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<font face="Mistral" size=5>OUR VOICES WITHIN: INTERNALLY
FREE<br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=1>Celebrating the freedom of
formerly<br>
incarcerated survivors of domestic<br>
violence and honoring those<br>
who remain imprisoned<br><br>
</font><font size=4 color="#231F20"><b><i>Date: Saturday, March 28,
2009 - 3:30 p.m.- 6:00 p.m.<br>
Location: Women’s Building<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#231F20">3543 18th St., San Francisco<br>
</font><font size=1 color="#231F20">(Between Mission &
Guerrero)<br><br>
Silent Auction of artwork by survivors begins at 3:30 p.m.<br>
Program begins promptly at 4:00 p.m.<br><br>
</font><font size=4 color="#231F20">Cost: $10-$25 at the door<br><br>
</font><font size=1 color="#231F20">No one turned away due to lack of
funds! The Women’s Building is wheelchair accessible.<br>
Limited parking available in near-by parking lots or on the street.<br>
BART users exit at 16th St.<br><br>
</font><font size=2 color="#231F20">Questions? Call Emily 415 255 7036
x304<br>
</font><font size=1 color="#231F20">
<a href="http://www.freebatteredwomen.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freebatteredwomen.org</a> <br><br>
</i></b></font><font size=3>
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Below is an article about survivor Connie Keel, the Governor has until
tomorrow to decide to release her. If you haven't already
please send the Governor a fax urging him to release Connie!
<a href="http://www.freebatteredwomen.org/Alert_Connie.html">
http://www.freebatteredwomen.org/Alert_Connie.html</a><br><br>
Emily<br><br>
<br>
</font><h1><b>Abused woman smells freedom after 29
years</b></h1><font size=3><a href="mailto:begelko@sfchronicle.com">Bob
Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer</a><br><br>
Thursday, March 26, 2009<br><br>
Connie Keel has spent 29 of her 50 years in prison for a murder that her
husband committed in Campbell while she sat in a car outside - terrified,
she said, that he would kill her if she fled.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/03/26/BAGU16MSLH.DTL&o=0">
<img src="http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2009/03/25/ba-battered26_ph_0499949321_part1.jpg" width=220 height=333 alt="[]">
</a> <br>
<hr>
Now the state parole board has approved her release, and thousands of her
supporters have asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to let her go.<br><br>
"Ms. Keel was a battered, abused woman at the time of the
murder," said Adam Reich, a University of Southern California law
student who is representing her and has organized an Internet support
campaign.<br><br>
"I'm not discounting her part in the crime," Reich said.
"But enough is enough."<br><br>
Schwarzenegger has until Friday to decide whether to overturn the Board
of Parole Hearings' decision in October that Keel is suitable for
release.<br><br>
The odds are against Keel. Since Schwarzenegger took office in 2003, the
parole board, whose members he appoints, has voted to release 891
convicted murderers, and he has vetoed 640.<br><br>
A 1988 state ballot measure authorized governors to block the release of
inmates serving life in prison with the possibility of parole. Former
Gov. Gray Davis vetoed all but a handful of paroles approved by the
board, which in recent decades has denied prisoner releases more than 98
percent of the time.<br><br>
The prospects of release are higher, however, for women who can show that
they committed their crimes at least partly because partners were abusing
them. Schwarzenegger, like Davis, has been more willing to approve parole
in those cases, although no statistics are available. <br><br>
Battered-woman syndrome was recognized by the California Supreme Court in
a 1992 ruling requiring trial judges to allow psychiatric testimony about
the effects of domestic violence on its victims.<br><br>
State law also allows prisoners who were convicted before 1992 to seek a
new trial if they can show that they might have won acquittal had experts
been allowed to testify about their abuse. Reich said he's working on
such an appeal in case Schwarzenegger denies parole to Keel.<br><br>
In the meantime, he said, 5,000 people from 49 states and 42 nations have
signed petitions supporting Keel's release. She is being held at the
California Institution for Women in Chino (San Bernardino
County).<br><br>
Keel was 21 and living in Santa Clara County when she went for a drive
with her husband, Ricky Keel, and his cousin Jeffrey Taylor one evening
in 1980. Reich said Ricky Keel stopped at a liquor store in Campbell to
buy cigarettes and suddenly started talking with Taylor about whether
they should rob and shoot the clerk.<br><br>
When his wife objected, Reich said, Keel pointed a loaded gun at her and
told her to shut up and stay in the car. Keel and Taylor then robbed the
store and fatally shot the owner, Frank Gummer, 41.<br>
A jury convicted Connie Keel of first-degree murder, with a sentence of
25 years to life. Her husband and Taylor got similar sentences and are
still in prison.<br><br>
In arguing for her release, her legal team told the parole board that
Keel was unable to disobey her husband that night because of her long
history of abuse - beatings by her mother, sexual abuse by three of her
uncles and beatings and rapes by her husband.<br><br>
The board had denied release since Keel first became eligible in 1996.
Last year, for the first time, it looked into her claims of domestic
violence, which were corroborated by relatives, friends and even her
husband.<br><br>
The board's investigators said the marriage was "marked with
physical, psychological and sexual violence" that apparently
"clouded (her) perceptions and influenced her actions" at the
time of the crime.<br><br>
Opposition came from the Santa Clara County district attorney's office,
which prosecuted Keel. Deputy District Attorney Ronald Rico told the
board that Keel had disciplinary problems in prison and still posed a
risk of "reverting to the past behavior ... the dependency, the
passive relationship, and the failure to abide by and conform to
rules."<br><br>
Reich said Keel has had a few minor disciplinary infractions but none for
violence, and that the board's latest psychological evaluation concluded
she posed the lowest possible risk of committing a crime if
freed.<br><br>
Reich, a second-year law student, said the case was one of several he was
assigned last year in USC's Post-Conviction Justice Project. <br><br>
"This is the reason every person who's associated with the law or
goes to law school does so," Reich said. "You want to see
justice done."<br><br>
E-mail Bob Egelko at
<a href="mailto:begelko@sfchronicle.com">begelko@sfchronicle.com</a>.<br>
<br>
This article appeared on page <b>B - 1</b> of the San Francisco
Chronicle<br><br>
<br>
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