Once on death row, ex-inmate helps teens

Bay State Banner
By Gus Martins
June 29, 2022

High school conjures memories of gridiron football, senior prom and the start of lifelong friendships for many. Not so for 63-year-old Louisianan Gary Tyler.

In a blink of an eye in 1974, an attack by whites in the middle-class town Destrehan in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, against bused-in black students from neighboring St. Rose turned Tyler’s young life into a helter-skelter, leaving the public school sophomore the country’s youngest-ever death row inmate.

The ensuing horror cost him 42 years of his life in the notorious Louisiana State Prison at Angola, sentenced to die for a murder he maintains he never committed. His life was spared only by a Supreme Court decision in 1976 ruling the death sentence unconstitutional.

Mercifully released in 2016, Tyler relocated to Los Angeles, where he counsels youth as a lead outreach and engagement support worker, using knowledge and wisdom that today serves also as the foundation of his guest speaking appearances.

Throughout it all, he has espoused little trace of bitterness, instead exhibiting grace and humanity while speaking on college campuses and other stages.

“I was 17 when they tried me, but I was 16 when all of this happened,’’ Tyler recounted last week in a phone interview. “That was part of their interrogation. It was like they water- boarded people in Guantanamo Bay and they got people confessing to kill Jesus Christ. But the thing is, they didn’t get any confession out of me. I didn’t have anything to confess to. I guess that’s one of the things that perplexed them. They couldn’t get me to sign any statements against anybody. They couldn’t get me to sign any statements against myself.’’

The St. Charles Parish ordeal, having its origins in the same court-enforced busing taking place in Boston at the time, occurred at the end of the day on Oct. 7, 1974. Tyler was one of a group of black students on a bus that was spontaneously attacked by an enraged anti-busing mob.

In the frenzy, a 13-year-old white student named Timothy Weber was shot dead. Another white student was injured. The murder case against Tyler rested on the statements of four witnesses, who subsequently recanted their testimonies. Even the bus driver said that no shots were fired from inside the bus.

“Believe me, it took me decades to really put a finger on the pulse of what was really going on at that time,’’ Tyler said. “Because when it happened, I really didn’t understand the racial implications of everything that was taking place. I just knew that we were bused into a neighborhood that we were not welcome. Tensions were high. I couldn’t tell you what was behind it, whether racism or other things.’’

A first search of the bus produced no weapon. All the Black students were then searched outside the bus — and again, no weapon. No one in the crowd of assailants was searched. Tyler wasn’t even a suspect at first. Police later suspiciously produced a weapon that was said to be taken earlier from a firing range and had been used by officers for practice.

The case, conducted by a regional and incestuous law enforcement police and court system, took just over a year to be tried. It ended with a conviction and death sentence for a teenager not yet old enough to legally drink liquor or vote.

In those days before CNN, internet and social media, it took deeply penetrating songs by the late Gil Scott-Heron (“Angola Louisiana”) and British reggae band UB40 (“Tyler,” sung by Alistair Campbell), to help spread the word of one of the great miscarriages of justice in the modern history of the United States.

Surviving prison

Amnesty International and the news outlet Democracy Now, in addition to a three-part series by the New York Times’ columnist Bob Herbert and various other media and rallies in cities across the country, helped to keep alive the flame of hope. Tyler’s mother, father, 10 siblings, and extended family and friends also never gave up on the goal of a new trial and seeing the conviction overturned.

Merely staying unhurt in the dangerous maximum-security prison was a major concern. But Tyler said older inmates became his protectors. In prison, he joined the drama club and participated in performances over the years, highlighting myriad social issues. Joining the Jaycees he said, helped him to shed inhibitions and become a highly-proficient speaker. He also learned knitting.

“I had no other choice than to pursue an education inside prison,’’ he said. “Because it helped me to better understand and deal with my ordeal. It helped me to better express myself and to give an effective argument against the things that weren’t true surrounding my case. You learn all of that when you are fighting for your life and fighting for what’s right.’’

Back in 1974, Tyler’s long ordeal most likely emanated from a remark he made during the search, when police asked his cousin about a chain he wore around his neck. Tyler interjected, telling the cop that “it had nothing to do with anything.’’ The old Southern taboo of a young Black male speaking out perhaps doomed him. He was apprehended, taken to the police substation, beaten mercilessly and, as it appears, subsequently framed.

“I guess due to ignorance and stubbornness, I believed in the American Dream and the American justice system,’’ he said. “As young as I was, I believed the truth would prevail. They are framing you for something that you didn’t do, they almost murdered [me] by practically beating me to death in the substation. I still believed that the system was fair. And I believed that I was going home. I was wrong.’’

At Viterbo University, a Franciscan Order institution in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Keith A. Knutson, a professor of political science in the department of ethics, culture and society, and his colleague David Gardner, have brought Tyler to their campus on two occasions. A third visit is in the planning stage. Tyler, each time, has left an indelible impression.

“He has a gift and a real human connection,” Knutson said. “And, of course, he must have had that in prison. Prisoners are human. I think that’s one of the takeaways in getting to know Gary and listening to him — his humanity. He could explain some of his own prison experiences and, of course, of unjustly being sentenced to death.’’

