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

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

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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…

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Sentenced to death at age 17, Gary Tyler is building a new life in Venice

Sentenced to death at age 17, Gary Tyler is building a new life in Venice

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The Argonaut By Shirley Hawkins January 28, 2017 Gary Tyler is finally at peace. The tranquil Craftsman homes and lush tree-lined streets of Pasadena are 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. Tyler, 58, was incarcerated there for 41-and-a-half years for a crime he did not commit, arriving on death row before his 18th birthday. “I feel free here,” says the soft-spoken…

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Gary Tyler on Maintaining Hope and Compassion in the U.S. Prison System

Gary Tyler on Maintaining Hope and Compassion in the U.S. Prison System

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truthdig By Emma Niles October 14, 2016 A life on death row is unimaginable for most people—but for almost 3,000 prisoners in the United States, it is stark reality. Gary Tyler used to be one such prisoner, unjustly convicted and sentenced to death at age 16 for a crime he did not commit. After spending 41 years of his life at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, America’s largest maximum-security prison, Tyler was released in April. Tyler sat down with…

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A New Way of Life Justice on Trial Film Festival Set for Sept.17-18

A New Way of Life Justice on Trial Film Festival Set for Sept.17-18

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Los Angeles Sentinel By Shirley Hawkins September 14, 2016 Statistics from the Sentencing Project on Racial Disparities in the U.S.Criminal Justice System found that “one out of every three black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime.” One of the victims of the penal system was Gary Tyler, who was only 16-years-old when he was charged with a crime he did not commit. Sentenced to the notorious Angola maximum-security prison in West Feliciano Parish,…

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Man Once Sentenced To Death Row Works To Abolish Capital Punishment In California

Man Once Sentenced To Death Row Works To Abolish Capital Punishment In California

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KPBS By Megan Burke, Maureen Cavanaugh Wednesday, September 7, 2016 Do you support the death penalty? It’s one of the most serious questions to confront California voters this November and one of the most divisive. A Field Poll published in January shows 47 percent of California voters would choose to end the death penalty and replace it with life without the possibility of parole. That’s what Proposition 62 on the November ballot would do. The same poll found 48 percent…

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Four decades later, Gary Tyler is free

Four decades later, Gary Tyler is free

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The Lousiana Weekly May 9, 2016 After languishing in Louisiana’s maximum-security prison in Angola, La. for more than four decades, Gary Tyler was released on April 29. Tyler, who was tried and convicted at the age of 16 for first-degree murder in the 1974 death of a white classmate at Destrehan High School during a period in which the River Parish school was rocked with heightened racial tensions amid efforts to integrate the school two decades after the Brown v….

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Gary Tyler’s Long Road to Justice

Gary Tyler’s Long Road to Justice

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The Progressive By Lawrence Richard May 11, 2016 When I visited Gary Tyler in Louisiana’s infamous Angola prison in 2003, he had been there for twenty-eight years. He would serve another thirteen years before his release, on April 29. We met in a cafeteria and spoke for several hours. It was against Angola rules to take notes, but Tyler said just be discreet, it will be OK. Everyone seemed to like him—guards, prisoners and staff. His story was shattering. I…

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The Horrible Ordeal of Gary Tyler: Wrong Place, Wrong Time … and Black

The Horrible Ordeal of Gary Tyler: Wrong Place, Wrong Time … and Black

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counterpunch By Lawrence Reichard May 12, 2016 “Southern man, when will you pay them back?” – Neil Young I have waited 38 years to write the following words: Gary Tyler is a free man. One of the greatest miscarriages of justice of the last 50 years ended April 29. After 41 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, Gary Tyler was released April 29. In 1975, at the age of 17, Tyler was convicted of shooting and…

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