A huge “THANK YOU” to everybody who has made the crowdfunding campaign for Christina Boyer a success.

I (Jan Banning) returned to Georgia two weeks ago. One of the highlights so far was a long meeting with Christina’s wonderful parole lawyer, Victoria Smith. After that conversation, we have decided to hire at least one more postconviction consultant who can help us select the best strategy for the application.

Christina is up for parole again in September, and we are walking an interesting tightrope as we gather all this information. The parole board doesn’t take up questions of guilt or innocence; they are primarily interested in hearing about an inmate’s remorse, institutional record, and their plans for the future. Their deliberations are done in absolute secrecy; the inmate has no right even to see their own file, neither does their lawyer.

There is reason to hope: we know that because Christina is under review just a year or so after her prior review, that they are seriously considering her for release. And we think certain details of her tragic personal history, such as evidence of some of the abuse she suffered, probably hasn’t gotten through to them before now.

Parole is our next best hope, but with 29,000 other parole cases coming up each year, it’s not our only effort. We are also pursuing many other leads — speaking to forensic pathologists, psychiatrists; looking for old police records, original court documents, hospital records. All this may take even longer, and be much harder, than any of us could have guessed.

Every day, we uncover something new that might help, but there is so much more to be done, and so few of us here on the ground. We are so grateful to have reached far over our original goal, but it is becoming clear that we could put more money to very good use. If you sympathize with Christina’s case but haven’t gotten to donate: please consider it. If you know any others who might be eager to spend for this cause: please point them to this campaign. There are still 7 days left before it’s time to hand in her application, we can certainly use anything you are able to give.

In any case: thank you for what you have done. We will keep you posted, of course.

Best regards,

Christina’s team (Amy, Alicia, Jan, Shoshanna, Susan).