About this campaign
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Wayland is a beloved organizer, artist, son, father and friend, who has been wrongfully incarcerated in MA since 1997.
Demands for Wayland's Freedom & Parole Justice:
- Pardon Wayland
- Stop punishing incarcerated people who have innocence claims
- Holistically evaluate an incarcerated person's ?capacity for change?
- Stop using the unreliable LS/CMI tool for Risk Assessment
Wayland's fight for parole:
- In 2024, the MA Supreme Court case Commonwealth v. Mattis made it unconstitutional to sentence individuals between 18-20 years old to life without parole. This made Wayland newly eligible for a parole hearing, along with a cohort of over 200 others sentenced before turning 21.
- Wayland?s parole hearing was held on May 8, 2025, and it broke records for amount of public support.
- Wayland?s psychologist testified: ?Mr. Coleman has a high likelihood of successful reentry into the community. Mr. Coleman is an intelligent, principled man with strong opinions who acts consistent with his beliefs.?
- Despite all this, Wayland was denied parole on October 14, 2025. Four reasons were given for the denial:
- 1) inadequate number of prison programs completed.
- 2) refusal to participate in the prison labor system.
- 3) having received too many activism-related disciplinary reports.
- 4) refusal to discuss the details of his case.
- This fight is not just about Wayland?s case, but about how the Parole Board addresses all Mattis cases. According to the MA Supreme Court, the Parole Board should grant parole to anyone in the Mattis cohort who has demonstrated evidence of personal transformation.
- We are demanding the Parole Board stick to this criteria for parole, rather than punishing parole candidates for their level of participation in prison programming, possession of an innocence claim, or other factors.
Sign the petition to free Wayland and learn more about his case at https://www.freewayland.org/
$10 from every purchase goes to the campaign to free Wayland. If you'd like to increase your donation, please leave a tip or donate to (and please share!) Wayland's gofundme.
About the art:
The featured artwork is "Bird" by Wayland Coleman. Bird is the hero of Wayland's comic book series. More of Wayland's artwork can be found here.
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