Tyler came to Viterbo the first time in September and spent a week there, Knutson said.

“In addition to an address before about 700 people, he visited classrooms, a couple of churches, a criminal justice council, the local DA, several judges and two dozen other people on the committee,” Knutson said. “They sent me messages and said that his was the best conversation they’d ever had.”

Over the years, Tyler’s case reached and was approved several times by the local pardon board, but often died by the inaction of three separate Louisiana governors. Once for not yet having the GED he was working toward. In another instance, his pardon was denied four days before a governor left office. “I guess, as they say, I was a political liability for them,’’ Tyler said.

During his imprisonment, his dad Uylos, mom Juanita and some of his siblings passed away. Juanita, who died in 2012. throughout it all remained a major point of reference in his life and never let her son give up.

“I’d never say that I lost hope,’’ he said. “But I became disillusioned. I felt that the way things were going, would I ever get out? But I knew that if I just gave up would mean that I was surrendering, capitulating to a system that went out of its way to falsely convict me. So I felt in a stubborn way I couldn’t give them that satisfaction. Besides, I had a mother, and she would not take that. ‘You giving up? No!’”

His case had long been a stain on Louisiana. It took a younger, new breed of district attorney, Joel T. Chaisson, who had grown up knowing about the case, to help facilitate a way out for Tyler.

“My case at that point was a drag on the parish itself,’’ Tyler said. “You had people who felt like they want to move forward, not be stuck dealing with a relic of the past. They wanted people to believe they are progressive and changing with the time. What they did was drop my conviction all the way down to manslaughter. After all the years I served, [Chaisson] felt that it would be cumbersome to go before a parole board or put me on probation, and with the reviews he got from prison officials, that ‘this guy here is a model prisoner, he was one of the best and hasn’t given us any trouble,’ he felt he didn’t want to complicate my life like that.’’

Gary Tyler, wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder, speaks at UWL

The Racquet Press
Sophie Byrne, Social Justice Reporter
September 20, 2021

Gary Tyler was 16 years old when he was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder, sentenced to death row, and sent to maximum-security Louisiana State Penitentiary. On Tuesday, Sept. 14, Tyler presented to a full auditorium at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Tyler described him over 41 years wrongfully imprisoned and touched on topics such as racism, rehabilitation programs for convicts, as well as what it was like to be on death row.

Tyler was introduced by Vice President of Black Student Unity (BSU) Jaiya Edwards, as well as Nicholas Bakken, a professor in the Sociology and Criminal Justice department. The talk and subsequent Q&A were additionally co-sponsored by the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities; the Division of Diversity and Inclusion; Multicultural Student Organizations Leadership Programs; and the Office of Multicultural Student Services.

The audience made up of primarily students but including faculty and staff and community members, sat silently as Tyler described the events that led to his incarceration. According to a 2007 New York Times op-ed, “Mr. Tyler, a sophomore at Destrehan High, was on a bus filled with black students that was attacked on Oct. 7, 1974, by a white mob enraged over school integration. A shot was fired and a 13-year-old white boy standing outside the bus collapsed, mortally wounded. Mr. Tyler was arrested on a charge of disturbing the peace after he talked back to a sheriff’s deputy.

Although the bus and its passengers were searched and no weapon was found, Mr. Tyler was taken into custody, savagely beaten, and accused of committing the murder. A gun was found during a subsequent search of the bus and witnesses were rounded up to testify against Mr. Tyler. It turned out that the gun (which has since disappeared) had been stolen from a firing range used by officers of the sheriff’s department. All of the witnesses who pinpointed Mr. Tyler would eventually recant, saying they had been terrorized into testifying falsely by the authorities.”

Tyler recalled having hope, even after being baselessly accused and physically beaten by authorities. “After all I went through, I still believed in the criminal justice system. I was taught to believe the criminal justice system was the best system in the world, that I needed to believe. My mother, my parents believed that. The truth will come out, you will be exonerated. I believed that. When I went to court, I was confident they would find me not guilty. “

Despite outcries from his family and community, Tyler was convicted. According to Free Gary Tyler’s website, “Gary’s trial lasted five days and the jury deliberation three hours before he was found guilty of first-degree murder, in November 1975. Under Louisiana law at the time, this was an automatic death sentence. His date of execution was set for May 1, 1976. At seventeen, he was the youngest person on death row in the United States.”

With Free Gary Tyler campaigns active around the nation and multiple pending appeals, Tyler’s execution date was postponed. Soon after, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Louisiana death penalty was unconstitutional, and Tyler was spared from death—but re-sentenced to life in prison. Requests for parole, pardon, or a commuted sentence were all met with rejection.

Tyler weighed just 107 pounds and stood 4’7” tall at the time of his conviction. He recalled being awoken by screams in the first 72 hours at the prison, looking out the window to see a prisoner engulfed in flames, set alight by another prisoner.

Tyler was surrounded by convicted criminals. “Little did I know that the men who were around me had my interest at heart. When I walked into that prison, they didn’t see me as a threat. How could a small child—young enough to be your son, little brother, nephew, your friend’s son—come to prison with grown men?”

He then described how he was mentored and protected by some of these criminals, saying that they took him under their wing and taught him how to survive. “The same ones protected me and became my guardians, raised someone else’s child, and made sure he didn’t become a victim. They became my big brothers, uncles, mentors, everything.”

