Family of Wrongly Incarcerated Woman Plead for Her to Die at Home

The NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted have all campaigned on Patricia Wright's behalf, seeking to free a woman whose should never have been put behind bars. The tale of events that landed her in prison is absurd, but her sentence of life without parole, and the fact that she is now dying of stage IV breast cancer, is no laughing manner.

Fourteen years after the murder of Wright's ex-husband, Willie Jerome Scott, an LAPD "cold case" task force resurrected the incident. Well, that seems good, right? We don't want to let murderers go free just because a few years have elapsed. Except that, as Wendy Jason reports on the Criminal Justice cause, the task force seemed to be most preoccupied with locking somebody up than finding the perpetrator. Investigating Scott's nephew, they discovered him already serving time for a violent crime, so they moved on — rather than think that, you know, somebody incarcerated for a related crime might be more likely to be the guilty party. I mean, it wouldn't be any fun to prosecute somebody already in jail. Scott's jealous lover had already died, so they didn't bother looking into his involvement, and they never located the male sex worker last known to have been with Scott.

So they went after Patricia, never a suspect in the original investigation because her fingerprints and blood didn't match any found on the crime scene, in large part on the testimony of her brother, who fingered her in order to get a 12-year sentence for domestic violence and child abuse reduced to 8 months. His testimony would thus already be highly suspect, but, oh wait: he also couldn't go through with the fabricated attack on his sister, yet prosecutors went ahead and used his recanted statement to rest their case on anyway. Patrica had no motive and a strong alibi.

Last month, nearly 700 Change.org members took action to secure the release of Betsie Gallardo, a 24-year-old woman dying of cancer during her 5-year prison sentence for resisting arrest. Now, we need you to act again to help Patricia, who also has little time left to live, spend her final days with friends and family.

In recognition that Patricia underwent an unfair trial that violated her constitutional rights, the Court of Appeals granted her a Certificate of Appealability, but unfortunately she couldn't afford to pursue an appeal. The petition for Patricia's release points out that the Board of  Parole Hearings and Dept. of Corrections would be willing to allow Patricia compassionate release, but her sentence, life without parole, bars this. And as Patricia's sentencing judge insists that he won't change his mind without recommendations from the Board of Parole Hearings, California Gov. Jerry Brown, or Secretary of Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Matthew Cate, we must ask them to throw their support behind Patricia.

Patricia's sister Arletta, who has been fighting on her behalf for over a decade, says she is "the kind of person who will give you the clothes off her back." She credits Patricia with mothering her younger siblings after their mother passed away, and wants Patricia to be able to come home at long last to her own children and grandchildren, for one final goodbye.

Photo credit: Arletta Wright