San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Subtle tactics to dismiss Black jurors in CA trials

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Some prosecutors may be using subtle tactics to dismiss Black jurors, despite laws against such racial bias in jury selection, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

You could call it the “O.J. Strategy.” Rather than addressing race overtly, these prosecutors ask jurors whether they agreed with the controversial 1995 acquittal of O.J. Simpson. Simpson, a Black football star, was charged with the murders of his ex-wife and her friend, who were both White.

If jurors agreed with the verdict, they are dismissed, and prosecutors cite non-racial reasons. Others are added to the jury if their answers satisfy the prosecutors, according to the article.

The Simpson case isn’t the only tactic prosecutors have used to discriminate, say defense lawyers. Federal and state courts in California said jurors were California removed because they lived in predominantly-Black Los Angeles communities, according to the article.

Attorneys for two Black men on California’s Death Row said prosecutors used the O.J. Simpson question to select juries in the 1990s. The victims in both cases were White.

California’s high court has upheld similar convictions in other cases.

In one of the cases, Johnny Duane Miles was convicted of rape and murder by a jury with no Black members.

Two Black prospective jurors were removed from that trial after answering that they agreed with the Simpson verdict. But prosecutors say their removal was due to their skepticism of presented evidence, the Chronicle reported. Miles was sentenced to death in 1999.

Miles’ lawyer Cliff Gardner contested the prosecutors’ explanations, describing them as “pretexts for discrimination.” He added that the jurors who were dismissed came from law-enforcement-friendly backgrounds: The first was a Marine Corps veteran and married to a correctional officer. The other was the son of a federal drug agent.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office has argued that while the O.J. Simpson case was still national news, it was fair game for pre-trial questioning, according to court filings.

“The Simpson case was not about race,” Deputy Attorney General Seth Friedman said in the filings, which are a response to NAACP arguments on Miles’ behalf.

Instead, he argued that the trial is a stand-in for issues relevant to future cases such as “the reputation and trustworthiness of police officers,” the Chronicle reported.

Bills pending in the CA legislature

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AB 665 — Veterans who were convicted of a felony prior to January 1, 2015 who may have suffered various PTSD or other emotional issues as the result of their service to petition for a recall of sentence under specified conditions. This bill passed the legislature but is currently held in the Senate Appropriations Suspense file, pending budgetary action to provide funds for im­plementation.
SB 1242 — Adds language requiring additional con­ditions to grant parole be codified, including demon­stration of remorse and insight, reasonable time free of disciplinary, realistic post release plans, all of which are already part of parole consideration, though not in legal terms. The real purpose of the bill would be to exclude from YOPH consideration those prisoners whose victim was a peace officer or former peace officer. This bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Public Safety.
SB 1437 — Proposed change to the felony murder rule, that would remove malice from consideration in a crime unless the individual charged personally com­mitted the homicidal act, acted with premeditated intent to aid and abet that act where in death occurred or the person was a major participant in the underlying felony and acted in reckless indifference to human life. It would also be retrospective, providing a method of resentenc­ing those convicted of first or second-degree murder un­der the felony murder rule or the natural and probable consequences doctrine. This bill has passed the Senate and is now in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
SB 1279 — An act to amend Section 1170.1 of the Pe­nal Code, relating to sentencing. Double the base term-Active Bill-This bill is in committee process
AB 2138 — Licensing boards: denial of application: revocation or suspension of licensure: criminal convic­tion-Active Bill-This bill is in committee process
SB 1393 — An act to amend Sections 667 and 1385 of the Penal Code, relating to sentencing year enhance­ment-Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Trump wants $1.2 billion to lock up more illegals

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President Trump

President Trump is asking for $1.2 billion to add 15,000 more beds to private prisons to lock up illegal immigrants.

California detention centers have run out of space to detain immigrants, AZPM News reported May 29.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reports that detention centers for immigrants were up more than 40 percent from the past year.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered his United States attorneys to prosecute and imprison illegal immigrants regardless of their circumstances.

Under the Obama administration, ICE was zeroing in on undocumented individuals who were considered dangerous, the Arizona newspaper reported.

California Bay Area immigration attorney Otis Landerholm said because of the nearly 40 percent increase in arrests and detentions, most of the California facilities to hold immigrant detainees are full. “And so, what’s the Department of Homeland Security to do? They ship my clients out to places in the middle of nowhere.”

California built many prisons because of an increase in inmate population. That increase was prompted by tough penalty laws and longer prison sentences.

Landerholm observed, “Really, in my opinion, one of the nastiest prison detention facilities in the country is the Eloy Detention Center.” It is located about an hour northwest of Tucson.

