Governor J.B. Pritzker
Illinois Governor
401 S. Spring St.
Springfield, IL 62704
We are writing on behalf of the family of Brian M. Willis to demand you grant him executive clemency and immediate release. Brian M Willis, IDOC #R06715, is currently incarcerated at Stateville Prison in the Northern Reception and Classification Center. Mr. Willis was wrongfully convicted, and should never have been locked up. While incarcerated at Stateville, he has endured extremely poor conditions and treatment, and his medical situation is such that immediate release could be life saving, and further incarceration, a death sentence.
Brian Willis has endured two previous bouts of COVID-19 while in custody, with the only logical source of transmission being the State of Illinois’s prison staff. Mr. Willis developed high blood pressure as a result of COVID-19, and is currently enduring COVID for the third time with much higher risks due to this high blood pressure. Mr. Willis also had a piece of ceiling in Stateville fall on his head, causing a concussion. He is wheelchair bound, and on top of these injuries and ailments, has not been provided the treatment, conditions, or basic resources he needs to successfully recover from COVID-19.
He is being issued only 3 bottles of water per day, a dangerously low amount, especially in the current temperatures. Hydration is one of the most important needs for someone recovering from COVID, and three bottles per day is simply not enough to fight off this dangerous illness. The high blood pressure caused by his previous COVID infections puts him at serious risk this time around. So, the need for action is especially urgent. In addition to poor hydration, Mr. Willis has been denied proper ventilation, and is held in a cell with lights on 24 hours per day. This makes it impossible for him to rest, another essential aspect of recovering from COVID. He has only been allowed to shower once per week, denying him of yet another essential aspect of treatment for COVID, proper sanitation.
Water, sanitation, and rest are basic human rights necessary for any person to function, and denying them to Brian Willis, could be deadly. Mr. Willis has done everything in his power to protect himself from COVID-19, and received both necessary vaccinations. He has served 26 years of a 54 year sentence for murder charges that were overturned. He is set to be released on February 3, but each and every day incarcerated brings more risk to his life. And immediate release is the only way to ensure he can avoid reinfection and get the medical care he needs.
An innocent man could die at the hands of your facility, and that death would be at the hands of the system that wrongfully convicted him, and at the hands of every person in power, including yourself, who failed to intervene on his behalf. You have the opportunity, Mr. Governor, to act now to protect this man’s life, a life at risk due to the neglect and harm brought against him by a facility over which you hold the ultimate authority. All it will take is the stroke of a pen, and it may very well save his life.