LEGAL AWARENESS

Participatory Defense Movement New Orleans (PDMNOLA)

PDMNOLA is an initiative designed to provide families, communities, and those who are justice involved with legal awareness as a best form of defense.

PDMNOLA seeks to empower people to be more actively engaged in their own legal matters to impact the outcome of cases and transform the landscape of power in the court system in an effort to reduce harm.
PDMNOLA was founded by Sibil Fox and Robert Richardson, affectionately known among their peers as FoxandRob. They are a New Orleans based couple who endured and survived 21-years as an incarcerated family and are the subjects of the award winning documentaries, TIME (2020) and TIME II (2024). After Fox’s release from prison in 2002, they led a valiant charge to regain Rob’s freedom and restore their family. In June 2018 Governor John Bel Edwards granted clemency to Rob. 90 days later he was released. Upon his release, FoxandRob founded Rich Family Ministries and PDMNOLA, one of over 40 Participatory Defense hubs nationwide.

Visit the National Participatory Defense Network’s website to learn more about the participatory defense work that is being done across the country.

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Join the PDMNOLA HUB

PDMNOLA is a community organizing model for people facing charges, their families, and communities to impact the outcome of cases and transform the landscape of power in the court system in an effort to reduce harm. Do you need support for your loved one who is facing charges in the criminal/ juvenile or immigration court system? Join us every Thursday at 6pm CST at our HUB meetings for support, advocacy, and community. We meet in person at 1024 Elysian Fields, New Orleans, LA, or you can join via Zoom.

#TIMESAVED

We measure our success by the amount of time saved for an individual, as opposed to the time they have been served.

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YEARS OF TIME SAVED!

Case Study:

Act 122 Becomes Law

The law’s passage is the result of an Administrative Remedy Procedure (ARP) filed by Rob in 2012 that jumstarted civil court proceedings and ultimately culminated into what we now know as Act 122. The changes in Act 122 allow for parole eligibility after 15 years for people with a life sentence for nonviolent offenses put prior laws more in line with the reforms passed in 2017. Act 122 opens up eligibility for a hearing before parole board members, who closely review the supplicant’s crime and criminal past along with their record while in prison. About 3,000 inmates in Louisiana could get parole under this new law.

#FreeMamaGlo

Louisiana’s longest serving woman IS FREE!

Gloria “Mama Glo” Williams was Louisiana’s longest-serving incarcerated woman. She is also a longtime member of the Drama Club at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel, a 24-year-old program. We call her Mama because, in addition to her own five children, she has taken hundreds of other women under her wing during her 51 years at LCIW.

The fight for Mama Glo’s freedom started in 2019. PDMNOLA, along with the National Counsel for Incarcerated Women and Girls, Promise of Justice Initiative, The Graduates, and more began the #FreeMamaGlo campaign to get Governor John Bel Edwards to grant her clemency. In July 2021, he did just that!

In January of 2022, Mama Glo was granted parole by the Louisiana Board of Pardon and Parole and walked out of the prison gates for the first and last time.