Weekend Reading 70

If you've been looking to get a 'Free SPM' shirt, you're in luck! Young Jay of the Dope House Army has these available for $25, plus $5 for shipping. Contact dopehousearmylastreetteam@yahoo.com for more information.

As always, I don't make a dime off these, but I encourage you to get one and show your support!

Quick Update 9

Quick Update: “The Lashing of Pain”                                        Postmarked May 24, 2013

El Fambino,

            Hope you’re doing great. Just wanted to stop by and say hello. I got a letter from Jose Morales (Operations Manager/DHR) and he told me that “Angels” had a piano that sounded a little too loud. He said it was distracting, (and any instrument that’s too loud would be distracting.) He said he brought it up to Pain and Trey, and they contemplated it. I told Pain that if they had to contemplate the issue, then it was too loud. So, on the next snippet, which will have another free S.O.N. song, that piano on “Angels” should have a better mix. If you guys thought it was too loud, please share that on your comments. Also feel free to lash out at Pain in any way you’d like, since he’s our head engineer, and responsible for the finished sound.

            Speaking of Pain, he wants to make “People” our next free song on the snippet. I told him that we should let the fans vote on that, but he said since he was taller than me, it was his decision. I’m still trying to find that rule in our Dope House Book of Rules and Regulations. Until then, you can expect “People” on the 2^nd Edition snippet that we’re giving away. If you disagree with Jaime, again, you may use this blog to lash out at him. But don’t tell him I said it. In fact, Incandesio, could I lash out at Pain in the comment section, but make me “Anonymous” so that he won’t know it’s me? If so, here’s what I’d like to say:

Anonymous said:

Your name shouldn’t be Pain, it should be P.I.T.A. for “Pain In The Ass!” You think you’re smarter than SPM just because you know what all those buttons do? Well, SPM is smarter than you! Next time you let us fans vote for the song we want! Nobody cares what you want! Now go make SPM a sandwich!

            Hmmm, what else can I talk about. Well, the S.O.N. still has no official release date but the artwork is getting worked on by Coast. I had no idea Coast was skilled in computer graphics but he’s very good at it. Honestly, I don’t even care how good it looks. I just want this album out so we can focus on what’s next. And we continue to move closer to that goal.

            It’s been awhile since I’ve told you guys that I love you, and I’m very thankful for you. You uplift me, encourage me, support me and even fight for me, and I dedicate the song “Angels” to you. That’s definitely what you are.

            You know, I’ve got, like, three unfinished letters for you, and I’ve decided, while I work on longer letters, that I’m going to send you “Quick Updates” much more often. No Cold Forties, no elaborate stories, just little hellos to stay closer to you.

            Well, I’ll go ahead and let you go for now. Please take good care, and I’ll write you more in a bit.

Con Mucho Amor,

Los 

Reserve Answer from SPM

I want to go ahead and let everybody know that the posting schedule of the blog will be changing, starting in June. I’ll be traveling around this summer, and I’ll only be able to post once a week, on Thursdays.

It’s been awhile since I’ve heard from SPM, so I thought it was time to break out another of the reserve letters. (Read about it here) This is a rough draft of the intro to the book he’s working on; I received it back in September of 2011.

My name is Carlos Coy, a rap artist from Houston Texas, professionally known as South Park Mexican. I’m writing you from a prison located in a small town called Iowa Park, Texas. I was sentenced to forty-five years in a sexual assault case that involved a nine-year-old little girl. I was accused and ultimately found guilty of performing oral sex on this child. The accusations were lies, but with no evidence, except a well rehearsed story, a jury decided to believe I did this.

            I know that just about everybody claims to be innocent these days. And if you’re thinking, “Yeah, right, this dude just don’t want to admit what he did,” I understand. Because, honestly, that’s the same way I would feel if I were you. I used to think like most people, that if twelve Americans find you guilty in a court of law, then, bud, you were guilty. But that’s a fantasy. DAs, cops and even some judges can do a lot of crooked shit when they really want someone behind bars. They can use their powers to make bullshit believable. And when they’re up against a defendant like me, who was taking the whole thing like a pathetic joke, it gives them an even greater advantage.

