San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Archives for November 2012

Voters Amend Three Strikes Law

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CAPITAL PUNISHMENT UPHELD BY A NARROW MARGIN OF STATE VOTERS

Voters have approved major changes to the Three Strikes Law, but rejected attempts to abolish capital punishment in California.

With most of the Nov. 6 votes tallied, the Three Strikes Law, Proposition 36, won 69.1 percent to 30.9 percent. The vote total was 7,943,034 yes to 3,556,723 no. The death penalty initiative, Proposition 34, lost 47.8 percent to 52.2 percent, which was 5,517,414 yes and 6,034,428 no.

The death penalty initiative would have abolished capital punishment, and retroactively substituted life without the possibility of parole for the more than 700 men and women on Death Row.

Proposition 34 also would have directed $100 million to law enforcement agencies for investigations of homicide and rape cases. The state voter guide estimated it would have saved about $130 million annually within a few years. It also would have represented costs of $100 million for local law enforcement grants. Three Strikes changes permit an estimated 3,000 prison inmates to petition courts for sentence reductions.

The official voter summary says Proposition 36: “Revises law to impose a life sentence only when new felony conviction is serious or violent. May authorize re-sentencing if third strike conviction was not serious or violent.”

The summary estimates ongoing state correctional savings of around $70 million annually, with even greater savings (up to $90 million annually) over the next couple of decades.

Proposition 36 supporters said the initiative “restores the original intent of the Three Strikes Law by focusing on violent criminals…Nonviolent offenders get twice the ordinary prison sentence.”

The legislative analyst says of Proposition 36: “The measure limits eligibility for resentencing to third strikers whose current offense is nonserious, non-violent and who have not committed specific current and prior offenses, such as certain drug-, sex-, and gun-related felonies.”

The analyst adds, “The court would be required to re-sentence eligible offenders unless it determines that re-sentencing the offenders would pose an unreasonable risk to public safety. In determining whether an offender poses such a risk, the court could consider any evidence it determines is relevant, such as the offender’s criminal history, behavior in prison, and participation in rehabilitation program.”

Secretary Cate Leaves CDCR

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BROWN APPOINTS MARTIN HOSHINO AS ACTING SECRETARY OF CDCR

Matthew Cate has announced his resignation as head of California’s prison system to lead the organization representing the state’s 58 counties.

Gov. Jerry Brown chose Martin Hoshino as acting secretary to replace Cate. Hoshino has been undersecretary of administration and offender services since May 2011. He previously served as executive officer for the Board of Parole Hearings and as chief assistant inspector general.

Cate says under his four-and a-half-year leadership recidivism rates were reduced, spending was decreased, the percentage of prisoners and parolees receiving rehabilitative services was increased, and five class-action lawsuits were ended.

He also said, “The federal receiver is winding down his operations and our medical and mental health care is vastly improved.”

His resignation was effective Nov. 11. His new job is executive director of the California State Association of Counties. His 2011 state salary was $215,471; his new salary will be $288,000 and he will be eligible for a state pension, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Cate acknowledged much more is left to accomplish, admitting, “Implementation of public safety realignment has been very challenging for everyone and we must continue to work through the remaining operational issues, while taking Continued from Page 1 care of the impacted employees.”

Part of his new job will entail helping counties find ways to cope with the influx of prisoners and parolees resulting from the state’s prison realignment program, as well as lobbying the state Legislature for the money to do so.

Musicians Honor Jazz Artist

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It was a night of music when a San Quentin prisoner took the stage with several renowned musicians to pay tribute to former inmate and jazz artist Frank Morgan, who died last year.
The Protestant Chapel was filled with sound on Oct. 12 when prisoner and jazz pianist Reginald Ausin performed with bass player Ron Carter, alto saxophonists Grace Kelly and Mark Gross, trombonist Delphius Marcellus, pianist George Cable and Marvin “Smitty” Smith on the drums.
“Being on that stage and playing in tribute to my friend Frank Morgan with Marcellus and the crew was just amazing,” Austin said. “For me, heaven couldn’t get much better.”
Austin said it was an honor to play in memory of Morgan and speak the language of music without ever having to say a word.
“I thank God I was ready when the opportunity came,” said Austin. He said that Morgan was a major influence on his style and development in music.
While Austin was playing, Cable was listening and watching over Austin’s shoulder.
“At that point I knew my music was saying something that he wasn’t used to hearing,” Austin said.
As a child, Austin took lessons from Kathryn Muller, a piano teacher who was a Holocaust survivor and a concert pianist in Germany until World War II.
“Muller taught me music, etiquette and to have pride in myself. She taught me to be a man of culture,” Austin said. “What she shared with me never goes out of style.”
PRISON
Austin began his prison term in 1977, and he said he was looking for something to keep his spirits up while pursuing his love of music.
“I met Morgan here at San Quentin in 1981 through my friend Luke Oliver, a bass player, when I was just beginning my life sentence,” Austin said. “My background was in classical music, but Morgan introduced me to bebop.”
Soon after meeting, both musicians began playing in a band called Brothers of Soul, formed inside San Quentin. As his friendship with Morgan grew, they had conversations on Bach inventions, and Austin learned to incorporate bebop into his classical training.
“Bach inventions for a pianist are short pieces, and when they’re expounded upon, each piece evolves with every interpretation,” Austin said. “Eventually, I incorporated the bebop that Morgan gave me with my classical knowledge of Bach.”
Austin has been able to develop his own style of playing, which has become a mainstay in his music.
“But that night was special,” Austin said. “We played in memory of a great alto jazz saxophonist, a man who was my friend, Frank Morgan.”