Tyler eventually saw a radical change in fellow inmates, recalling people who once hated him based on the color of his skin who grew to love him and, “became my best friends.”

Throughout his time in prison, Tyler pursued education. He was initially denied a request to obtain a GED based on his life sentence and told that, “it would be a waste of taxpayer money.” Tyler ended up reading all of the books he could get, joining clubs and organizations in prison, and taking any classes or rehab programs that were available. He became CPR certified, engaged in bereavement counseling training, studied graphic arts and printing, and attended paralegal school. He volunteered in the prisons’ hospice care facility for seventeen years. Most notably, he became the president of the drama club. Tyler credits drama club with empowering him to use his voice, lead, and inspire. Eventually, Tyler became well known for his ability to rehabilitate and inspire prisoners who had previously lost hope. “They grew to love me just as I grew to love them.”

According to Free Gary Tyler’s website “After enduring over four decades of incarceration, the St. Charles Parish District Attorney’s Office in Louisiana finally agreed to overturn Tyler’s conviction in 2016.

Tyler agreed to enter a guilty plea for manslaughter and received a maximum sentence of 21 years. Since he had already served more than twice that time, his sentence was overturned. Tyler was quietly released from Angola penitentiary on April 29, 2016.”

Tyler said, “we transform every day of our lives…I believe in change.” Tyler is a proponent of rehabilitation for convicts, saying “There are people that commit criminal acts, and there are people that have a propensity to commit criminal acts. You have to make that distinction…you have to ask if that person can be reformed or rehabilitated.”

For more information about Gary Tyler’s life both before and after prison, readers may visit https://www.freegarytyler.com/.

Man wrongly convicted of first-degree murder to speak at Viterbo

Gary Tyler, who was wrongly convicted of first-degree murder at the age of 17 and spent 41 years in Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola, will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 16 in Viterbo University Fine Arts Center Main Theatre.

The event is free and open to the public. It is being held at Viterbo in recognition of Constitution Day. Tyler spoke at Viterbo in 2018 to great acclaim from students and community members. A mask requirement is in effect at Viterbo and all audience members must wear a mask.

Tyler, an African-American, was 16 years old in 1974 when he was charged with the murder of a fellow student, who was white. He was quickly tried and convicted under dubious circumstances in a racially charged environment and was sentenced to death in the electric chair. He was the youngest inmate in history to be incarcerated on death row. Louisiana’s death penalty was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, and Tyler’s sentence was changed to life in prison.

Despite the work of lawyers, activists, and celebrities to free him, Tyler would spend the next 40 years in one of the nation’s bloodiest and violent prisons, where he would witness horrible brutality. Fortunately, he was protected by a group of older inmates who saved him from harm. Tyler was a model prisoner, earning his GED, mentoring other inmates, and volunteering in the prison’s hospice care facility. In 1981, a federal appeals court stipulated that Tyler was “denied a fundamentally fair trial,” but refused to order a new trial.

Tyler finally gained his freedom in 2016 when the Louisiana St. Charles Parish District Attorney’s Office agreed to overturn his murder conviction. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and had already served more than twice the maximum sentence for that crime.

Throughout it all, Tyler maintained his innocence.

Today, Tyler lives in Venice, Calif. where he works at Safe Place for Youth helping to get homeless youth off the streets.

He also shares his story through speaking engagements. He is not bitter and concentrates every day on enjoying his freedom.

“I left prison rich in spirit and ready to embrace life,” he said. “I am happy to have the opportunity to live a life that was denied to me for four decades.”

An Art Studio for Gary Tyler

Our neighbor Gary Tyler was an innocent teen put on death row with an assigned execution date in 1976. He spent 41 1/2 years in Angola Prison before he was finally released in 2016. For Gary, free-life meant learning something new every day, things most adults take for granted: a job, a paycheck, a bank account, a cell phone, car and computer. For the past four years, in addition to serving as a guest speaker at many schools and churches, he has been working at the Safe Place for Youth helping to engage, build trust, and provide care and support to youth experiencing homelessness.

While in Angola, Gary learned to design and sew quilts. All of the quilts he created there were sold to raise money for Angola Prison Hospice, and were collected by Oprah Winfrey, George Soros, and the Smithsonian African American Museum of Art among others.

Since his release, Gary has not had the time, equipment or the space to quilt, but he is ready to begin again. Please consider making a contribution to a GoFundMe account set up to help Gary relaunch his life in the arts.

GoFundMe/An art studio for Gary Tyler

To learn more about how Gary came to be our neighbor, visit any of the following webpages.

Gary Tyler (Wikipedia)

Pasadena Weekly: Former death row inmate Gary Tyler starts a new life in Pasadena

Equal Justice Initiative

Free Gary Tyler website

Gary Tyler, former death row inmate, to speak Thursday at Viterbo

LaCrosse Tribune
By Kyke Farrus
September 19, 2018

Gary Tyler served 41 years in prison for a murder he swears, and that all evidence suggests, he didn’t commit.

But the 60-year-old Tyler, who can’t talk for 30 seconds without cracking a smile or erupting into one of his deep, booming laughs, has no semblance of anger in him.

