Dear District Attorney Cooley,

In 2005, your office wrote a letter stating that Deborah Peagler, an inmate at the Central California Women’s Facility, should be released from prison in “the interests of justice.” After reviewing Ms. Peagler’s case file, your office further conceded in this letter that Ms. Peagler’s legal team “presented significant issues and evidence which were unknown or unavailable at the time of trial.”

This evidence proves that a pimp/drug dealer ensnared Deborah Peagler when she was just 15 years old, and that he severely and systematically abused her for the years that followed. Thirteen credible witnesses – including the abuser’s sister and friends, and the prosecution’s key witness – corroborate Ms. Peagler’s account of the abuse she suffered. Three experts specializing in domestic violence, trauma, and torture have evaluated Ms. Peagler’s case and concluded that her limited involvement in the death of her abuser directly resulted from battering and its effects.

As you are well aware, Ms. Peagler has been incarcerated for over 24 years for a crime she did not commit. When her mother’s friends killed her batterer in 1983, the District Attorney sought the death penalty against Ms. Peagler. In order to save her life, Ms. Peagler pled to a life sentence.

Since then Deborah Peagler has been a model, earning two associates degrees behind bars and ministering the gospel to fellow inmates. Deborah’s spirit will not be diminished – not by years of horrifying torture at the hands of her abuser, nor by over two decades of wrongful incarceration.

In your 2005 letter, your office recommended that Ms. Peagler’s legal team file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to gain her freedom, and you promised to support Ms. Peagler’s release. In 2007, a three-judge panel at the California Court of Appeal unanimously found good cause to grant Ms. Peagler’s petition, and has returned the case to the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County for a hearing.

Mr. Cooley, this case is at a crossroads. You have the power to correct this glaring injustice. I am writing to implore you to deliver on your promise to do the right thing. Deborah Peagler has served her time, and your office can only serve “the interests of justice” by dropping any plan to oppose her freedom.

Signed:

(your name and address)