Prisoners Seek Racial Peace

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A multi-racial group of prisoners is calling for an end to all racial hostilities in California prisons and jails, and a “return to a rehabilitative-type system of meaningful programs/privileges, including lifer conjugal visits.”
The group said, “all racial group hostilities need to be at an end…and if personal issues arise between individuals, people need to do all they can to exhaust all diplomatic means to settle such disputes; do not allow personal, individual issues to escalate into racial group issues!!”
Terry Thornton, CDCR deputy press secretary, said the department “is hopeful that the inmates are sincere in their desire to reduce violence in prisons. CDCR’s mission to operate its prisons safely and humanely is paramount and offenders should also be accountable for their own behavior and take responsibility for reducing violence.”
The advocates are serving time at California’s super-max facility, Pelican Bay. Some were part of a class-action lawsuit against Gov. Jerry Brown and the state’s top prison official, Matthew Cate, alleging their living conditions produced “harmful and predictable psychological deterioration” by keeping them “for an unconscionably long period of time without meaningful review of their placement solitary confinement.”
In the letter intended to reach all California prisoners, the group wrote, “we must all hold strong to our mutual agreement from this point on and focus our time, attention and energy on mutual causes beneficial to all of us and our best interests.”
The prisoner advocates inside Pelican Bay are:

  • Todd Ashker, C58191, D1-119
  • Arturo Castellanos, C17275, D1-121
  • Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry) C35671, D1-117
  • Antonio Guillen, P81948, D2-106
  • Danny Troxell, B76578, D1- 120
  • George Franco, D46556, D4- 217
  • Ronnie Yandell, V27927, D4- 215
  • Paul Redd, B72683, D2-117
  • James Baridi Williamson, D-34288 D4-107
  • Alfred Sandoval, D61000, D4-214
  • Louis Powell, B59864, D1- 104
  • Alex Yrigollen, H32421, D2- 204
  • Gabriel Huerta, C80766, D3- 222
  • Frank Clement, D07919, D3- 116
  • Raymond Chavo Perez, K12922, D1-219
  • James Mario Perez, B48186, D3-124

Felix Lucero Paroles, Aiming for S.F. State

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A lifer well known for his cheerful attitude paroled after serving 18 years in prison. Felix Lucero had been a 16-yearold high school student and a part-time museum maintenance worker before he was sentenced to an 18 years-to-life term.
Today, at age 34, with both a college degree and a certification in drug counseling in hand, he leaves a kitchen maintenance prison job to start a new life in a different world he never saw as an adult.
Before arriving at San Quentin, Lucero did time at two other institutions: Mule Creek and Folsom. But while at San Quentin, he embarked on a mission to prepare himself for his future.
 

“I am taking San Quentin with me..”

“I think I was seriously involved in about 10 groups while at San Quentin,” said Lucero. He listed his top five groups as SQUIRES, TRUST, Arts In Corrections, Alliance, and ARC. Lucero also graduated from Patten College, operated by the Prison University Project, earning his Associate of Arts degree in 2009 as that year’s valedictorian.

As for the future, “I’m planning on paroling to the city of Berkeley and enrolling at San Francisco State University through Project Rebound,” said Lucero. “I have a job offer to be a drug addiction counselor and I want to continue to work with The Last Mile.”

He is especially proud of maintaining a close relationship with his daughter, Desiree.

As he headed out the gate, his parting words for the men at San Quentin: “I am taking San Quentin with me as a place that has a spirit of change.”

