Update

Belated Post:

Over the past year and a half, Mechele and I have been working with Mechele’s appellate lawyers concerning the appeal of Mechele’s conviction. This has been going on with no media attention and the hard work of Mechele’s appellate lawyers has been remarkable. I even studied the transcripts and appeal to add some minimal contribution. Although my time spent on it far outweighed my contribution, it was still gratifying to see. This process has been our sole focus. Today, the oral arguments concerning the appeal took place.

These arguments today are not the appeal. The three judge panel was there to hear both sides summarize the appellate points and to ask questions of the attorneys representing the State of Alaska and Mechele. The judges have already studied the written appeal and the case. For us, this was not a significant part of the process. The significant work was already done.

I wanted to come up with our daughter and visit Mechele and attend the arguments, but was unable to. Our daughter and I actually had stand-by tickets, but spent over a day and a half chasing planes at the Sea-Tac airport that were full. We just got home yesterday. We visit Mechele every chance we get and are very grateful for all the support we get when we come to Anchorage.

Mechele and I have decided that, like in the trial, this process should go forward without media attention. We still believe that justice doesn’t and shouldn’t involve tabloid headlines and blind adherence to prosecution narrative. However, the oral arguments about the appeal tend to be more noteworthy for the media because they don’t have to read the actual appeal and can treat the appellate arguments like a TV show. Not all the media, mind you, but most.

As a side note to this, here is the headline of an AP article published a few days ago: “Ex-stripper appeals Alaska killing conviction”. Again… bravo. Breaking news. The appeal, again, was initiated well over a year ago. And the “ex-stripper” meme is always enlightening. I want to be forever known as an “ex-Sunglass Hut employee”.

Not to beat a dead horse, but, Mechele’s character is well known and defined by the people who know and lover her. A three month thread of emails and circumstance doesn’t define anyone. Unless you are a TV or movie character. Or a cartoon villain with super powers to control men… but I digress.

Bottom line: we are still fighting, and we still have hope. Your support and prayers keep us going. So thanks again.

Colin Linehan

Video of Colin Testifying for Mechele

This is an old video, from the the end of the trial in October, but since we are focused right now on our support of Mechele, and Colin's in particular, I thought I'd post it.



Way to go, Colin. He's been through heck and back and he just keeps on being solid support for his wife. Good man.

Colin's Sentencing Letter

Apparently, unless I want to retype the whole 18 pages of Colin's letter, I need to just link to it. So, here's the link. :) Let me know if it stops working at any point.

Colin's sentencing letter

Sentencing Letters

Well, since we have had a request for more posts, and I'm still waiting to get a post in from Mechele herself, I put my head together with another Mechele friend for ideas. Here's what we came up with: posting sentencing letters. The whole idea of this blog is to put forth another view of Mechele than that the popular media has chosen. Ours is the viewpoint of people who know and love her.

Many of us wrote letters to the judge prior to her sentencing earlier this year, talking about why we believe the sentencing should be light. Although the letters obviously did not have their desired effect on the sentencing, I imagine they do shed a lot of light on Mechele as a person. I'd like to share as many of those letters here as I can collect. We might need to edit them some to keep a level of confidentiality for others involved.

Mechele's husband, Colin, wrote quite an extensive letter that appeared as a .pdf on the pages of adn.com. I think I'll start with his.

Thanks for reading!