From Death Row

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I am a prisoner of death row at the Arizona State Prison and currently have an execution date for May 16th, 1980 and I have a rather unusual request to make of you. I don't have any family as I was raised in an orphanage nor do I have any money to fight my case with or try to get a stay of execution. The request that I have is that you run this letter in your campus newspaper for law students or students of criminology to read or just maybe anyone that might be interested. I need funds to fight my case and maybe get and investigator to find out things that I have to have for my appeal. There is no doubt that I am guilty of the crime that I am here for which is armed robbery and first degree murder and in my appeal I am not trying to get released to the streets but just to have my sentence reduced to life in prison because I don't believe that the state has the right to just take people out and execute them no matter what they have done. The second reason I want a life sentence is because I would like to stay alive a little bit longer. There is no use in lying about that part of it.

In exchange for any help that I would get from any student or students I would be willing to give the details of my crime and other crimes that I have pulled and done time for to maybe help them in their classes. Also what it is like to be on death row and in prison in general. I would answer any question they might have and try to write any kind of papers or essays that might help them out. There are a lot of things that go on in prisons that people don't know about that need to be changed and there are a lot of things that I feel lead a person to going to a life of crime in the first place. The only way we are ever going to eliminate the problem of the rising crime rate in the United States is to study its cause and then prevent it. Not by placing people in prison after they have committed the crime. Almost all prisons in America are just schools for criminals or places to turn borderline criminal cases into real animals to be released on the community at the end of their sentences. It also drives a lot of people, who may have been good citizens upon their release, totally insane and they end up in hospitals the rest of their lives.

This is about all that I have to offer and I know it isn't much but if it could help or save one young person from a life that could end up in the gas chamber then I think it might be worth it. If anyone is interested write to Larry E. Evans, Arizona State Prison 36165, Box 629, Florence, Arizona 85232. Larry E. Evans