My name is Joshua Crowder. A super amazing kid that worked for me was unfairly sentenced under the habitual offender law in Arkansas with no prior convictions, and he wasn't informed of this by prosecutors or his own legal council. They scared him into signing a plea agreement and this is what I have to say. Dakota Kimer is not just some inmate. He’s a respectful, hard-working young man who made a desperate mistake — and now he’s serving 40 years for it. If you don't know, prisons don't rehabilitate people. Prisons turn young, ambitious, people into violent calculating criminals. This young man is the furthest thing from violent or a criminal despite what he did or what they made him look like. He's sharp as a tack and a very talented carpenter with so much more to learn and show the world. I miss him like it was one of my own kids locked up in that horrible place. He doesn't deserve to be in that place until he's nearly 60, but with what the shady, hypocrite legal "professionals" in Washington County pulled on him pretty much ended his life. He doesn't deserve what they did to him The sentence they gave him is not only illegal, but it's morally and constitutionally outrageous. How those people sleep at night astounds me. His sentence should be reserved for child molesters, rapists, and murderers. A West fork cop killed my cousin with blatant indifference to his life and he walked away a free man. Someone can touch and violate a three year old and get less than a tenth of what he was sentenced to. You can leave your baby in a hot car to die and not receive what they handed down to him! I need some help making this right by him.

He robbed a gas station in 2021. The clerk was injured and required stitches. Dakota took full responsibility. He was scared, being threatened by a drug dealer, and thought he had no other way out. He didn’t plan to hurt anyone — he just panicked.

Was it wrong? Absolutely.

But forty years for a first offense? That’s not justice. That’s erasure.

Dakota isn’t a career criminal. He’s one of the most respectful and polite kids I’ve ever met. He worked for me. I trusted him. He showed up. He put in the effort. He treated me and my family and everyone he met with love and respect — and when he got locked up, it tore our world apart.

We've been heartbroken ever since. And every day we grieve, I get more determined to fix what this system broke.

We’re fighting to file a post-conviction Rule 37 petition to challenge his sentence. If we can raise enough, we’ll try to get him real legal help, too. All donations go toward:

Filing fees, postage, and printing

Outreach and media materials and hopefully a real lawyer, not like the public defender that did NOTHING to prevent the prosecution from sentencing him as a habitual offender and giving him an enhanced sentence of 40 years. He's never even committed a felony prior to this. He's got traffic tickets! The people that pulled this deserve to be locked up. If it had been the prosecutors son or their neighbors kid it would've gone much different I assure you. the people that locked him up almost his entire adult life are the monsters...the criminals..not Dakota. If you can help me please let me know. If you're an attorney and you want to help someone that truly deserves it, deserves a chance at a life, please get a hold of me. If I can't get the help we need for him I will attempt to help him myself. Someone needs to help me stand up to these people. I want the public to know these are the kinds of people we have in our court rooms and in our streets sworn to protect us. Imagine it was your son that you'll never see again or get to see make a life for himself. Other than that, if nothing gets done this will continue to be a problem, and who knows, it may be your kid they do it to next. The more I type the more upset I get that these people are so morally impaired and cold that they even have the ability to do what they've done, hoping nobody would catch it. Well I caught it, and I'm coming for all of them responsible. I'm coming to legally make heads roll. I won't stop. I won't quit. I'm prepared to take this matter as far as possible, and if I get shot down, by God I'll do it again. if you know what's good for you, you'll fix this before you lose your careers and then some. I'm prepared to blast this all over the web, news outlets, YouTube channels, etc. in hopes that this will create a public outrage and draw attention to the corruption in our county government and judicial system. I'm not afraid to wade through the red tape you've buried him under and nobody else should be either. thanks for reading everyone. now help me get this kid a real fighting chance at a life. thank you

Future legal representation

We’re not asking for a free pass. Dakota already owns what he did. But this sentence isn’t right. It’s not fair. And it doesn’t reflect the man he really is.

Please help us fight for mercy — for my family,for Dakota, and for the life he still has left to live.