The Eloy Detention Center is privately owned by CoreCivic, previously known as Corrections Corporation of America.

CoreCivic gave half a million dollars to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, AZPM News reported. Since Trump’s election, CoreCivic’s stock price has increased by more than 81 percent, according to public records that the newspaper cited.

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

Deportation Crimes Explained

Politicians work toward protection for young illegal immigrants

1,475 immigrant children lost

Largest private prison population

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The United States has the world’s largest private prison population, according to a study by The Sentencing Project. The study compares America’s growing private prison industry to government-run prisons and found that increased profiting from incarceration is tied to prison building, inmate population growth, and lower wages for guards, which resulted in decreased institutional safety.
According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), In August 2000, 4,535 inmates were listed as housed at a private Community Correctional Facility or on “private work furlough.” (Another 2,467 were housed at Community Correctional Facilities under public contract).
In August 2016, 8,629 inmates were housed in private facilities. Another 2,020 were housed under public contract.
As of Aug. 22, 2018, 6,231 inmates are housed at private prisons. Another 2,029 inmates are housed at Community Correctional Facilities under public contract.
In addition, in June, all California inmates housed at Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility (TCCF) in Mississippi were transferred from that institution, allowing CDCR to reduce its current out-of-state prison population to 2,014, a 10-year low and 58-percent reduction from August, 2016.Key findings of the study are:
One in 12 of the total U.S. prison population (128,063 people) were incarcerated in private prisons in 2016 — an increase of 47 percent since 2000. From 2000 to 2016, the number of people housed in private prisons increased five times faster than the total prison population.
Privately run immigration detentions held 26,249 people in fiscal year 2017 — a 442 percent increase since 2002. Seventy-three percent of all people in immigration detention in 2017 were held in private prisons.
The largest number of people in private prisons are held in federal prisons, 34,159 — a 120 percent increase since 2000.
Core Civic and GEO Group, the largest private prison corporations, jointly manage more than half of the private prison contracts in the United States. Their combined revenues are $3.5 billion as of 2015.
Private prison firms cut costs by employing mostly non-union and low-skilled workers at lower salaries, with fewer benefits, compared to correctional personnel at state and federal prisons. Corrections officers employed by private corporations earn up to $23,850 less on average in annual salary compared to the public sector.
Decades of research do not show that private prisons save taxpayer dollars.
The greatest numbers of private prisons are found in Florida, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina and Texas. These states also have had the highest number of riots, deaths and “allegations of improper financial influence from the for-profit prison companies,” the study shows.
To accommodate increases in arrests and detention of immigrants, Pres. Donald J. Trump’s 2018 proposed budget to Congress asked for $1.2 billion to add 15,000 more private prison beds for immigration detention. In September 2017, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requested funds for construction of a new, GEO Group-run, 1,000-bed detention facility South Texas.
The study cites a GEO Group facility in Colorado where thousands of immigrant detainees allegedly were forced to work for $1 a day. A lawsuit against the practice claims that they were paid with “chicken, potato chips, soda or candy.”
In Washington State in 2017, the state’s Attorney General sued GEO Group for allegations that immigrant detainees were mandated to work for $1 a day. The Attorney General argued that the state’s minimum wage was $11 an hour, and that the detainees were being held under “civil charges, not criminal charges,” meaning that that minimum wage must be upheld.
Recommendations and findings:
“Due to the numerous and transparency issues associated with for-profit prisons, states and the federal government should phase out their reliance on these facilities through terminating contracts. To the extent that jurisdictions continue to contract with private prisons, they should adopt policies requiring greater transparency and openness to public inquiry. Currently, the Federal Freedom of Information Act does not apply to private prisons and therefore there is no legal remedy if a private prison refuses to disclose information about its practices.
“In contrast to public prisons, private prisons frequently contract with state governments to confine people out-of-state, with 10,500 people housed this way as of 2013. The practice negatively affects families because it limits opportunities for visitation and strains relationships, which are critical to successful reintegration after incarceration.
“The Department of Homeland Security’s bed quota for immigrant detention requires the agency to maintain no less than 34,000 beds at any given time. Because of this quota, Immigration and Customs Enforcement expanded its contracts with private prison companies to house federal immigrant detainees. It provides an incentive to maintain private prison contracts and keep immigration detention beds full.”

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise


https://sanquentinnews.com/private-prison-seek-tough-laws-immigrants/
https://sanquentinnews.com/private-prison-seek-tough-laws-immigrants/
 

California aims to restore the right to vote for felons

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Initiate Justice member explains the Restore Democracy Act

Initiate Justice member explains the Restore Democracy Act

California is joining the nationwide trend aimed at restoring the right to vote to convicted felons.

