September 30, 2016 TIME: Early evening LOCATION: Segregation Housing Unit, Ross Correctional, Chilicothe, OH
I just received the latest edition of Universal Support Network’s newsletter The Sizzler and learned that its Editor-in-Chief, musician Norman V. Whiteside, was released from prison earlier this month! The good news caught me totally by surprise because I was unaware that Norm had been granted a conditional release date.
As reported by The Sizzler, on September 1, 2016, Norm was released back into society, which is a date that has now become seared into my mind. On this very date, as Norm was released from his super-overincarceration, the still-ruthless Ohio Parole Board issued a response letter to me denying my recent open-letter request for them to rescind their outrageous 2014 decision that they rendered at my most recent release consideration hearing, in which they issued me a 60-month flop (see Ohio Parole Board Response). I’m remaining optimistic, though, because if Norm can get a parole, then I should be able to get one too.
The Sizzler also reported that Norman V. Whiteside will be making his post-incarceration musical debut on November 19, 2016 at the Columbus, Ohio locale The Live. For more information contact We Book’Em at 614-887-7379.
In addition to the above, The Sizzler also announced that Universal Support Network will be holding its annual Christmas Day public protest against the wrongful practices of the Ohio Parole Board. The protest is scheduled for December 25, 2016 in front of the Ohio Parole Board’s central office located at 770 W. Broad Street in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, contact Universal Support Network at 513-410-4603, or email them at the following: USN331@hotmail.com.
If you are a citizen that’s against injustice, or a relative or friend of someone sentenced under Ohio’s discriminatory old-law sentencing guidelines, I ask that you, please, show your solidarity by attending the Christmas Day protest and also by disseminating a bulletin about the protest to other area citizens and organizations, as well as churches, by way of your social media platforms.
I’m also pleased to report that the documentary film Old-Law Con: The Jason Goudlock Story is coming together beautifully! Award-winning filmmaker Sam Crow has traveled from New York to Ohio twice this month and conducted interviews with journalists, judges, and social activists who are in support of sentencing reform for old-law prisoners.
Upon completion and release, the revealing film is surely going to generate some much needed attention. Thanks, in part, to the dozens of media outlets that took a comment that I made about LeBron James out-of-context, and then made a mockery of it, a global audience is now going to know about the injustice that I, along with others, have been and continue to be, subjected to in America’s heartland state of Ohio. A film trailer for the documentary should be released soon, which will be announced at the appropriate time on this website.
In closing, I just learned that the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, again, is about to transfer me to another prison, which will be the twelfth time that I’ve been transferred since 1994, and the seventh time since 2012! Just think, if the DRC and the Parole Board would stop its ponzi scheme-like practices of pretending to be so-called “rehabilitating” its small class of old-law prisoners, it could save millions of dollars that it wastes to overincarcerate and torture people like me.