Clemency or Parole for Eric Knapp.

Dear Honorable Gavin Newsom, Governor of the State of California, and the California Board of Parole Hearings:

California state prisoner Eric Knapp is a first-term offender who had no prior criminal record at the time of his arrest in November 1992. In short, Eric is serving a 98-year sentence for non-homicide conduct that occurred not only when he was less than 26 years old (which makes him a youthful offender under California Penal Code section 3051) but also while he was acutely suffering a severely deteriorated mental state as a result of his active service in the military at the time (which California Penal Code section 1170.91 says is a mitigating factor that warrants less severe sentencing).

Specifically, Eric was accused and convicted of sexually assaulting two different adult women once each on separate and unrelated occasions. However, both women testified that Eric did not physically injure or harm them in any way during their encounters with him, and the first of the two women even came forward in the year 2002 and confessed (both in writing and in court) that she had lied altogether about what allegedly happened during her encounter with Eric.

Throughout the trial court proceedings against Eric, Eric's defense counsel, the prosecution, and the trial court each committed multiple wrongful acts, omissions, and errors that, taken together, substantially prejudiced Eric, were not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, denied Eric due process of law, equal protection of law, a fair hearing in a fair tribunal, and other rights secured for him by the Constitution and laws of the United States and the State of California, and resulted in a gross miscarriage of justice as defined by clearly established state and federal law.

We, Eric's family members and friends, have 27 very specific reasons that we believe Eric's 98-year sentence is cruel, unusual, excessive, disparate, and otherwise wrongful and unjust. (See, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/517566742350150/permalink/520837822023042.) Anyone may visit our site and see for themselves all the facts and evidence which we believe clearly reveal many injustices surrounding Eric's conviction, sentence, and continuous incarceration since November 1992.

Therefore, we whose names collectively appear on the accompanying pages of supporters hereby petition you to please seriously consider commuting Eric's sentence and/or granting him parole pursuant to and as permitted by the Constitution and laws of the State of California.

We thus petition you for the following reasons, each of which we have been informed and believe any meaningful investigation will prove true and correct:

1. Eric Knapp was a generally good, decent, productive, contributing, and otherwise respectable member of free society throughout the 25 years and three months of his life before he engaged in the nonhomicide conduct that resulted in the 98-year sentence he is presently serving until the year 2090. (See the above link, at post titled "Reason I to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

2. In conjunction with being the generally good, decent, productive, contributing, and otherwise respectable member of free society who is described above at #1, Eric Knapp had also experienced a number of significantly detrimental events, circumstances, and conditions during the first 25 years and three months of his life that materially and substantially contributed to the severely deteriorated state of mind he was in at the time of the nonhomicide conduct that resulted in the 98-year sentence he is presently serving until the year 2090. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason II to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

3. Although three months after his 25th birthday in 1992 he very much indeed did engage in nonhomicide sexual conduct that we all agree warranted appropriate punishment, Eric Knapp received the functional equivalent of a life without parole determinate sentence of 98 years in prison despite the existence of numerous factors which we have been informed and believe legally contraindicate such extreme punishment. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason III to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

4. Throughout the trial court proceedings that resulted in the 98-year sentence that he is presently serving until the year 2090, Eric Knapp was substantially prejudiced by multiple wrongful events, circumstances, and conditions that were not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, which violated multiple rights he has under both the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California, and which ultimately resulted in a gross miscarriage of justice against him as defined by both state and federal law. (Ibid., at posts titled "Reason IV" thru "Reason VIII to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

5. After his direct appeal of the trial court proceedings against him was denied up to and through the California Supreme Court in December 1995, Eric Knapp diligently attempted to further seek relief in the courts from the multiple wrongful events, circumstances, and conditions that are referred to above at #4, but multiple detrimental events, circumstances, and conditions beyond his control stood in the way of him seeking such relief by way of state and federal habeas corpus proceedings, made it impossible for him to submit his five related state habeas corpus petitions to the appropriate state courts any sooner than in 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007, and caused his federal habeas corpus petition to not get submitted to a U.S. district court until March 2008. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason IX to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

6. Although Eric Knapp did present to all appropriate state and federal courts the multiple wrongful events, circumstances, and conditions of the trial court proceedings that are referred to above at #4, each of those courts wrongly denied Eric any relief whatsoever from his 98-year sentence. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason X to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