A nonprofit called Initiate Justice is seeking support for the Restore Democracy Act, which would restore voting rights to everyone incarcerated and on parole in California. If it gets enough signatures to get on the ballot and is passed by the voters in this November’s election, it would restore voting rights to approximately 162,000 Californians, according to Initiate Justice founder Taina Vargas-Edmund.

The petition needs to obtain more than 585,407 signatures by April 17 to make the ballot.

“What people can do is encourage their loved ones on the outside to help us gather petition signatures and to contact initiatejustice.org so we can send them petition forms, on our website or email,” Vargas-Edmund said in an interview.

Voting rights vary from state to state. Some states impose lifetime bans unless pardoned by the governor, while others restore voting rights upon completion of parole or probation. Only Maine and Vermont allow voting for people serving state prison sentences. In California, people can vote in county jail while awaiting trial and on probation, but voting is taken away from those serving prison sentences or on parole.

Florida bars voting by released felons unless an Executive Clemency Board restores the right. Critics of Gov. Rick Scott say his whims influence the decisions, according to a Slate article by Mark Joseph Stern.

“The whole idea about restoring suffrage is to make sure people have a fair shot of getting back on their feet”

In Florida, an organization called Floridians for a Fair Democracy filed the Second Chance Voting Restoration Amendment to automatically restore voting rights to the formerly incarcerated upon completing probation or parole and paying any required restitution, according to the Slate article. The amendment excludes those convicted of murder or sex crimes, according to the article. The amendment qualified for the November 2018 ballot with 760,000 certified signatures.

A recent federal court decision may help restore voting rights to 1.7 million citizens, including one in five Blacks, even if the initiative measure isn’t passed by voters.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker found that the process for restoring voting rights under Scott violates the First Amendment right to free association and free expression.

Critics accused Scott of bias and say he restored voting rights only to those persons who had witnesses attest to their conservative principles.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on whether the First Amendment protects voting rights, Walker, in reaching his conclusion, cited two opinions by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, statements that strongly suggest the act of voting constitutes a form of protected expression under the First Amendment, according to the Slate article.

People at the voting booth

People at the voting booth

Mississippi has a lifetime ban on voting for those convicted of certain felonies unless restored by legislation or the governor.

The lifetime banned felonies include: arson, armed robbery, bigamy, bribery, embezzlement, extortion, felony bad check, felony shoplifting, forgery, larceny, murder, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, rape, receiving stolen property, robbery, theft, timber larceny, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, statutory rape, carjacking and larceny under lease or rental agreement.

A 2016 study conducted by the Sentencing Project found that 9.6 percent of Mississippi’s adult population is ineligible to vote.

Members of the Mississippi state house unanimously voted for the creation of a commission to study restoration of voting rights for those who have committed crimes, according to a Daily Journal article by Bobby Harrison.

“The whole idea about restoring suffrage is to make sure people have a fair shot of getting back on their feet,” said Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, a co-author of the Mississippi legislation, according to the Daily Journal. Taylor also said restoring voting rights would help felons who had served their time become responsible citizens.

The push to separate voting from a penalty for committing a crime is active in other states, too.

Virginia, which, like Florida, has a lifetime ban on voting for those convicted of crimes, has two amendments going to the voters to decide the issue. In the meantime, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to 173,000 former felons through individual pardons. Current Gov. Ralph Northam has reportedly vowed to reinstate voting rights to the formerly incarcerated as well.

In Louisiana, a lawsuit is underway challenging whether the definition “under a sentence of confinement” applies to those on parole or probation.

Restoring voting rights to all citizens in Florida alone might have affected the elections of George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

In America Slaves Have No Voting Rights

Youth correctional facility helps 15 offenders graduate

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Fifteen students graduated Johanna Boss High School inside the OH Close Youth Correctional Facility Oct. 20. The youth celebrated the occasion with attending family and DJJ staff

Fifteen students graduated Johanna Boss High School inside the OH Close Youth Correctional Facility Oct. 20. The youth celebrated the occasion with attending family and DJJ staff

Fifteen youth offenders graduated last month from Johanna Boss High School, which is inside the O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton.

“Do not let your past kill your future,” said Clay Rojas, Parkside Church’s pastor. Rojas, an ex-offender himself who served three years in federal prison, was the keynote speaker at the ceremony, reported Almendra Carpizo for the Stockton Record.

