America needs skilled aerospace workers and one San Quentin program is designed to help fill the void, a NASA executive told a prisoners’ audience.
Dr. Simon Pete Worden, a retired Air Force general and NASA’s Ames Research Center director, addressed nearly 200 San Quentin prisoners to talk about NASA’s future and the need for highly skilled workers in the aerospace industry.
In an unorthodox move, Worden has already enlisted men in the prison’s vocational machine shop to produce prototype components for satellites.
The partnership began in 2007 when Worden first learned of the advanced machining abilities of the students from the spouse of a guard who worked at the prison.
He had representatives of the agency contact Rich Saenz, the machine shop’s instructor, to propose the idea of having his students fabricate parts for NASA. Saenz told them, “We have every confidence we can build it.”
At times, it looked as though the project might fall apart. Bureaucratic roadblocks and strict budgetary constraints of working within the state’s beleaguered prison system have caused several problems.
Despite those challenges, Saenz fought to see the project through. In June 2011 NASA and prison officials signed a two-year agreement to fabricate the parts. Since that time, 27 students have received valuable training from NASA.
The students have been fabricating components for a unique satellite deployment device, called a Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer (PPOD).
Although the parts fabricated by the prisoners are only prototypes, and not yet slated for use, Worden hopes to one day see them used in space.
Worden and Saenz share a philosophy of preparing incarcerated men to find meaningful jobs after they parole.
“Our primary purpose is to prepare people to work in the industry,” said Worden. “My commitment is to help people find jobs”
Worden envisions connecting inmates with private companies which would hire them after parole. He even said that some industry leaders have shown an interest in hiring ex-offenders.
Saenz said he works closely with Bay Area colleges and businesses to find placement on the outside for his students, many of whom report to him with stories of their successes.
Noting the antiquity of many of the shop’s machines and a dire need for newer technology, Saenz said, “If we had updated equipment and material, we could do a lot more.”
Saenz’s students have fabricated items for such diverse projects as the State Fair, Marine Mammal Center, the National Parks Service and San Francisco’s Exploratorium.
“This shop continues to grow and deliver top-quality projects,” said leadman Duane Butler. He commented that his fellow students are men who are committed to becoming productive citizens.
Archives for August 2012
Kid CAT Hosts Symposium Focusing on Youth Problems
Creating a collaboration to deal with youth problems inside and outside prison walls was the focus of a recent San Quentin symposium involving criminal justice experts and youth advocates from across the state.
Hosting the event were members of Kid CAT (Creating Awareness Together) who were juveniles when they committed their crimes. Attendees of the symposium included State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, Elizabeth Calvin of Human Rights Watch, Sister Suzanne Jabro, founder of the Center for Restorative Justice Works, Hollywood movie producer Scott Budnick, and other concerned citizens.
The Kid CAT men shared their crime impact statements — a collaborative interweaving of each of their stories retailing the day of their crimes — focusing on the day of the offense, the crime itself, and the events that led up to it.
“It is apparent that the men in Kid CAT have done their personal work,” said Sister Jabro, who organized the symposium. “The respect given to their victims truly is restorative justice in action.”
Gathering into breakout groups, Kid CAT members described the origin of the group, the projects they completed, the projects they’re working on, and Individual turning points.
“It’s apparent that men in Kid Cat have done their personal work.”
“We believe Kid CAT is capable of starting the movement and carrying it forward on behalf of all youth receiving life sentences,” said Sister Jabro.
Calvin, a supporter of juvenile justice reform, said the mission statement of Kid CAT impressed her: To inspire humanity through education, mentorship, and restorative practices.
Sen. Yee spoke about legislation he introduced that would end California juveniles being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“You can contribute by asking your family to call their local representatives and express their opposition towards sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole,” Yee told the audience, referring to Senate Bill 9.
“I was moved by the way the group moved from I to We,” said Sister Jabro. “The closing comments of each person, inside and outside, including obvious emotion, was profound. We are one!”
S.Q. Baseball Season Opener
The San Quentin Athletics outlasted the San Quentin Giants in their much-anticipated season opener before several hundred cheering fans, defeating the Giants 10-7.