7. In, by, and through denying any relief to Eric Knapp after he presented them with the wrongful events, circumstances, and conditions of the trial court proceedings against him, the courts that are referred to above at #6 committed multiple acts, omissions, and errors that seem plainly contrary to clearly established state and federal law. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason XI to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

8. During Eric Knapp's 4th through 11th years in prison, Eric Knapp first became aware of and obtained four separate items of new evidence that clearly show he indeed was substantially prejudiced in, by, and through the multiple wrongful events, circumstances, and conditions of the trial court proceedings against him. (Ibid., at posts titled "Reason XII," "Reason XV," "Reason XVIII," and "Reason XXI to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

9. The third item of new evidence that is referred to above at #8 plainly shows Eric Knapp is in fact completely innocent of all three of the specific offenses that he was nonetheless falsely accused of, charged with, and found guilty of committing against 21 year-old Charlene H. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason XVIII to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

10. Although Eric Knapp properly presented the four items of new evidence that are referred to above at ## 8 and 9 to each of the appropriate state and federal courts, neither of those courts granted Eric any relief from his 98-year sentence. (Ibid., at posts titled "Reason XIII," "Reason XVI," "Reason XIX," and "Reason XXII to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

11. In, by, and through denying Eric Knapp any relief from his 98-year sentence, the courts that are referred to above at #10 committed multiple acts, omissions, and errors that are plainly contrary to clearly established state and federal law. (Ibid., at posts titled "Reason XIV," "Reason XVII," "Reason XX," and "Reason XXIII to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

12. Throughout the past more than 25 years of his confinement within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Eric Knapp has experienced multiple wrongful events, circumstances, and conditions that long ago caused his 98-year sentence to become and remain cruel, unusual, inhuman, excessive, in violation of multiple basic and fundamental rights that Eric has even as an American prisoner, not within the expected parameters of, or anticipated by, the sentence that Eric received from the trial court, and otherwise no longer in the interests of justice. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason XXIV to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

13. Eric Knapp and his unincarcerated loved ones have jointly suffered multiple significant hardships as a result of Eric's continuous incarceration throughout the past more than 27 years since November 1992, but especially in connection with his confinement within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation since March 1994. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason XXV to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

14. Despite the many detrimental events, circumstances, and conditions that he has experienced while continuously incarcerated since November 1992, as set out above at ## 3-13, Eric Knapp has clearly demonstrated by his exceptional behavior in prison that he has been and continues to be a good, decent, productive, contributing, and otherwise respectable man who would be an asset to any community in which he might be allowed the privilege of living despite the conduct that he engaged in more than 27 years ago which caused him to receive his 98-year sentence. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason XXVI to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

15. We believe that commuting Eric Knapp's 98-year sentence will neither pose an unreasonable risk to public safety nor impose any heavy burden(s) on free society. (Ibid., at post titled "Reason XXVII to Sign, Share, and Help Get Others to Sign and Share Our Petition for Eric Knapp to be Granted Clemency or Parole.")

16. Regardless of the many injustices that are set out above at ## 1-15, the bottom line is Eric Knapp clearly engaged in wrongful conduct that we fully agree warranted appropriate punishment, but a number of draconian laws that were in effect at the time of Eric Knapp's arrest, trial, sentencing, and appeal (i.e., between November 1992 and December 1995) caused and allowed Eric to ultimately be given the functional equivalent of a Life Without Parole sentence completely irrespective of numerous factors which would have resulted in a much lesser punishment under current state and federal law.

17. Granting clemency or parole to Eric Knapp will be an act of grace, mercy, and compassion that will serve the best interests of justice by correcting and preventing continuation of the multiple injustices that surround Eric's conviction, sentence, and continuous incarceration since November 1992.

18. Should you grant clemency or parole to Eric Knapp, we are informed and believe that Eric will spend the rest of his life not only always being a good, decent, productive, contributing, and otherwise respectable member of free society who will never again engage in any illegal conduct whatsoever, but also helping society identify, reach out to, and help youthful males who might be at risk of sexually offending so that they may receive necessary guidance, direction, and positive reasons to not do so.