“It’s possible, guys. It’s possible that our life can look completely different,” Rojas told the graduating class.

In the United States more than 50,000 people under the age of 21 fill our juvenile detention centers, the U.S. Department of Education reports.

Rojas said that these young graduates, who have been told they would never amount to anything, should take their graduation seriously as a great accomplishment.

“I’m nervous to see my grandma, parents and girlfriend,” said Jabin Villarreal, the 20-year-old class valedictorian. “But, it feels good for (them) to see me graduate. They told me they’re proud of me.”

Fellow graduate Javon Sullivan, 19, has already planned his future and looks forward to studying political science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. “I’m proud of myself for (graduating),” Sullivan said.

For Sullivan, graduating high school was a major milestone because not many people in his family have. He really wanted to do this for his mother. “Even with these circumstances, she wanted me to come out with a diploma,” he said.

“It’s a big deal for them,” said Larry Hammond, a teacher at the Johanna Boss High School. “For most of these kids, school was never a priority, and once graduated, they have earned a big step in their life.”

Hammond also reminded the young graduates that high school shouldn’t be the end of their education, and he encouraged them to continue learning.

Wisconsin ends harsh treatment of youth

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Federal Study Encourages Early Intervention To Curb Youth Deliquency

Young offenders learn expression through poetry

Children with incarcerated parents struggle with stigma


 

Average inmate pay drops despite billions on prisons

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In a billion-dollar prison labor market, wages for incarcerated people nationwide have declined since 2001, a recent report says.

The April report by Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) said the average minimum wages paid per day to incarcerated workers for non-industry prison jobs is now 86 cents, down from 93 cents in 2001. This means that the average maximum daily wage also declined from $4.73 in 2001 to $3.45 today.

“The vast majority of prison labor is not even cloaked in the idea of rehabilitation,” said Heather Thompson of the University of Michigan, as reported in The Economist.

Individual states also employ over 60,000 prison laborers in a market worth well over $1 billion in revenue. California’s industries alone are expected to generate $232 million in sales this year; much of it from construction and textiles; $10 million is also expected from meat-cutting, reported The Economist.

California non-industries jobs pay as low as eight cents to a high of 37 cents per hour, while jobs for state-owned businesses or “correctional industries” pay an hourly low of 30 cents to a high of 95 cents.

“Only about 6 percent of people incarcerated in state prisons earn these ‘higher’ wages,” said the PPI report. “An even tinier portion of incarcerated workers are eligible for ‘prevailing local wages’ working for private businesses that contract with states through the PIE (Prison Industry Enhancement) program.”

At least seven states appear to have lowered their maximum wages. South Carolina no longer pays wages for most regular prison jobs assignments that paid up to $4.80 per day in 2001.

Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Texas also don’t pay for regular prison jobs, reported PPI.

The majority of jobs are custodial, maintenance, grounds-keeping or food service in the institutions that confine them.

The report observes that incarcerated people have little possibility of earning “real money” and that “hurts their chances of success when released.” Even so, “The meager earnings from prison work assignments can be essential to a person’s success – and even survival – when they return to their community.

“With little to no savings, how can they possibly afford the immediate costs of food, housing, healthcare, transportation, child support and supervision fees?” asked the PPI report.

On the federal level, the Federal Prison Industries earned $500 million in sales in 2016, while paying prisoners roughly 90 cents an hour to produce everything from mattresses, spectacles, road signs and body armor for government agencies. The prisoners also produced official seals for the Department of Defense and Department of State, a bureau spokesman confirmed to The Economist.

“The question of wages paid for prison labor is an important one, especially when we consider the relative costs of fees charged and things sold to incarcerated people,” said the PPI report. “The value of a dollar is different when you earn pennies per hour.”

These wages don’t include deductions that can be used to pay court-assessed fines, court costs, and victim witness assessments. New Mexico deducts 15 to 50 percent of each paycheck for Crime Victims Reparations Fund, discharge money and family support. California deducts 55 percent (50 percent to court-assessed fines and a 5 percent administrative fee).

“These policies arguably serve legitimate purposes, but such deductions also mean that $1 per day earned to make day-to-day life behind bars more bearable is really 50 cents or even less,” the report noted. 

An incarcerated woman in Colorado has to save up two weeks’ wages to buy a box of tampons, the report stated, while people in a Pennsylvania prison have to save up close to two weeks for a $10 phone card. In Massachusetts, at least half of a prisoner paycheck goes into a savings account to pay for expenses after release.

The public must acknowledge that almost everyone in prison will eventually be released, the report noted.

