Eric McDavid Update — 1/13/10

Dear friends,

Today marks the fourth year of Eric’s incar­cer­a­tion. These are not the kind of mile­stones we would like to be writ­ing about to you. While oth­er peo­ple have been cel­e­brat­ing the New Year, we have been incred­i­bly con­scious of the pas­sage of time in an entire­ly dif­fer­ent way. For four years, New Years has served as a reminder to us – as it prob­a­bly does to mil­lions of oth­ers — of how long we have been sep­a­rat­ed from our loved one. While oth­ers are cel­e­brat­ing new begin­nings, we are faced with the real­i­ty that, so far, there has been no new begin­ning as far as Eric’s phys­i­cal free­dom is con­cerned. Some things remain painful­ly the same. Eric is still locked away by the state.

Dear friends,

Today marks the fourth year of Eric’s incar­cer­a­tion. These are not the kind of mile­stones we would like to be writ­ing about to you. While oth­er peo­ple have been cel­e­brat­ing the New Year, we have been incred­i­bly con­scious of the pas­sage of time in an entire­ly dif­fer­ent way. For four years, New Years has served as a reminder to us – as it prob­a­bly does to mil­lions of oth­ers — of how long we have been sep­a­rat­ed from our loved one. While oth­ers are cel­e­brat­ing new begin­nings, we are faced with the real­i­ty that, so far, there has been no new begin­ning as far as Eric’s phys­i­cal free­dom is con­cerned. Some things remain painful­ly the same. Eric is still locked away by the state.


Please remem­ber that this time of year can be par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult for folks who are locked up. Take a minute to write Eric – or anoth­er polit­i­cal pris­on­er – and let them know that folks on the out­side are still think­ing of them and sup­port­ing them.

Appeal Update
——————
Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there’s not a lot of news about the appeal. The gov­ern­men­t’s response to Eric’s open­ing brief is cur­rent­ly due on Feb. 1 (they’ve now asked for two exten­sions). We will let you know as soon as we hear any­thing more. Once the gov­ern­ment files their response, Eric’s lawyer will have two weeks to file his final response (more poten­tial exten­sions notwith­stand­ing ). Once every­thing is filed it could be more than a year before a deci­sion is made.

How to Help
————
We recent­ly added a Pay­Pal but­ton to Eric’s web­site (again). You can find it on the “Help” page: http://www.supporteric.org/howtohelp.htm Please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to Eric’s sup­port fund. Cur­rent­ly the major­i­ty of these funds are being used to help his part­ner cov­er the costs of going to vis­it him. These vis­its are incred­i­bly impor­tant to Eric and his part­ner and are imper­a­tive for main­tain­ing every­one’s san­i­ty. They would not be pos­si­ble with­out all of the sup­port that Eric has received. Our sin­cer­est thanks to every­one who has donat­ed in the past. If you would like to donate but would pre­fer not to use Pay­Pal, please let us know and we will send you the details about who to make the check out to and where to send it.

If you can­not donate mon­ey, there are oth­er ways you can help. Eric is locked away from his loved ones and his com­mu­ni­ties and he does­n’t have access to a lot of infor­ma­tion. Receiv­ing news from the out­side helps him feel a lit­tle more con­nect­ed to the issues he cares about. If you run across a good arti­cle from an inde­pen­dent media source that you think Eric might like, please send it his way. Just keep in mind that Eric is still in the appeals process, and every­thing he receives is read by the author­i­ties. Even unso­licit­ed mail can result in sanc­tions against pris­on­ers. Be pru­dent with your choice of mate­r­i­al.

Our thanks to every­one for all of your sup­port these last 4 years.

Yours,
Eric’s Sup­port Crew

http://www.supporteric.org