“You should never forgot what happened to you — never — but you should let go of the hate and animosity, because hate can be like poison,” said Tyler, who was released in April 2016 after a long chain of judicial decisions that resulted in a plea deal. He’s scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. Thursday in the San Damiano Chapel at Viterbo University.

“Forgiveness is a powerful thing in life,” he said. “I learned how to forgive people for what they’ve done to me.”

In October 1974, in his native Louisiana, Tyler was arrested after a white student by the name of Timothy Weber was shot and killed during a riot over school integration. Tyler had been on a school bus full of other black students at the time of the shooting.

Though the bus driver claimed the shot was fired from outside the bus, and although several searches of the bus turned up no weapon, Tyler was charged with first-degree murder. Less than a year later, he was convicted by an all-white jury.

“You’re looking at a man who once believed that the system was perfect, that justice would prevail,” Tyler said. “I was young and foolish back then.”

Tyler was sent to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the youngest inmate on death row.

He avoided the electric chair when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana’s death penalty law was unconstitutional. But for years, Tyler still paid with his life.

Lawyers and judges recognized the evidence against Tyler was dubious and likely manufactured, but technicality after technicality kept him in prison.

Meanwhile, Tyler lost his grandparents. He lost his parents. Life was passing him by.

“Luckily, I had a supporting cast around me and never gave up hope that I’d be free,” said Tyler, who finally was set free when the state of Louisiana offered him a plea deal — 21 years for manslaughter, though he had already served twice that.

“It was surreal,” he said. “I didn’t know whether I woke up or what. I had to pinch myself for a few days until I realized I was hurting myself. I had to stop pinching myself.”

Tyler, in essence, had to learn how to live.

He got a driver’s license, a job and an apartment — all for the first time.

He taught himself how to shop for groceries, a task he initially found overwhelming

And he learned from his young niece, who was 3 at the time, how to use a cell phone.

“Each given day is a sense of liberation,” he said. “What other people take for granted, I cherish.”

Tyler makes his home in Pasadena, California, working for a charitable organization called Safe Place for Youth. By supporting children who are homeless or vulnerable, he hopes to save the next generation from the courtroom, from prison, from the life that he had.

In his story, he sees a lesson.

Tyler had almost no control over his case — the arrest, the conviction, the death sentence.

He could have been incensed with the jurors who found him guilty — and for a while, he was. The biggest piece of evidence against him was a handgun that, it was later found, belonged to the Sheriff’s Department’s firing range.

But, he said, “I had a chance to choose the right path. I could gather something good out of something bad. I survived my ordeal and came out a better person than I came in.”

Lessons from those wrongly convicted

LaCrosse Tribune
By Keith Knutson
September 16, 2018

In 1923, Judge Learned Hand wrote that our criminal justice system was “haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted.”

The 1995 book, “Convicted but Innocent,” began to fill in Judge Hand’s ghost with actual data. The authors estimated that 0.5 percent of convicted felons in America were actually innocent. Our criminal justice system was shocked, even offended by the estimate.

Only five years later, the best-seller “Actual Innocence” showed us the impact DNA analysis has on proving wrongful convictions. Today, some researchers suggest the actual rate of wrongful convictions may be as high as 10 percent.

If correct, this means we incarcerate more innocent prisoners in the United States than all prisoners combined in France, Germany and Britain.

The National Registry of Exoneration has almost 2,300 exonerees in its database.

One of those — wrongly convicted of a 1974 murder and imprisoned until 2016 — will speak Thursday at Viterbo University.

The work done by the Innocence Project, founded in 1992, provided a dramatic impact in our addressing the injustice of wrongful conviction. Our nation’s criminal justice system exonerated eight times as many prisoners in 2015, compared with 1989.

However, after exoneration the question becomes how will these unjustly incarcerated people get on with their lives? State governments and municipalities have paid $2.2 billion to exonerated former prisoners, through either lawsuits or state statues. Unfortunately, only half of all exonerees actually receive compensation for their time unjustly incarcerated.

An effort in Wisconsin to increase payments to our wrongfully convicted failed in the Legislature earlier this year. The bill proposed awarding up to $1 million in each case. Among states compensating those wrongly convicted, we remain the lowest in the nation, capping state payments at $25,000. Twenty states still offer no compensation at all.

All of the money used to compensate exonerees comes from public treasuries or municipal insurers. We do not hold public officials financially liable for their responsibility in wrongful convictions. Very seldom do we hold them to account if they undermine our legal system by sending innocents to prison. Perhaps if we did, the incidence of wrongful conviction could be reduced.

Additionally, as is too typical in criminal justice, skin color is a factor in wrongful conviction. Comprising 12 percent of our population, Black Americans constitute 46 percent of our exonerees. They spend more time in prison, and receive lower levels of compensation, than white exonerees receive.

One such person is Gary Tyler. In 1974, at age 16, he sat on a bus with other black students, headed home after attending the recently integrated high school in St Charles Parish, Louisiana. A crowd of several hundred protesters yelled at them, hurling bottles, rocks and racial slurs.