After Rueben Harper doubled down the first base line, Blake Carlyle smacked an RBI double to centerfield, breaking a 5-5 tie in the top of the sixth inning. The A’s never gave up the lead from that point.
The Giants proceeded to make crucial errors and allowed the A’s to steal bases at will. During the sixth inning, the A’s stole three bases. The Giants committed two errors, allowing the A’s to increase their lead to 8-5. Isaiah-Bonilla Thomson ripped an RBI double to centerfield to add another run. The top of the sixth ended at a score of 9-5.
The Giants attempted to make a dramatic comeback in the bottom of the eighth inning. Trailing 10-5, Chris Smith delivered a base hit up the middle and Stafont Smith doubled him home to decrease their deficit to 10-6. After two walks and a stolen base, the Giants scored another run off an A’s error. They never scored again, losing in a heart-breaker.
Early in the game, the Giants struck first as Stafont Smith smashed a two-run single to center field in the bottom of the first inning.
“I went to the game to have fun.”
The A’s tied the score on RBI hits by Asad Perez and Chris Marshall in the top of the second inning.
In the top of the fifth inning, the A’s broke the tie as Isaiah Thompson-Bonilla smashed a RBI single up the middle. After scoring on a wild pitch, Perez hit a RBI double to right-centerfield, increasing their lead to 5-2. Michael Tyler started a Giants rally in the bottom of the fifth, as he drove a base hit to right field, stole second and scored on a A’s error. After singles by Marcus Crumb and Hakika Lerato, Chris Smith tripled them home on a drive to center field, tying the game at 5-5.
Mario Ellis was the starting pitcher for the Giants and Jeff Dumont was the starting pitcher for the Athletics.
Athletics Coach John “Yahya” Parratt said, “This win says a lot about the A’s under pressure. I’m very proud of how our team played situational baseball. We got this win by not giving up, even after the team put itself into some tight jams. I give credit to the Giants staff and players for a hard fight.”
The Giants’s Stafont Smith commented after their loss, “I went into the game to have fun. I wanted the new players to see that if you go into the game to have fun, you will enjoy the outcome, win or lose, because of good sportsmanship and good attitude. I knew we were up against their ace starting pitcher because of the games we played before. My approach was to make a statement in that game, that the San Quentin Giants is another team to be reckoned with.”
Lt. Sam Robinson threw the opening pitch, which was a fastball strike. Larry Faison played a rousing version of the Star Spangled Banner on his trumpet, and the colors were presented by the Vietnam Veterans Group of San Quentin.
Study Rebuts Theory Behind Longer Prison Sentences
Locking up non-violent criminals for lengthy prison terms fails to improve public safety, a public-interest research report concludes.
“There is little or no evidence that keeping them [offenders] locked up longer prevents additional crime,” according to The Pew Center on the States.
Between 1972 and 2011, the United States enacted numerous laws intended to take criminals off the streets through long-term incarceration. Advocates for that strategy say it would enhance public safety.
During this same period, the U.S. Congress influenced state sentencing policies by tying public safety funding to the Truth-in-Sentencing laws. States could only receive federal grants if prisoners served 80-85 percent of their terms. One result, during the last two decades, was the prison population in the United States rose 700 percent.
The “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” approach has reached its tipping point and policy-makers can help by adjusting the amount of time offenders serve behind bars, according to the report titled, Time Served – The High Cost, Low Return of Long Prison Terms.
The report quotes California Senate President, Pro tempore, Darrell Steinberg as saying, “We need to do a better job of distinguishing between violent offenders who should be in state prison for a long time to protect the public, and those who can serve their sentences in ways that are frankly less expensive to the taxpayer and consistent with public safety.”
Nearly 90 percent of likely voters in a 2012 poll support shortening prison terms by up to a year for low-risk, non-violent offenders if they have behaved well in prison or completed programming, according the report. The poll also showed support for using prison savings for alternatives to incarceration.