Realignment Falls Short of Expected Goals

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California’s realignment plan alone will not be enough to fix its overcrowded prisons and reduce its high recidivism rate, according to California Prison Realignment One-Year Anniversary: An American Civil Liberties Union Assessment.
Realignment diverts some newly convicted felons to county jails, instead of state prisons. The plan is also designed to bring down recidivism by changing the state parole system and local probation programs. The state has the second-highest recidivism rate in the country, at 65.1 percent.
The state prison population has dropped by nearly 25,000 as a result of realignment, according to the report.
Part of the intention of realignment was to encourage counties to use and expand evidencebased alternatives to incarceration.
However, many counties are expanding their jails. Since realignment began, county jail capacity has increased by more than 7,000 beds, and one billion dollars in state lease-revenue bonds are “in the pipeline” for the construction of an additional 10,000 county jail beds, according to the report.
“Building and operating more prisons to address community safety concerns is not sustainable, and will not result in improving public safety,” the report says.
The report warns that realignment has the potential to become just a shell game of shifting inmates from doing time in state facilities to county jails.
 

“Realignment has the potential to become just a shell game..”

The state should institute modest sentencing reforms that would decrease the numbers of people sentenced to prison and jail — reforms which has saved money in other states, including Michigan, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Virginia, the report recommends.

It also recommends that state officials should “discourage counties from repeating the same failed policies that led to California’s prison overcrowding and recidivism crises.”

The report examined two senate bills that would have saved money for the state and counties without jeopardizing public safety. Neither bill was enacted in spite of strong public support.

Senate Bill 210 would have required judges to consider whether pretrial detainees with minimal risk could be released for community monitoring if they could not afford bail.

Senate Bill 1506 would have added California to the list of 13 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government that treat possession of drugs for personal use as a misdemeanor instead of a felony.

The report made the following recommendations:

  • Reduce the penalty for possession of small amounts of drugs
  • Reduce the penalty for lowlevel, non-violent property offenses
  • Limit the amount of time someone can spend incarcerated in cRelease detainees from county jails who are awaiting trial who pose no risk to public safetyounty jails
  • Institute standardized data collection and reporting methods to record how counties are budgeting realignment funds

‘Public Defenders Do Better Job’

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PHILADELPHIA COURTS STUDY FINDS BIG DIFFERENCE

The outcome of criminal cases is significantly affected by the resources and competency of legal counsel, according to a Rand Corp. study of Philadelphia courts.
“The differences in outcome are striking,” says the report issued in December 2011. The report studied the Philadelphia Public Defender’s Office because it is the only defender’s office in the country where the office is randomly assigned every fifth murder defendant, while the remainder receive court-appointed private attorneys.
The report concluded that, compared to the court-appointed attorneys, the Public Defender legal team reduced the murder conviction rate by 19 percent. They reduced the probability that their clients received a life sentence by 62 percent. Furthermore, they reduced the overall expected time served in prison by 24 percent.
This suggests that the “defense counsel function makes an enormous difference in the outcome,” says the report for the National Institute of Justice.
The study suggests that public defenders may spend more time preparing each case than the private attorneys, in part due to financial incentives. In the Philadelphia system, independent appointed legal counsel receives a flat fee of $2,000 for pre-trial preparation if the case goes to trial. While on trial, independent attorneys receive $400 per day.
By comparison, the report says federal court attorneys earn $125 per hour in non-death penalty cases and $185 per hour in death penalty cases. Rand reports that “many respected attorneys refuse to be on the list to accept court appointments.”
The Philadelphia Public Defenders, however, are on a fixed salary and can spend as much time on a case as required. The defender’s office had also developed a team specializing in homicide cases, and the team had its own investigators and expert resources.
The 47-page document concludes, “a defendant’s time imprisoned may dramatically change as a function of the ordering in which cases are brought, a fact which raises troubling questions about the fairness and arbitrariness of the current system.”
The report concluded that had the 2,459 defendants who were not represented by the public defenders office actually been represented by them, 270 of them would not have been convicted. If the public defender legal team had represented all defendants, the aggregate prison terms would have decreased by a total of 6,400 years, saving $200 million, according to the report.
“The criminal justice system should mete out fine justice,” the report concludes. “Our findings suggest how far from this goal we are.”
 