A 13-year-old white schoolmate outside the bus was shot and killed. Sheriff’s deputies searched the bus, claimed they had found a hidden gun (never recovered), and arrested Tyler for murder. Within one week, an all-white jury had sentenced him to death by electric chair.

Statistically, Tyler became the one of every 25 defendants sentenced to death who are later proven to be innocent.

Four witnesses on the bus later recanted their testimony regarding the shooting. A Supreme Court decision vacated his death sentence. Nonetheless, Tyler spent the next four decades in the infamous Angola prison. He finally achieved freedom, and justice delayed, in 2016.

The 18th century British legal scholar, William Blackstone, offered this advice: “It is better that 10 guilty persons escape, than one innocent suffer.” Convicted to death as an innocent teenager, Gary Tyler refuses to be haunted by the ghost of injustice perpetrated against him.

He will speak at Viterbo University’s San Damiano Chapel at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20.

How a Death Row Inmate Made Injustice Pay Off

truthdig
By Eric Ortiz
June 28, 2018

Imagine you are charged with a crime you didn’t commit, then wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder. Now, imagine you get sentenced to death by electric chair, sent to one of the most notorious prisons in the United States, and assigned an execution date.

That’s what happened to Gary Tyler. In 1974, Tyler was arrested for disturbing the peace as a 16-year-old sophomore at Destrehan High School in St. Charles Parish, La., after a racial altercation involving 200 white students and a school bus filled with black students (including Tyler). A 13-year-old white student was shot and later died. Tyler was named as the shooting suspect, even though he claimed his innocence and evidence suggested he was framed.

“They kept asking me questions about what happened on the bus,” Tyler told the Pasadena Weekly about being in police custody. “When I said I didn’t know anything, six or seven police officers brutally beat me for two to three hours in the booking room at the substation.”

An all-white jury found Tyler guilty of murder. He entered the Louisiana State Penitentiary, or Angola, at 17, the youngest person on death row.

“Angola was the bloodiest, most infamous prison in the nation,” Tyler said. “It was a place of turmoil where prisoners were killing each other and committing suicide. I saw horrible things in Angola—inmates being set on fire or stabbed with homemade spears. I saw inmates who were doused with acid by other inmates. Some prisoners even got beaten to death by guards.”

A group of inmates protected Tyler.

“They saw a little kid who was all alone,” Tyler explained. “Many of them were uncles and fathers—and they stepped up as responsible men to make sure that nothing happened to me.”

Tyler’s execution date was May 1, 1976. Before that day arrived, his sentence was commuted to life without parole (until after 20 years) after the Supreme Court ruled in Roberts v. Louisiana that the state’s death penalty was unconstitutional.

Tyler made the best of his injustice, getting a GED, studying graphic arts and printing, attending paralegal school, mentoring other inmates and volunteering in the prison’s hospice care facility for 17 years.

During his time in prison, Tyler helped transform the culture of violence at Angola. As the president of the drama club, he directed a passion play, “The Life of Jesus Christ,” featuring other inmates as cast members. This project became the basis of the documentary “Cast the First Stone.”

Tyler recalled the experience during an interview with Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer:

Of course, I was able to recruit people from all walks of life in the prison. Also, that we’re talking about some people that had disciplinary problems and I knew these guys. I knew that giving them a chance, an opportunity, I could help transform them. I like that I had opportunity to interview and audition, you understand, these guys, because I opened it up to the prison population and I was getting, if you consider the worst of the worst, and to hear these guys say, “Give me chance. Let me prove myself.” It’s like people asking society, “Give me a second chance.” So, I heard their cries and I gave them that chance. I found them to be the most committed and dedicated actors that I had in the production.

Tyler’s legal case became known worldwide as lawyers and human rights activists fought for his release from prison. In 2016, the St. Charles Parish district attorney’s office in Louisiana agreed to overturn Tyler’s murder conviction if he entered a guilty plea for manslaughter. He did and received the maximum sentence of 21 years. Since he already had served almost 42 years, Tyler was released from Angola on April 29, 2016, at the age of 57.

He now lives in Pasadena, Calif., and has become a community leader.

Tyler has spoken out in support of Proposition 62 to end the death penalty in California. He has spoken at events with actor and activist Mike Farrell, former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti and musician Jackson Browne.

Tyler also has lectured at many places: Cal State Northridge, with the Rev. James Lawson; Cal State Long Beach, with actor Danny Trejo and film producer and Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) founder Scott Budnick; USC (five times), Loyola Marymount; Venice Art Garden; UCLA’s Department of African-American Studies; Loyola Law School, Hastings Law School, All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Los Angeles; Scott United Methodist Church in Pasadena; University Methodist Church in Irvine; actor Tim Robbins’ experimental theater, The Actors’ Gang (two times); and the Catholic Biblical Federation (two times).

He is scheduled to go to Wisconsin in September to speak at Viterbo University and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Still, re-entry after four decades of incarceration has its challenges. Tyler came out of prison with zero dollars and turns 60 on July 10. Although Tyler now works as an outreach and engagement support worker at Safe Place for Youth in Venice, Calif.—helping homeless youth—Social Security requires 40 quarters or 10 years to get the minimum benefits. That means Tyler will be at least 69 years old before he can qualify and collect.

