupt and criminal ex-police officer, Marvin Nelson; an Assistant District Attorney, Randolph Williams, with a serious conflict of interest [inaudible] from the court and the defense that motivated him to knowingly encourage, and present false and perjured testimony, to mislead the jury and to convict an innocent man; and a known racist judge, James D. McCrudden, who abused his discretion and exhibited overt judicial prejudice throughout by leading and rehabilitating the prosecutional witness.
Our struggle, as described in the Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2020, is to get in court to present newly-discovered evidence, recanted testimony of witness that had been coerced to give false testimony and evidence that I was intentionally misclassified as a career criminal, for which I was actually innocent of being. One judge, Susan L. Schulman, has obstructed my access to present evidence, to the point of even lying in her statements to the court. She stated to the court that Mr. McKeithan is in prison for the brutal robbery of Sweet Love Lounge. Judge Schulman ignored evidence that the District Attorney knowingly put on a witness named Carl Cooper, who falsely testified that he was an ex-police officer who retired due to service-related injury. The judge and District Attorney parroted this lie to the jury. We now know Carl Cooper has never been a police officer anywhere in the world. He was a professional witness, a police groupie, who gave the same testimony in other cases. All of this has been kept out of the court by Judge Susan L. Schulman.
Your support, and the support of all the listeners, meant a lot to me and to my legal team, you know. And I hope that the support continues because the fight is still going on. Right now, we are asking the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to hear our appeal, and if that happens, maybe justice will come. If not, the fight continues to the federal courts, all the way up. So, once again, I wanted to give you a update on what was happening and to say thank you at the same time. I’m out.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
![Prison Radio is sharing an abbreviated version of a press release covering recent racist incidents at SCI Rockview in PA and the organizing to demand accountability. We are reaching out to people incarcerated at Rockview as well as recently transferred folks, inviting them to call, in hopes of hearing commentaries from them.
Benner Township, PA.-
On November 24th, 2023, imprisoned people at SCI Rockview found two nooses hanging in the CO’s office, displayed visibly for many prisoners to see. When the prisoners asked the staff why the nooses were hung, they were told it was a joke.
By December 4th, prisoners filed a grievance to document what they saw, noting that the hanging of the nooses was “unethical, racially motivated, hateful, [a] deliberate debasement of black inmates" and “unsafe for inmates, staff, [and] the whole prison in general.” In the grievance, they demanded that Sgt. Mosser and CO Richard be fired and investigated for a hate crime, and for CO Kirchner to get therapy. Captain Andrews, the head of security, denied the grievance.
The sergeant and COs are still working in the prison to this day, with no repercussions...
As of March 10th, prisoners have reached out to Pennsylvania officials at the Dept. of Corrections in a letter campaign, sending 100 copies of the grievance. Copies of the letter also were mailed to Governor Shapiro, Senator Fetterman, Senator Street, and various advocacy groups. The demands for relief in the original grievance have now become the platform of demands for this campaign. About 20 of the 100 letters were withheld by the prison.
Activists on the outside are joining forces with prisoners to elevate their demands, flooding the phone lines of DOC offices, assisting with outreach to media, and circulating the stories of prisoners who have found unity in opposition to the facility's virulent institutional racism.
In any other workplace, hanging a noose would be grounds for immediate termination. However, Nicki Paul, the superintendent's assistant and "grievance coordinator" informed the public that they self-investigated their staff and found they did nothing wrong.
Read the full article at i
https://conta.cc/4ayDxlB](https://www.prisonradio.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)