            But why would a justice system waste their time and effort doing everything and anything to lock someone away even if they knew he was innocent? What made me so special that they’d want to destroy me? Don’t they have enough real perpetrators to worry about? And since we’re asking questions, why would a nine-year-old child say I did this horrific thing? And if it wasn’t true, how could she even have known such an act existed? This book is going to answer those questions and many more.

            I’m going to take you to the trial, with the use of the official court transcripts, so that you’ll see, word for word, what was said and done. And if any DA, any judge, any cop or anyone else disagrees with any point I make, I beg you to challenge. Because I’m going to give you the truth, no tricks, no deceptions, just the facts. I’ll be adding my own input and you can take that however you like. But just know that transcripts don’t lie, and my input will be based on what I know and/or believe.

            This book is not just for fans of my music, or enemies who rejoice in my imprisonment. It’s also for people who don’t know who I am, and wouldn’t care less. Because an nnocent man going to prison says one thing, very loudly, “It can happen to anyone.” This book only shows why it happened.

            Another question you might ask is, “Why, after almost ten years, do you finally decide to talk about your case?” I can think of two reasons offhand: First of all, my appeals lawyer made it clear that I must not talk to anyone about anything concerning my trial. They said it would only play against us in the appeal process. I never quite understood that advice but, well, it’s been damn near ten years and I’m still in this hotel where the food is bad, and the “female” residents have bigger biceps than I do. So I’m not caring too much about lawyer’s advice right now. The second reason, and probably the biggest reason I’m writing this, came from a visit I had with my older brother, Arthur. He said, “Carlos, I think we should release a detailed article explaining the facts of your case. People need to see what happened.”

            I said, “Why?”

            He said, “Because our fans are getting ridiculed by people who don’t know the facts.”

            “My fans choose to suffer with me.”

            “Yeah, but they don’t know how to respond.”

            “Respond to what?”

            “The hatred, bro. I read people’s comments on the internet. It’s a war pout there.”

“Whoever thinks I’m guilty can fuck themself.”

“I understand, but you’re leaving the fans to deal with these people with no ammunition.”

            A week later my brother sent me a printout of a guy who said this on our website, “All you fucking shitbacks are defending a child molester. You fucking wetshits are pathetic.”

            I’m guessing wetshits and shitbacks are the new words for wetback. I don’t know, you’d have to ask him. Of course he forgot to mention the honkies, negroes and gooks. They love me, too. One fan responded, “Fuck you, I don’t care what he did. I liek him for his music.”

            Reading that broke my heart. I was like, What you mean you don’t care what I did?!!

            I wrote my wife and asked her to send me all my court transcripts, for both of my trials, criminal and civil. The criminal trial was where I lost my freedom. The civil trial came next, which was where the child’s family was suing me for money. In the civil trial my lawyer found ways to expose these people and the jury saw another side of the story. They ended that trial by awarding tohe family “zero dollars.” That happened in the punitive stage which was where I could have lost everything, my company, my home, everything I’d worked for in life. Till this day I’m the number one selling Mexican American rap artist in the nation. Because there was no cap on the amount, the jury could have given them anything under the sun. Instead the snakes came up short and walked out of that courtroom with their heads hung low. It was a taste of vindication and a huge victory but what happened in civil court doesn’t change the verdict I received in Criminal Court. They’re two separate arenas. So even though my company remains unscathed, I remain caged.

            Still, some of the things that happened during the civil process can help with my appeals. For example, the little girl’s story made a significant change. In criminal trial she testified that the assault took place “for about a minute.” During her civil deposition, she told my lawyer, Brock, that it was only for a second. Brock asked again and she was clear that it happened for “one second.”