Longtime Los Angeles peace activist Bob Zaugh, who has known and advocated for Tyler since 1989, arranges Tyler’s speaking engagements and has set up a re-entry fund for him.

“Gary had to start from scratch upon leaving Angola prison,” Zaugh wrote in an email. “He had no paid work history, no driver’s license, no savings, had never had an apartment. Even going to Ralphs to shop was an eye-opening experience. He was starting from ground zero, but Gary immediately became a community force.”

Tyler continues to be a positive force. At the beginning of 2018, he spoke at Caltech in Pasadena. The woman who organized the event, Marionne Epalle, an administrator in the engineering and applied science department, is his neighbor. After the talk, they went to the Caltech private dining room for lunch. Mwi Epalle, Marionne’s 15-year-old daughter, joined them, and said she wanted to do a class project with Tyler at the International School of Los Angeles. The project was a video, “My Neighbor, Gary.” When the video was completed, she submitted it to a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights video contest in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers and Tribeca Film Institute. The competition had more than 800 entries. Her entry won first place.

Tyler has chosen the power of compassion over the power of destruction. Despite spending two-thirds of his life behind bars in a terrible miscarriage of justice, Tyler holds no anger or resentment. In fact, he carries on RFK’s message of hope:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Like the America of Robert F. Kennedy’s day before his death in 1968, America today faces some difficult tests. As we question what nation we are and what direction we want to go, we can look to Tyler for some guidance and inspiration in the struggle for justice.

“The life I lived, the life that others lived, what they went through, it exemplifies how an individual can overcome these adversities and these challenges and how they can make a difference in their community.”

If you want to provide financial support as Gary Tyler develops his life and work as an important community leader, give to his Liberty Hill re-entry fundor his GoFundMe birthday page.

“Gary Tyler, My Neighbor” wins grand prize

Budding Filmmakers at The International School of Los Angeles Win Grand Prize in Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Video Contest

From more than 800 submissions, an entry from Ming-Wei Fasquelle ‘20 and Mwi Epalle ’20 at the International School of Los Angeles has won grand prize in the annual Speak Truth to Power Video Contest.

Los Angeles, CA, April 24, 2018 –(PR.com)– Organized by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers and the Tribeca Film Institute, the national video contest has seen over 60,000 students engage with the platform since its inception. Using their entries as a tool to discuss human rights issues, students are challenged to become champions of change and justice.

In their winning film, Gary Tyler, My Neighbor, Fasquelle and Epalle tell the story of Gary Tyler, a man who was wrongly convicted of murder and served over 40 years in prison. When asked about this accomplishment, Head of School Michael Maniska says, “We are so proud of Ming-Wei and Mwi for tackling such an intense topic in such a sophisticated manner.”

Thanks to their elegant storytelling, the duo garnered high praise from the panel of critics comprising film industry experts, actors, and educators. In her judging notes, multi-award-winning actor and respected activist Alfre Woodard shared these compliments about the film, “Simplicity. Direct storytelling – simply truthful. Powerfully rendered.”

Next stop: the students have been invited to watch as Gary Tyler, My Neighbor is screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 24th.

About the International School of Los Angeles:
The International School of Los Angeles is an international preschool through 12th grade bilingual school which offers an English and French curriculum. All students study a common bilingual program from preschool through 9th grade after which they have a choice between the rigorous and well-balanced French baccalauréat and International Baccalaureate Diploma programs. The Washington Post consistently lists the International School of Los Angeles as one of the nation’s most challenging private high schools. With five Los Angeles-area campuses (Burbank, Los Feliz, Orange County, Pasadena, and West Valley), and over one thousand students, the School holds triple accreditation from the French Ministry of Education, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), and the International Baccalaureate (IB). The International School of Los Angeles is committed to academic excellence in a nurturing and intimate environment that encourages personal initiative, creativity and curiosity, and to preparing students of all backgrounds to excel and contribute to a global world. Since 1978, the School has been instilling the love of learning in all its students through small classes and low student-to-teacher ratios. With over 60 nationalities and 39 spoken languages represented on the campuses, students study and live in a diverse global community every day.

Media Contact:
Emmy Ansinelli – Marketing & Communications Director
International School of Los Angeles
818-994-2961 | emmy.ansinelli@lilaschool.com | www.internationalschool.la

Mike Farrell and Gary Tyler Speak Out Against the Death Penalty

All Saints Church discussion marks ‘World Day Against The Death Penalty’

Pasadena Now
By Eddie Rivera
October 12, 2017

Justice takes many faces and many forms. For some the answer to the death penalty question is swift and sure; for others, the lines are blurred between a respect for life and a respect for the victims.

For actor Mike Farrell, self-described “social justice advocate,” it has been a decades-long battle, as an opponent of the death penalty, and an advocate for prison reform. Known mostly for his role as for his role as “BJ Hunnicutt” in “M.A.S.H.” and from NBC-TV’s “Providence,” he is the current President of the Board of Directors of Death Penalty Focus, a spokesperson for Concern America, an international refugee aid and development organization, among other organizations.

On Tuesday evening, he gathered with fellow opponents of the death penalty, along with those who have have been personally affected, for a “World Day Against The Death Penalty with Mike Farrell and Friends,” at All Saints Church, for a panel discussion about what the Church called “the harms that the death penalty inflicts on exonerees, victims families, and our society at large.”

