About Billy Sinclair
Categories: Capitol Punishment
Written By: davida
Billy Sinclair, the author of the John T. Floyd’s “PRISON VOICES” and ‘DEATH PENALTY’ web pages, is a former inmate who served forty years in the Louisiana prison system.
Sinclair became a writer in prison. He was the recipient of a host of prestigious journalism awards, including the George Polk, Sidney Hillman, and Robert F. Kennedy Award for Special Journalism, and the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel awards. He has been published in numerous magazines, newspapers, literary journals, and legal journals. With his wife, Sinclair wrote a prison memoir, “A Life in the Balance: The Billy Wayne Sinclair Story” (Arcade Publishing, New York 2000); and had an essay published in Paul Roget Loeb’s book “The Impossible Will Take a Little While” (Basic Books, New York 2004) (along with Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Martin Luther King, Jr.).
Sinclair also became skilled “jailhouse lawyer” while imprisoned. winning the first published prisoners’ rights lawsuit in Louisiana with the assistance of his longtime attorney/friend Richard C. Hand (practicing in New York) and was one of the inmate leaders responsible for integrating the Louisiana State Penitentiary in 1973 (then known as the “bloodiest prison in America”) without a single incident of violence.
Sinclair was arrested for the offense of murder in 1965. He was convicted of capital murder in 1966. His death sentence was vacated and he was resentenced to life imprisonment following the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia. His life sentence was commuted to 90 years in 1992. He was paroled in April 2006.
He is affiliated with the John T. Floyd law firm as a paralegal.
August 20th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
i am trying to find the two books by Billy Sinclair
John T. Floyd’s “Prison Voices
and A life in the Balance: The Billy Wayne Sinclair Story
i have been trying to find them through the internet, but have not
Could you tell me where i can find them.
August 23rd, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Why would you want to support a murderer, who, only by luck, avoided the death penalty when the Death Penalty was found to be unconstitutional, and whose sentence was commuted to LIFE in prison, but manipulated the prison system and law enforcement by ratting on his fellow inmates trying to buy their way out of prison, prisoners who for the most part had served two and three decades behind bars and who just wanted to die on the outside of prison walls? I thought that the laws in the United States forbid any person from profiting from their crime? Oh, I forgot, Sinclair is working for an attorney who is probably receiving the proceeds and then splitting the money with Sinclair. Isn’t that similar to what was going on with the Louisiana pardon board and Governor Edwards? Sinclair, you’re still a crook and a peice of turd.
August 23rd, 2010 at 9:59 pm
billy and jodie, thanks for everything
August 24th, 2010 at 6:22 am
Good luck, Benjamin. Billy & Jodie
August 24th, 2010 at 6:29 am
Southern Bread: You moniker says it all! But for the record, thanks for reminding why I exposed the “pardons-for-sale” scandal: your values and mindset. The rule-abiding, rehabilitated inmates could not receive executive clemency because the criminal thugs you endorse were lined up buying the corrupt pardons. As for your colorful personal condemnation of me, I wear your calling me a “snitch” and a “turd” as a badge of honor. Now, if you don’t mind, I am going get on down the road with my honest, responsible life. I would suggest you do the same, but with a moniker like “Southern Bread,” it would be a waste of time. Billy Sinclair