“Their success and independence depends largely on financial stability, which is undermined by low wages, nickel and diming through ‘user fees,’ mandatory deductions, and work that does little to prepare them for work outside of prisons,” said the report.

“And they may leave prison with just a bus ticket and $50 of ‘gate money,’ if they have no other savings,” the report added. “Forward-thinking policymakers must consider the importance of earnings and relevant job training for people they hope will be independent one day.”

PPI’s “Correctional Control: Incarceration and Supervision by State” issued on June 1, is the first report to aggregate data on all types of correctional control nationwide. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/50statepie.html
 

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Formerly incarcerated author, Donna Hylton

New Tool to Analyzing Criminal Justice Policy

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Incarceration rates are not the entire story of the criminal justice system. For reformers seeking to rationalize our criminal justice policies, the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) has created a significant new tool for analyzing the complicated issue of developing proposals for reform.
PPI’s “Correctional Control: Incarceration and Supervision by State” issued on June 1, is the first report to aggregate data on all types of correctional control nationwide. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/50statepie.html
The scope of correction control includes federal prisons, 50 state prison systems, thousands of county and local jails, juvenile incarceration, civil commitment, Indian country jails, parole and, most importantly, probation.
According to PPI, “the criminal justice system’s reach in this country is far more expansive than usually assumed.” The national average is 2,111 people under correctional control per 100,000 (pht) residents. California’s rate is 1,582 pht. Georgia is over double the California rate, and Maine has the lowest rate at 858 pht.
The report has identified a tremendous variation between states that is largely driven by differing uses of probation. Fifty-six percent of the people under correctional control in America are on probation. Georgia has 78 percent of the people under its control on probation, while Nevada has 31 percent. Parole (conditional release from prison) makes up 11 percent of the total.
With this new tool, policy makers and reformers can identify the disproportionate use of any given criminal justice policy tool by comparing their local system to other states. For example, Georgia’s probation population pht residents is “greater than every other states’ total rates of correctional control,” according to the PPI press release issued in conjunction with the report.
Of particular concern to the PPI is the need to assess whether the community supervision mechanisms of probation and parole are being used as alternatives to incarceration or “as a net-widener that unnecessarily expands the criminal justice system’s reach to low-level crimes.”
Use of this tool can aid in the objective valuation of existing criminal justice policy mechanisms and identify areas of potential reform.
PPI’s “Correctional Control: Incarceration and Supervision by State” issued on June 1, is the first report to aggregate data on all types of correctional control nationwide. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/50statepie.html
http://sanquentinnews.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/

Study shows rural jails add to mass incarceration

Colorado requests $30 million to re-open prisons


 
Boatwright

California Bail System Penalizes Poor

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“64% of California’s jail population is awaiting trial or sentencing as of December 2016.” Most remain in pretrial custody because they cannot afford bail.  Jail Profile Survey, http://www.bscc.ca.gov/

The bail system that unfairly keeps poor people locked up needs reform, according to California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.
“We must not penalize the poor for being poor,” Cantil-Sakauye said in her annual State of the Judiciary address to the California Legislature.

“50,000 more drivers needed to meet demand, according to the American trucking associations.” New York Times“Need Fuels Trucking’s Diversity Push” July 28, 2018

“Alarmingly high numbers of Americans continue to pay more than half of their income toward rent.” HUD Secretary Ben Carson NYT July 28, 2018

This follows the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the cash bail system in San Francisco on Feb. 1 by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, the San Francisco Chronicle noted.

CA supreme court


The plaintiffs have since filed a narrower version of their lawsuit that focuses on the period just after arrest when the sheriff’s office sets bail, reported the Chronicle.
“We need more pretrial release programs to balance safety against the need to post bail,” the chief justice said. Holding people on bail may be both unfair to the poor and ineffective at preventing crime, she added.
“The National Low Income Housing Coalition found that a working earning minimum wage could afford a market rate one-bedroom apartment in only 22 of the country’s 3,000 counties.” NYT July 28, 2018

“In 1935 the Supreme Court declared that a prosecutors job is more than merely winning every case by racking up convictions; it also included seeing that justice is done.” “Pressing Pause on Marijuana Convictions” NYT Opinion July 30, 2018

She said she has appointed Martin Hoshino, the administrative director of the California courts, to head a national task force to study the bail-setting program.
At present, there are release programs in 12 local courts that place defendants under supervision, rather than holding them until they can post bail reported the Chronicle.
http://sanquentinnews.com/criminal-justice-advocates-seeking-bail-system-reform/

Prison’s newspaper celebrates 100th edition

Prison reform could free 30,000 inmates says CSJ


Boatwright

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