EDITOR’S NOTE: ON JULY 8, SIX PEOPLE NOW SERVING LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE IN PENNSYLVANIA FOR SECOND-DEGREE MURDER FILED A SUIT IN COMMONWEALTH COURT AGAINST THE STATE BOARD OF PROBATION AND PAROLE, SEEKING A DECISION THAT THEIR SENTENCES ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

By Bert Hudson

Dear Editor,

How do you know when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving. That’s an old joke, but it highlights an ugly truth.

According to a nice young fellow who lived around 2,000 years ago, Satan the Devil “is a liar and the father of the lie.” Those are the words of Jesus as recorded in the Holy Bible at John 8:44.

Today, we have a President in the White House who has surely surpassed Pinocchio to become a prominent son of his father the Devil in spreading lies.

So, it really comes as no surprise to recall Pennsylvania was instrumental in Trump being elected President, since even the most respected of our elected leaders, namely, our appellate court justices, are also renowned for telling tall tales such as the barefaced lie about life imprisonment being a minimum sentence. What a whopper! Even 5th graders who read our laws realize all of our sentencing statutes agree with Section 14 of Article 1 in our Pennsylvania Constitution, which clearly states life imprisonment is a “maximum” sentence. How dare our courts say otherwise?! How dare they lie like the Devil?!

Our courts have unlawfully and inhumanely turned life with parole sentences into life without parole sentences by ruling life imprisonment is a minimum sentence. Based on this barefaced lie, thousands of people who accidentally, unintentionally, or otherwise inadvertently caused the death of a fellow human being, men and women who didn’t actually kill anyone, truly remorseful and rehabilitated lifers who aged out of crime decades ago, and wrongfully convicted innocent individuals have all been denied liberty and justice over the past half-century by being stripped of their basic “right” to periodic parole reviews. Our appellate courts have lost all credibility and legitimacy by telling such incredible lies and thus condemning all of these people to death behind bars without justice, let alone mercy. How dare they?!

Since this lie has been exposed, why isn’t everyone calling on Governor Tom Wolf to correct this patent injustice by just ordering our Parole Board to justly start reviewing such lifers for possible parole, in accordance with our humanity and his own sworn duty to uphold our Constitution and statutory laws? As Jesus might ask, “How dare we not?”

Sincerely, Bert Hudson

Bert Hudson lives in a Pennsylvania Correctional Institution.

NewPeople Newspaper VOL. 50 No. 5. July/August, 2020. All rights reserved.