            I believe her story changed because she had a heavy conscience. In other words, she felt that by saying it only happened for “one second” made it less of a lie. Or she could have simply forgot what she said in criminal court. During the civil trial, the DAs weren’t there, helping the family prepare, rehearsing the story with them like they were in the criminal trial. The DAs only interest was to lock away SPM. But when it was time for the family to get their part of the deal, they were left out to dry.

            The fact is I didn’t do this shit for one second or one half a second. I guess I’m supposed to have thrown my whole life away to do some sick shit for one second. No, my friend, and you’re going to see shocking truths, and the disgraceful actions of people who we’ve been taught to trust.

Eye-Opener

For those of you unfamiliar with the ‘Blogs You Should Read’ tab, over on the right side of your screen, one of those listed is called ‘Life At The Harris County Criminal Justice Center’. It’s written by former prosecutor Murray Newman.

He left when Lykos took over, but he has been very supportive of the Assistant District Attorneys that stayed behind; I linked to a post of his over the weekend from 2009, where he was talking about how Denise Oncken could have accidentally concealed evidence in the Glen Khalden case.

So this guy’s a prosecutor, with prosecutor friends, and what I would imagine is a fairly common prosecutor’s mindset; the system works, we’re all trying to get justice, people that accuse ADAs of corruption or unfair practices are crazy, etc. I don't often agree with him, but I always enjoy his writing.

Which makes this post kind of mind-boggling. Mr. Newman describes how, in the wake of the Anthony Graves and Michael Morton cases, his worldview has changed. He sees that there really are prosecutors out there who will lie and cheat for a win; he applauds the judge who ruled against the D.A. responsible for Michael Morton’s wrongful conviction.

In it, he describes how he felt when Craig Watkins took over the Dallas DA’s office, and started digging around for wrongful convictions; he was a little offended, and worried that prosecutors there would be punished for small mistakes or procedural oversights. He says,

“Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking they are going to go out and try their best to do the wrong thing, so the idea of a prosecutor who deliberately cheated and designed to do the wrong thing was truly lost on us.

Surely, such a creature did not exist.”

I'm grateful that, as a child, I sincerely believed that all policemen were the good guys, and that the only people in prison were the bad guys. It allowed me to grow up with an image of what the system should be like; the perfect ideal that we can never achieve, but should never stop striving for. When you live your life believing that impossibility has already been achieved, it takes something massive to open your eyes.

It's never fun; a key piece of the framework that holds your worldview suddenly crumbles into dust, leaving you staring through a gaping hole into a harshly unpleasant reality. It takes guts to face up to that, and even more to write about it in such a frank and honest way.

The Michael Morton Act

[The Michael Morton Act], written by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, requires prosecutors to give lawyers representing the accused any evidence that is relevant to the defense’s case. The intent of the bill, Ellis has said, is to ensure that key facts that could affect the trial aren’t hidden.

“This isn’t necessarily a good thing for me, because my time and my experiences are finished and that’s not going to change,” Morton said to reporters after the bill was signed. “But this law passed today, and was signed, this will make it much better for everybody else, so that what happened to me won’t happen to you.”

http://blog.chron.com/texaspolitics/2013/05/michael-morton-act-signed-into-law/

This was a super-human effort by multiple people, achieved after a lot of hard work. I don’t mean to discount the value of the bill itself, or of the truly amazing changing of hearts that allowed it to be signed into law.

But there are already laws, like Brady, that mandate the sharing of exculpatory evidence. There are open-file policies in nearly every DA’s office in the state; it’s widely accepted as the only decent way to run a prosecution; those who are going to hide evidence from the defense are probably not going to be influenced by yet another toothless admonition to ‘play nice.’

By passing this bill the legislature has added a very specific set of rules & regulations over an existing one, but what needs to be addressed is the mindset of the prosecutors.