The discussion also marked the 15th Annual “World Day Against the Death Penalty.” With the passage of Prop 66 last November, California is inching closer to the resumption of executions.

The evening featured a sobering panel discussion with Farrell, California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Member Bethany Webb, and Death Row Exoneree Gary Tyler.

“We have determined that some human beings are not human, are not worthwhile or capable, and that we can just do away with them,” Farrell told The LA Times last year, adding, “If you set up that belief system in a society, you can justify torture, assassinations by drone, just about anything.”

The death penalty has been in place continuously in California for almost 40 years, though executions were suspended in 2006 after the current method for lethal injection was challenged in court. Following 40 years of a legal death penalty in California, executions were halted in 2006, when the lethal injection method of execution was challenged. In 2014, a federal judge ruled the system unconstitutional, but the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision in 2016, bringing California closer to performing executions again.

Also participating in the panel was Gary Webb, who, in 1975, was sentenced to death as a youth in Louisiana for a crime he didn’t commit, making him the youngest man on death row.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to sentence minors to life without parole and applied its decision retroactively. Offered a plea bargain by prosecutors in order to avoid another trial, Gary agreed to plead “guilty” to manslaughter in exchange for his freedom. Having served 41 years in prison, Gary was released from prison in April 2016. He now lives in California and works on advocating against the death penalty and policies that support mass incarceration.

Panelist Bethany Webb, a loan officer and real estate agent who lives in Huntington Beach, lost her sister Laura Webb Elody in a 2011 mass shooting in Seal Beach.

When it came time to sentence her sister’s killer, Bethany told prosecutors at a sentencing hearing, she didn’t want the death penalty, saying, “There is no justice. Murdering someone else in my sister’s name would be defiling everything she was.” Says Webb, that although there is no doubt about the perpetrator in her sister’s case, she knows the death penalty leaves open the possibility of executing innocent people.

Former death row inmate Gary Tyler starts a new life in Pasadena

Pasadena Weekly
By Shirley Hawkins
June 29, 2017

Soft-spoken 58-year-old ex-prisoner Gary Tyler is finally at peace. The social activist has adopted the pastoral city of Pasadena as his home — a far cry from the grim, gray walls of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, infamously known as Angola, the worst and bloodiest prison in the nation. When Tyler was first incarcerated there 41-and-a-half years ago for a crime that he maintains he did not commit, he was the youngest person on death row.

“I feel free here,” declares Tyler, who resides in a small, picturesque guesthouse where he frequently invites local doctors, lawyers and other activists — several of his longtime supporters.

“I can wake up in the morning and hear the birds chirping, smell the fresh air and feel the fresh breeze,” Tyler says. “People here in Pasadena are really social and friendly. Everyone I encounter is very nice.”

SENTENCED TO DEATH

Tyler’s legal nightmare began at the age of 16, when he was charged with a murder and sentenced to the notorious Angola maximum-security prison in Louisiana, at 17 the youngest inmate to be incarcerated on death row.

It was 1974, when public schools across America were undergoing integration. Racial tensions flared at Destrehan High School in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana — even though the Brown v. Board of Education case desegregating public schools had been decided by the US Supreme Court 20 years earlier.

Tyler was sitting on a bus filled with African-American students when a crowd of approximately 200 white students began yelling racial slurs and throwing rocks and bottles. A shot rang out that wounded 13-year-old white classmate Timothy Weber, who later died at the local hospital.

“I was known for being outspoken,” Tyler recalls. During the turmoil, Tyler witnessed his cousin being harassed by sheriff’s deputies and spoke up in his defense. Tyler was subsequently arrested for allegedly disturbing the peace and interfering with a police officer’s duties.

The bus was searched for several hours, but no weapon was found. Sheriff’s investigators transported the students to the substation where they once again searched the bus. This time, they allegedly found the gun — a government-issue 45-caliber Colt automatic.

Police produced the gun as evidence at Tyler’s trial. Later, it was discovered that the weapon was identified as having been stolen from the sheriff’s firing range in Jefferson Parish 10 miles away. The gun later disappeared from the evidence room.

At the sheriff’s substation, Tyler was cursed at and threatened by police. “They kept asking me questions about what happened on the bus,” Tyler recalls. “When I said I didn’t know anything, six or seven police officers brutally beat me for two to three hours in the booking room at the substation.” Tyler’s mother, Juanita, arrived hoping to take her son home, but was horrified when she heard his muffled screams.

Tyler was subsequently tried by an all-white jury. He was sentenced to death by electric chair.

“When they accused me of murder, I told them that I was innocent, but no one listened,” Tyler sadly recalls. He was shipped to Angola, the largest maximum security prison in the country.

LIFE IN PRISON

Tyler still remembers the sense of fear he felt as the steel gate on his prison cell clanged shut. “When the prison gates shut behind me, I felt as if I was shut off from the rest of the world,” he remembers. “You knew you would not exit those gates once they were closed.”

Tyler languished on death row for nearly two years. While there, he constantly wrote letters pleading for help and support. “I sent letters to every news and media outlet I could think of,” he recalls. “Eventually my case made its way to the local and international news.”

