The featured article in this issue of the Cell Door Magazine is about a boy who went to prison at 17 for a crime he did not commit.

Exonerated after 16 Years in Prison

Exonerate - to clear, as of an accusation - free from guilt or blame

Jeffrey Deskovic speaks with media after being freed from prison. At left is his mother, Linda McGarr

The catalyst for Deskovic's release happens to be the Director of NDRAN (a non-profit which is the umbrella organization for the Cell Door Magazine) Claudia Whitman, an anti-death-penalty activist, co-editor of a 3-volume collection of essays on the death penalty and other prison matters (Frontiers of Justice) and founder of the nonprofit National Death Row Assistance Network of CURE in 2002. After the publication of her 2000 report, "Reasonable Doubts: Is the US Executing Innocent People?" by Equal Justice USA, she was deluged with letters from prisoners who claim they have been unjustly convicted of murder. One of those letters was from Jeff Deskovic.

Please click here to read about how this very poignant story unfolded.

In 1999 we began publishing the CDM on the Internet and over 100,000 people have visited our web site. Since inmates do not have access to the Internet, the audience that would have most benefited from our Zine didn’t have the opportunity to read it. We did send printouts to those inmates that authored articles in a particular issue at a cost of $7/copy. In 2006, with the advent of reasonably priced color laser printers, we embarked on a new policy — sending a free copy to any inmate who requests one. We sent out 350 copies of Vol 6 Issue 1, 600 copies of Vol 6 Issue 2 and will be sending over 900 copies of this issue – Vol 7 Issue 1.

The demand is out there - we need your support to cover the material costs of the free copies. At present, all the writing, scanning, editing, proofreading, printing, folding, stapling, stamping and mailing is done by volunteers. However, the material costs of paper, toner and stamps mount up. A few inmates are fortunate enough to be able to donate directly to the cause. Family or friends of some other inmates have already sent in donations. A $10 donation will cover the material cost for 4 subscriptions. Larger donations obviously cover more subscriptions and will enable us to repair and update our computer equipment and software.

Please Let us know if a particular article or poem strikes your fancy or irritates your sensibilities.

Thanks for being part of our community of readers,

Laird Carlson

Publisher – publisher@celldoor.com