In 2009, years after Coy’s case, one of his prosecutors violated Brady in another case, in an extremely flagrant manner; by hiding the fact that a child accused a black man of assaulting her, when the man she was trying to convict was white. http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Harris-prosecutor-accused-of-hiding-evidence-1742910.php

Apparently, Oncken felt that this glaring inconsistency was meaningless; the jury didn't need to see how the child's testimony changed.

It may have been a one-time thing, but I doubt it. You’d have to have brass balls to just wake up one morning and say, “Hey, I think I’ll try something new and make an attempt to screw a potentially innocent man out of any chance of a decent trial in a way so blatant that a state district judge will feel the need to call me on it.”

The one who discovered the omission was Lisa Andrews, who by this time was working as a defense lawyer; back in 2002, she was the other prosecutor in Coy vs. Texas. In my opinion it seems like she knew there was likely to be something squirreled away by Oncken because she used to work with her. 

Slapping down a fresh reiteration of why people should behave decently doesn’t inspire confidence that we’ve fixed the problem. It smacks of a parent telling their child, “Don’t steal the cookies.”

And then, “Don’t steal the cookies at Grandma’s house.”

And then, “Don’t steal the cookies at the store.”

When Hellion, Jr. starts knocking over his classmates for their cookies, the problem is not that we haven’t created a rule that states he is not allowed to steal cookies at school. The problem is that, deep in his heart, he’s a thieving little bastard who doesn’t care how his actions affect others. That’s what has to be changed; the assumption that the government, represented by prosecutors, police officers, and judges,  is entitled to do whatever it needs to do to get the outcome it desires. 

Weekend Reading 69

I was reviewing a post about Denise Oncken's infamous Brady violation on the excellent blog, Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center for Monday's post. I was surprised to realize that I had never scrolled down to read the comments. Well, I finally did last night.

Denise Oncken, for those of you new to the blog, was one of the prosecutors in Coy vs. Texas. The case they're talking about is detailed in the Houston Chronicle, here: Harris County Prosecutor Accused of Hiding Evidence.

A lot of these comments are about Denise Oncken, and her reputation at the DA's office in 2009. Now, I have no way of knowing who these commenters were, and I can't say whether they're true or not, but...Damn, there was a lot of vitriol aimed in her direction. Take a look: Brady & Over-Reliance on Open File.

Also, Young J discusses Coy's case over at http://theprisonpensman.blogspot.com/

Grand Jury-Rigged

I wrote about a grand jury irregularity in my last letter to Mike Anderson, and I want to talk a little more about that today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_juries_in_the_United_States

Assuming I understand this correctly, before you get tried for anything more than a misdemeanor in Texas, you must first be indicted by a grand jury; that’s 23 people, before whom the prosecutor brings all the evidence gathered against a person. That person is not allowed to be present, or to even know that they’re the subject of an investigation (although if you’ve been arrested, you probably do.) Their defense lawyer is not allowed to be there, and there is no requirement that any exculpatory evidence needs to be presented.

A widely accepted aphorism states, “A good prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.” It’s a commentary on how the process, which is supposed to protect citizens from unnecessary legal action, is stacked heavily in favor of the prosecutor. If they want to see that person hauled into court they can make it happen; guilt or innocence doesn’t really enter into it.

We know that Coy received multiple indictments, and only one was ever brought to trial. But here's the timeline: December 2001: Coy receives two indictments, one for Jill Odom's case and one for Jane Doe's. On March 6th of the following year, he's indicted on two more counts, one of those being the girl who claimed they drove to a hotel and had unprotected sex, miraculously failing to infect him with her STD. 

That's all I can find records of; we know that they brought in multiple women to testify that they had been abused during the punishment phase of the trial, but I'm not finding records. 8 women, that's the number that's constantly being thrown around...but I can find only four indictments. 

Why is this significant? We talked about this a little before; when Pat Lykos took office, the number of ‘no bills’ (indictments refused) skyrocketed. Which means prosecutors where bringing cases they thought they could win, but the grand juries were slapping them down. While the media painted this as Pat Lykos being soft on crime, it’s possible that she simply wasn’t using the grand jury process as a rubber stamp anymore; maybe by choice, or maybe she just didn’t have connections to the good ol’ boy network like Rosenthal did.