Prisoners Benefit From Artist’s Workshop

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Renowned artist David Leffel spent two days teaching San Quentin inmates the fine points of painting with oils.
“Most beginners try to transfer what they see on to canvas with exactness, and that’s not a reality,” Leffel told the students.
“Don’t get stuck in the middle, where you can’t see where you’re going, worrying too much about details,” he added. “You should keep it simple and work with big strokes, then finish by moving values and paint around to make your painting come alive.”
Leffel came to San Quentin as part of the Prison Art Project workshop, sponsored by the Williams James Association.
He gave the inmates painting tips, from basics like how to hold a paint brush to more complex points like being aware of light and shadows.
During the first day, Leffel painted a portrait of an inmate named Fred Tinsley, while explaining to inmates what they should keep in mind when they are painting.
“Just sitting there watching David paint my image was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Tinsley. “The intensity in his eyes had a master’s look. What a privilege.”
On the second day, two inmates modeled as students practiced what they had learned the first day. Leffel went around helping and encouraging each student individually.
“He’s a very profound man with a passion for art. For two days it was like being at a university,” said inmate Gary Harrell.
“It was inspiring to see an artist who’s made it,” said Josh Locke. “It gave me an idea of where I am and where I want to be. He brought it all together. That was his gift to me, to view a painting in a different light.”
Leffel came with Carlos Grasso, his friend, publisher, assistant, agent and student who is also an artist. At age 4, Leffel contracted a bone disease which kept him bed-ridden until age 15, getting around with crutches and a wheelchair. The disease left him with a bad leg, yet for two days he only sat down for a quick lunch with the inmates.
“To see a painting in a photograph or magazine is one thing, but to actually see the paint applied to canvas the way David did was sublime,” said Scott McKinstry.
“David Leffel’s workshop was a thrill to watch. To see the model’s face emerge from the dark background was magic. His use of paint was brilliant,” said art instructor Pat Maloney.
“I had always wanted to work with oils, and David made it all look easy,” said Kalifah Christiansen

DNA Evidence Frees 300 Prisoners Nationwide

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Damon Thibodeaux confessed to raping and killing his 14-year-old cousin and spent more than 15 years on Louisiana’s Death Row, but was cleared by DNA evidence earlier this year and has now been released from prison.
He was the 300th prisoner freed nationwide by DNA tests —18 of whom were on Death Row, according to lawyers from the New York-based Innocence Project.
Crystal Champagne was last seen on July 19, 1996, as she left to go to a local supermarket and never returned. An investigation ensued and her body was found the next evening under a bridge with her pants down and a wire around her neck.
Detectives began interrogating potential witnesses, including Thibodeaux. He insisted he was coerced into giving a false confession after nine hours of interrogation. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1997.
In 2007, Thibodeaux’s legal team persuaded the local district attorney’s office to investigate the case. After thousands of dollars spent on further investigation, which was shared by both sides, DNA testing proved that Thibodeaux was not Crystal’s killer and that she was not raped.
“It feels good. I am still processing it,” Thibodeaux, 38, said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I feel great sympathy for the Champagne family,” he said. He hopes Crystal’s killer “is found and tried.”
“It’s hard to put myself in Thibodeaux’s shoes,” said San Quentin prisoner Frankie Prater. “I cannot comprehend having to go to Death Row knowing that I am innocent.” Prater said that DNA evidence is a good tool for determining innocence. “The truth will always set you free.”
“The criminal justice system has always worked in the system’s favor,” said another San Quentin prisoner, Allen Webb. “They have been doing stuff like interrogating witnesses and coercing them into confessions for years. DNA evidence is great and could have made a big difference many years ago.”
Thibodeaux will receive approximately $250,000 in compensation for his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

S.F. Juvenile Prisoners Dislike Outdoors

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About two-thirds of the boys and girls detained at San Francisco’s Juvenile Justice Center say they do not like outdoor recreation, according to a poll by the San Francisco Youth Commission, reports the Bay Citizen.
The commission has been concerned with the amount of fresh air, sunlight, and exercise the youngsters were receiving. In February, they drafted a resolution calling for detainees to have regular access to a large outdoor space at the hall that had sat unused since it was built in 2006 as part of a $47 million renovation. By law, juvenile detainees are entitled to one hour of outdoor “large-muscle” exercise each day.
William Siffermann, chief of juvenile probation, said then that most of the yard could not be used due to security concerns and staff shortages. Siffermann also pointed out that, “Some kids don’t want to go outside, and I can’t force them out there.”
According to the poll, only 10 of the 53 respondents said they participated in outdoor exercise every day. “When they did participate, nearly a third reported spending less than an hour outside,” the Bay Citizen reports.
The lack of interest in outdoor recreation took the youth commission by surprise, they said.
“It’s pretty clear that young people are not getting their hour a day outdoors,” commission director Mario Yedidia told the Chronicle. “The culture of the institution seems like it’s not really encouraging of outdoor exercise.”
All but one of the detainees surveyed said they liked visiting the indoor gym, but almost half said they used it fewer than four days a week.
Subsequent inquiries by the commission raised questions about the hall’s compliance with state regulations. Although a 2010 state inspection found no compliance issues at the facility, the commission and Board of Supervisors asked Siffermann to provide documentation showing how often individual detainees go outside.
Until now, staff at the hall has not recorded that information, but Siffermann told The Bay Citizen that he would report those numbers to the youth commission on a quarterly basis.
 

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