Dear Governor Romney:

I am writing to ask that you immediately grant Gerald Amirault a full pardon for his wrongful conviction for crimes that never occurred. Anything less will only compound the grotesque injustice that an innocent family has already endured for over seventeen years and mean that Massachusetts learned nothing from the Salem witch trials.

As you are aware:

• The entire investigation stemmed from an original incident in which he changed the diapers of a child who had wet himself at the day care center. He was helping one of the teachers. The police never interviewed him before filing charges.
• There is no credible evidence that any children were ever abused at the Fells Acre Day Care center.
• His conviction was based solely on the coerced statements of a small number of the children there who had been subjected to repeated interrogations using leading questions, techniques that an appeals court judge has since ruled "forever tainted" their testimony and that would cause the evidence to be excluded were the case retried today.
• For some of the accusing children, there is documentary proof that the children repeatedly, unambiguously denied that they'd ever been abused in any way, only changing their testimony after repeated leading questioning.
• The claims of those children who made accusations included wild, fantastic, contradictory, and clearly untruthful claims such as having been tied to trees and sexually abused by robots and lobsters, and that one child was stabbed with a 12 inch butcher knife. (This could not be done without leaving a wound or scar, which wasn't present.)
• The accusing children also accused most of the other teachers at the center of witnessing and/or participating in abuse, yet the other teachers were never charged.
• The claims of the accusing children were contradicted by the testimony of ALL of the adults at the day care center and the statements of other children as well.
• His original legal counsel has acknowledged that he seriously erred in the original trial by failing to challenge the unconstitutional manner in which the accusing children were deposed at trial.
• Dorothy Rabinowitz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the Wall Street Journal, has written that "three entirely innocent lives have been shattered."
• One of the jurors who originally convicted Amirault has now said that he erred and that Amirault is innocent.
• Your state parole board recommended 5 to 0 in favor of commutation of his sentence, noting that there is "real and substantial doubt" about his guilt.

A pardon by the governor is the last chance at justice for a wrongly convicted person. It is your moral and statutory duty to intervene for justice where the legal system has failed. Act now. There is no excuse for delay.

Sincerely,