This is something I haven't really looked into before, so it's going to take awhile before I can come out with a coherent point about it;I think it merits further research, though. What was the state of the grand jury process during Rosenthal's administration? How many times was Coy indicted, and when were those handed down?

Letter to Mike Anderson 7

I came across this post on BigJolly Politics this week, and it’s been on my mind quite a bit. As always, I encourage you to write your own letter, copy this one, or just send one of those flyers to your right. Let’s let the DA’s office know that our interest in this case continues, and we want to see action on it.

D.A. Mike Anderson

1201 Franklin

Houston, TX

77002

Sir,

I’m writing to you today about the case of Carlos Coy, #908426.

I saw an article written by David Jennings of the blog Big Jolly Politics. In it, he protests SB 834 and brings up what appear to be multiple connections between political figures in Harris County and the members of grand juries.

I do not believe a government can exist without accusations of corruption. It doesn’t take much for the perception take hold, and then the public is left wondering who can be trusted; caught between opposing accusations and murky ethical quandaries, there is little that can be done immediately. 

However, when corruption has been ignored for many years, and we can finally see the devastation it left, it is imperative that we address it. There were serious problems with the criminal justice system under D.A. Chuck Rosenthal, and I hope that you will agree that, no matter how long ago an injustice took place, it is never a bad idea to do what we can to fix it.

I cannot make any specific allegations of wrongdoing in Coy’s case; I do not have the training and expertise needed to pinpoint exactly what went wrong, but I feel very strongly that during that time period little attention was paid to the rights of those accused. Likewise, I feel that what information we do have about Coy’s case indicates that something went wrong; it defies common sense to think that a man could be sentenced to 45 years in prison on the malleable testimony of a child that couldn't testify definitively whether she had been assaulted, or merely had a bad dream. 

According to the Innocence project, the wrongfully incarcerated serve an average of 13 years before winning their freedom; next year will be the 13^th anniversary of Rosenthal’s election, and I hope very much that those abused that notorious administration will begin to see justice.

Please, sir, look into Carlos Coy’s case. Give us justice sooner, rather than later.

Me, my address, etc etc etc.

Weekend Reading 68

This weekend, I have an update from James Dehuelves:

Cant Stop the Hustle 2 is coming! We have a lot of great songs for it, but still need help putting some on. Here at Calico Records we had a vision to bring fan music and the stories they had about how SPM has helped in their lives, and motivated them to keep pushing and going even when people told them they couldn't. 

Can't Stop the Hustle is a movement for SPM to shine light on his case and to bring his story out to fans that know about him, and even to people that don’t know about him. Can't Stop the Hustle goes by this slogan: “we are his voice and we are getting stronger then ever.” I got to talk to Pain from Dope House Records and it went good. Hopefully we will be able to use some of SPM’s song on the Can't Stop the Hustle, The Movie that we’re also working on and on the part two.

The movie will be about how we got this movement going, how hard it was to get going, and also round how SPM had a major part to motivate  in an indie label to come to be.  All I ask is if you have any tracks or even support, email me at j.dehuelves@yahoo.com   or on Facebook THAONEICE@facebook.com    

Support the movement; we are his voice. Thanks.

 p.s. We also have a track that ft SPM with Crown Royal, I’ll have a sample up in a week of what we have together.

And an extremely cool video of two fan's reaction to the release of The Son of Norma snippets:

And this unspeakably amazing music video set to the single, Angels:

Larry Sims

I was going through my files and found an old story about Larry Sims, a man who was released after serving 24 years in prison for rape. Prosecutors improperly withheld evidence from his defense;

2011:

“Recently discovered DNA evidence seems to indicate that the woman who said Sims raped her lied about the case when she claimed she did not have sex earlier with Sims’ cousin Gerald Harding. DNA found on her sanitary napkin was a match to that man.