In the case Roberts v. Louisiana, the US Supreme Court in 1976 ruled that the state’s death penalty was unconstitutional. Tyler’s sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole until after 20 years.

Tyler says that day-to-day life in Angola prison was a test of sheer survival. “Angola was the bloodiest, most infamous prison in the nation,” he recalls. “It was a place of turmoil where prisoners were killing each other and committing suicide.

“I saw horrible things in Angola — inmates being set on fire or stabbed with homemade spears. I saw inmates who were doused with acid by other inmates. Some prisoners even got beaten to death by guards,” he remembers.

Fortunately, a group of inmates formed a bond to protect the vulnerable, frightened teen. “They saw a little kid who was all alone,” Tyler recalls. “Many of them were uncles and fathers — and they stepped up as responsible men to make sure that nothing happened to me.”

Despite his dire predicament, Tyler became a model prisoner.

“I got my GED, studied graphic arts and printing, and attended paralegal school,” he proudly recalls. He also mentored other inmates and spent 17 years as a volunteer in the prison’s hospice care facility.

But it was an invitation to join Angola prison’s drama club that radically changed his life. For the next 20 years, Tyler headed the club, which led to him directing the Passion play “The Life of Jesus Christ.” Impressed with the production, directors Jonathan Stack and Nicholas Cuellar filmed a documentary about the project titled “Cast the First Stone.”

TROUBLING FROM THE BEGINNING

Tyler’s case, which was widely publicized off and on for four decades, continued to gather a groundswell of support from athletes, left-wing activists and celebrities of the times, such as the British reggae band UB40 and the Neville Brothers. Rallies eventually sprung up across the country and abroad to protest Tyler’s wrongful incarceration.

“I received cards and letters on a daily basis from people from all over the world,” recalls Tyler. “They told me to keep holding on and to continue to be strong.”

On the first appeal of Tyler’s conviction in 1981, a federal appeals court admitted that Tyler was “denied a fundamentally fair trial,” but refused to order a new one for him.

And despite the Louisiana Board of Pardons recommending that Tyler be released three times based on his positive work in prison, several Louisiana governors refused to act on his case.

When the board recommended a pardon for Tyler in 1989, Republican Gov. Charles “Buddy” Roemer denied Tyler a pardon not once, but twice. Roemer was running against Ku Klux Klansman David Duke for re-election and refused to consider Tyler’s case in a racially charged election, feeling that a decision to release Tyler would not be favored by voters.

“In a news release, Roemer said that since I didn’t have my GED yet, I wouldn’t be able to make it in society,” Tyler recalls. “After I obtained my GED, Roemer still denied me a pardon.”

“They would not let Gary out,” says longtime Los Angeles peace activist Bob Zaugh, a supporter of Tyler for 28 years. “When Gov. Kathleen Blanco was leaving office, we appealed to her, but she ultimately ignored his case.”

Undeterred, a battery of impassioned attorneys — Mary Howell, Majeeda Sneed, George Kendall, Pamela Bayer, Corinne Irish and Sam Dalton, among others — worked for decades to prove Tyler’s innocence.

“I worked on Gary’s case for 39 years, starting in 1977 up until his release in 2016,” Howell reflected. “The case itself was a clear miscarriage of justice. The 5th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled that Gary was denied the presumption of innocence and had a fundamentally unfair trial, yet refused to give him a new trial. The case was permeated with racial issues and was deeply troubling from the beginning.”

DAY BY DAY

After enduring over four decades of incarceration, the St. Charles Parish District Attorney’s Office in Louisiana finally agreed to overturn Tyler’s conviction in 2016.

Tyler agreed to enter a guilty plea for manslaughter and received the maximum sentence of 21 years. Since he had already served more than twice that time, his sentence was overturned. Tyler was quietly released from Angola penitentiary on April 29, 2016.

It is reported that Angola Prison Warden Darrell Vannoy wept as he escorted Tyler to the prison gates, saddened to see a man released who had helped to transform the prison and many of its inmates.

Zaugh said he was ecstatic after hearing of Tyler’s release. He brought Tyler to California to start a new life.

“I have no doubt that Gary will be a positive force and resource in the Pasadena community,” says Zaugh. “He is one of the kindest, most polite, most engaging persons I’ve ever met.”

Due to the plea bargain, Tyler received no monetary compensation after spending four-decades behind bars. He does not qualify for Social Security since he has never been active in the work force.

Fortunately, Tyler now works as an outreach and engagement support worker at Safe Place for Youth in Venice, where three days a week he helps homeless youth get off the streets.

Tyler’s supporters have set up a re-entry fund to help Tyler adjust to life after prison. Zaugh arranges speaking engagements for Tyler, who talks to various organizations about his remarkable journey.

“I left prison rich in spirit and eager to embrace life,” Tyler declares, adding that despite his four-decade ordeal he remains unbroken. Remarkably, he harbors no trace of bitterness.

“I am happy to have an opportunity to live a life that had been denied me for four decades,” he reflected. “I’m taking life day by day. I want to write a book, travel and meet the people all over the world who have supported me for over 41 years.”

Contributions for the Gary Tyler fund can be sent to https://www.libertyhill.org/form/back-to-life-re-entry-fund