Many of you are prison reform or prison abolition advocates, and I have a request for you today.

I ask that you sign a petition to the Ohio Parole Board advocating for the parole of inmate Willie Lagway. His parole hearing is in January 2023.

Willie Lagway has been imprisoned by the state of Ohio for 39 years. He committed and admitted to his crimes and was given an unusually long sentence. He has consistently expressed remorse for the crimes and used his time in prison to improve himself.

Mr. Lagway is a good candidate for parole because he will have a strong support system in his life. He has a wife and a set of friends and supporters who will help him with re-entry into the community. His goal is to be a productive member of society.

Read my 2015 Free Press article about his case here.

I represented Mr. Lagway at his last parole hearing in 2015. I was strongly in support of his release then, as I am now. The Ohio Parole Board received intense opposition to Mr. Lagway’s release in 2015 from some members of the Summit County community where his crimes took place.

An outpouring of support for Mr. Lagway’s release is key to changing the Ohio Parole Board’s decision this time.

Mr. Lagway has always felt remorse for his actions and has distinguished himself with his many accomplishments while incarcerated, including earning two Associate degrees and a Bachelors degree. Through my meetings with Mr. Lagway, I can testify to his remorse. I am also very impressed with his commitment to rehabilitation and social justice.

For the last 13 years, he has taught in an environmental literacy curriculum, Roots of Success, a program to reduce energy, waste and water use within the prisons – and to prepare inmates for employment in green jobs upon release. In 2012, he became one of only two people in the Ohio prison system certified to train others (both prisoners and staff) to instruct in the program. Through the work of these two inmates, this progressive inmate-taught program has now been spread to almost all of Ohio's prisons. See for yourself Willie’s commitment to the program in this video here.  

I believe that Mr. Lagway has paid his dues to society, having spent 39 years in prison. My professional opinion is that Mr. Lagway was overcharged, and had he not been denied medical attention before the crimes took place, the crimes would not have happened at all.

The Ohio Parole Board needs to consider Mr. Lagway’s time served, his many accomplishments in self-improvement, his dedicated to making the world a better place, and his community support when they make a decision at his parole hearing in January.

Please sign this petition to show your support for Willie Lagway.

In struggle,
Bob Fitrakis