Decades ago, the cousin testified at Sims’ trial that he and the woman had consensual sex.

With the woman’s testimony now in doubt, a judge decided Wednesday to free Sims.”

He received his freedom, an apology from a judge, and prosecutors dismissed the charges against him. He died last year, still waiting for the state to fully exonerate him.

This whole situation is fucking tragic; he was freed because the prosecutors hid physical evidence from his defense, but it appears that charges were dropped because the DNA proved that his accuser had lied, not because it was enough to prove that he hadn’t committed the rape. In Texas, just because the state can’t prove you committed a crime doesn’t mean you have enough to prove your innocence; but I digress.

In a few of his letters, Carlos Coy has talked about how the testimony against him changed; things like Mary Doe’s apparent inability to commit to a memory that didn’t support the State’s case. The prosecutors saw how the evidence they were using twisted and turned, based on variations in the child’s story; did they have any responsibility to inform the jury that the testimony presented was malleable, and changed from one day to the next?

Larry Sims’ case was overturned after 24 years, when prosecutorial misconduct and a lying plaintiff were exposed. However tragic the ending, it gives me hope that we’ll eventually see the same light shine over Coy vs Texas.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/06/22/until-death-texas-inmate-tried-to-clear-name/

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20110127-man-paroled-in-dallas-after-dna-test-casts-doubt-on-rape-conviction.ece

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20110126-dallas-man-imprisoned-decades-for-rape-likely-to-go-free-after-dna-evidence-casts-doubt-on-guilt.ece

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/06/19/4044571/larry-sims-freed-by-dna-deserves.html

http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OPINIONS/PDFOPINIONINFO2.ASP?OPINIONID=21777

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/06/19/even-in-death-family-still-fights-for-exoneree/

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Because I believe that Carlos Coy is innocent, ignoring information that disagrees with my opinion is not really an option; people have been trying to shove it down my throat since the first time I ever let my socially-unacceptable opinion slip out. The only way I’ve found to deal with it is to try to know more about their arguments than they do, and meet them head-on with that knowledge. This involves spending hours reading opinions and arguments that differ from mine, and trying to consider each on their own merits. Obviously there’s going to be a limit to how much I can learn from what’s available from the press and the public documents, but I feel pretty good about how I’ve dealt with my own confirmation bias so far.

Those who believe he’s guilty are rarely confronted with anyone who disagrees with them; those that do argue his innocence certainly can’t prove it, and that makes them easy to dismiss. By taking a different tack and focusing on what I see as an unjust criminal trial, and backing up my beliefs with what I hope is sourced and credible information, I’ve come damn near to making a few die-hard anti-fan’s heads explode.

This is extremely apparent in my last exchange with Eric; he is flabbergasted, utterly perplexed that I do not share his interest in Coy’s civil trial. He just can’t understand why something that seems so relevant to him is unimportant to me; he cannot grasp why I don’t take up the battle on his front, and argue about things that he thinks will prove him right.

In the same way that Coy’s criminal trial was tainted by what I believe was the presumption of guilt, (remember, the complainant was called ‘the victim’ from the very beginning of the trial, before any evidence had been offered that a crime had even occurred), every action in his civil trial was carried out under the enforced assumption that his conviction was correct.

Eric, blinded by his socially-approved confirmation bias, does not seem to be able to see how this forced perspective affected the civil trial. He sees what he wants to see, which is a second jury with all the facts handing down a blistering indictment of a man whom, he believes, is guilty. Without researching it further, all I see is a case hinging on what may be a wrongful conviction, of no more use in determining Coy's guilt or innocence than anonymous internet rumors.

Eric claims that the moderate award for actual damages proves that the jury believed Coy was guilty, that the finding of malice proves the same, and that the lack of exemplary damages proves nothing, but that’s not a consistent argument. If he can draw inferences from the award of cash, he has to accept that someone else can do the same for the award of nothing.

