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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
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YOU ARE READING THIS IN FEBRUARY 2024. BUT TO ENABLE THAT, I HAVE TO WRITE IT NOW. HERE IT IS, EARLY DECEMBER 2023. I’VE JUST LICKED TWO HUNDRED ENVELOPES AND STAMPS AND AS SOON AS I FINISH THIS LETTER, I’M OFF TO THE POST OFFICE TO MAIL OUR CHRISTMAS CARDS. HO, HO, HO. I AM IMBUED WITH CHRISTMAS SPIRIT. YOU, ON THE OTHER HAND, ARE JUST BEGINNING TO RECOVER FROM THE POST-HOLIDAY BLUES. YOU NEED SOME CHEERING UP.
When you dive into the content of this Issue, you will find (p. 27) Kathy Snapka’s excellent write-up about our most recent Gumpert Award winner, The Inno- cence Project of New Orleans (IPNO). And what a great, uplifting story. It starts with Fate Winslow, fif- ty-three years old, serving a life sentence without parole for handing twenty dollar’s worth of marijuana to an undercover cop. A life sentence for this almost laugh- ingly minor, non-violent crime, because under Louisi- ana’s long-time Habitual Offender Law, one plus three equals life, mandatory life. Until IPNO and a new statute that permitted parole. IPNO managed to get Fate released on parole, after he had served twelve years of his life sentence. And then they got to work to free nine more excessively sentenced inmates. The Gumpert Award will enable IPNO to free a score more.
What an uplifting story, huh? Well, not so fast. As I was doing my job as Editor and searching the web for pictures to illustrate Kathy’s article, I came across this picture of Fate taken on December 17, 2020, the day he was released. It is, we think, the last picture taken of Fate, because he was dead a couple of months later, murdered on the street by an unknown assailant.
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