Unless, of course, his confirmation bias is so deeply rooted that he can’t even comprehend the problems with  his own argument. I pointed Eric towards the Harris County District Clerk’s website, where at least he can read through the actual court documents instead of drawing support from random internet accusations. Initially it’ s likely that everything he reads will seem to support his opinion that Coy is guilty because of his inherent bias; that’s fine. Eventually, if he’s capable of understanding what he reads, he’s going to find out that his assumptions about the opinions of people he’s never met, drawn from actions guided by rules that he doesn’t yet understand, are much less concrete than he believes. Whether or not he will be able to admit that is going to be a true test of his character.

Weekend Reading 67

The big news this week is, obviously, the newly released snippets for The S.O.N., along with a free track, Angels. 

But I also want to say thank you to Mario Martinez for the amazing new graphic, above. Please, feel free to spread it around the internet. You can follow @MMartinezMusic on Twitter.

For those of you new to the blog, you can find all of SPM's recent Family Letters, Quick Updates, and Responses (where he answers your questions about his criminal trial) in the column to your right.

If you want to know what's been going on and why this blog is here, check out the Recap series:

Recap 1
Recap 2
Recap 3
Recap 4
Recap 5
Recap 6
Recap 7
Recap 8
Recap 9

If you're looking for music updates on Twitter, follow:

SPM's Twitter Account

Trey Coy, Dope House Project Manager 

Brent Morton, Dope House Social Media Specialist

Dope House Army

On Facebook, you can like:

SPM's Facebook Page
The Dope House Army

This is not the only blog out there, you can read more about the case, the music, and the whole Dope House family here:

All Things SPM
The Prison Pensman

If you're looking for a 'Free SPM' shirt, try:

Medicine Girl
Swag-City

I know I've probably left out some things; if any of you regular readers think of a link that should be up here, let me know!

Tyler, you're right that I should have links to the Cold 40s! At some point I'd like them each to have their own page, but for now you can find them at the end of the Family Letters.

Blaze, I definitely should have included a link to the one and only www.DopeHouseRecords.com; thank you so much for pointing that out!

Letter to Mike Anderson 6

First post of the month, time for another letter to the D.A.!  But first, snippet news. It looks like the snippets for The S.O.N. and the free track, Angels, are set to be released this Friday. Trey Coy has announced that it’ll be available on Soundcloud.

Please, contact your favorite DJ and let him or her know that there’s a new track about to be released, and you want to hear it on the radio! Let them know where they can find it, and if they give you any shit about the case remind them that there is a lot more information available about what went on in that courtroom now than there was ten years ago. You can mention the blog if you want, but the big thing right now is to let people know Coy’s still around, still making music, and still fighting for a fair trial.

As always please feel free to write your own letter, copy this one, or just send one of the flyers to your right, but please, send something!

District Attorney Mike Anderson

1201 Franklin

Houston, TX

77002

Sir,

I’m writing to you today about the case of Carlos Coy, #908426.

Mr. Coy was convicted 11 years ago but continues to be a relevant, if polarizing, figure; not only because of the questions surrounding his case, but because he continues to speak to fans through his music; past, present, and future. Coy’s label, Dope House Records, is preparing to release his new album. This Friday, snippets of each track and one free song will be released.

The song is already receiving radio play, and I think it’s likely that we’re going to see renewed interest in his case; I hope that you will consider looking into it.

Carlos Coy is in the hearts and minds of many of your constituents, and remains so even after 11 years of incarceration. With every year that goes by, more information becomes available about the state of Houston’s judicial system during Chuck Rosenthal’s administration; more and more of the wrongfully convicted, all across Texas, are finally winning their freedom.

I urge you to review his case, to consider the testimony against him. Think about the lack of physical evidence, the way witnesses’ testimony changed from one day to the next. I do not believe that the state proved its case, and that will eventually become common knowledge. Please, give us justice.

Me, my address, etc etc etc.