To read the study, TIME SERVED, The High Cost, Low Return of Longer Prison Terms, go to www.pewstates.org
Gov. Brown Appoints New Corrections Board
A new board has been created to cope with the major changes in the future of California prisons.
Creation of the board is in response to last year’s U.S. Supreme Court order forcing California to reduce its overcrowded prison population.
The board will “provide the leadership needed to guide California toward a long-term, strategic, and successful implementation of a cost-effective, evidence-based community corrections system,” according to a report outlining the plan.
Gov. Jerry Brown created the Board of State and Community Corrections to replace the former Corrections Standards Authority. The new board, however, doesn’t look too different from the old board: five of the ten new appointments were members of the CSA, including Los Angeles Sheriff Leroy Baca, Lassen County Sheriff Dean Growdon, and Chief Probation Officer of Fresno County, Linda Penner.
Brown appointed Susan Mauriello, Santa Cruz County administrator and former member of the CSA, as director of the new board. Mauriello is known as an innovator in alternatives to incarceration, according to KPCC public radio. Santa Cruz is one of the counties that have most fully embraced prison realignment, KPCC reports.
The CSA made the following recommendations to the BSCC in a report titled Implementation Recommendations: Report to the Board of State and Community Corrections:
Create quality community-based services and strategies for juveniles and adults to achieve public safety by reducing the number of people that are incarcerated, reducing recidivism and reducing the overall long-term costs of the justice system.
Create a statewide repository for standardized outcome-based community corrections program data collection and reporting, including program descriptions, outcomes, evaluations, costs and cost effectiveness.
Encourage and support funding mechanisms and guidelines that create successful performance-based programs with accountability.
Develop a uniform risk and needs assessment approach for all communities.
Design and implement a sustainable financial and organizational structure, appropriate staffing and budget for the BSCC to assure the agency can meet its goals.
The report concludes: “The current effort represents the beginning of the sea (of) change that will reform California’s juvenile and adult correctional systems. It is not the end. There are still many interrelated and complex problems to be addressed. The newly created Board of State and Community Corrections is in a key position to implement the necessary changes to achieve the highest standards of public safety using cost effective, evidence-based methods at the community corrections level.”
Free After 20 Years In Prison
After spending more than 20 years in prison for a crime he insists he didn’t commit, Maurice A. Caldwell says, “I want to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Caldwell, 44, spoke to a group of about 40 residents of The Redwoods, a senior citizen residence in Mill Valley. He was accompanied by Paige Kaneb, an attorney for The Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law, who helped him gain his freedom.
“If they had used common sense, I wouldn’t have gone to prison,” Caldwell said.
During his 20 years and six months of incarceration, he said he served time at various prisons, including San Quentin, New Folsom, Old Folsom, Mule Creek and Pleasant Valley.
“I used to be angry every day, but that’s what made me fight more,” he said. Among numerous letters pleading for help was one to the Innocence Project, which took on the challenge.
Asked about his life now, Caldwell said, “Every day is a struggle. I’m fighting for my humanity.” As a free man, he said he’s ineligible for the kind of assistance offered to parolees.
Caldwell reported he’s trying to get money from a state fund which pays wrongly convicted persons $100 a day for every day in prison. That would total almost $750,000.
He was convicted in 1991 of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a man near his apartment in the Alemany housing project in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco during a botched drug deal. The key witness against him was a neighbor who initially said he wasn’t involved but later identified him as the shooter. The sentence: 27 years to life.
The city honored the witness with a medal, a key to the city, $1,000 and a trip to Disneyland. She died while Caldwell was imprisoned.
His sentence was tossed out due to incompetent representation (his attorney was subsequently disbarred because of similar problems with other cases), because of failure to question other witnesses who said Caldwell was innocent, because evidence was destroyed and the key witness was deceased.
Another key element was the Innocence Project found that a man imprisoned in Nevada admitted he was the shooter.
Caldwell walked out of prison a free man on March 28, 2011, into the arms of his sister. His mother and grandmother died while he was locked up.
Kaneb has handled the case since 2008. “Maurice is not only innocent, but a wonderful client and an appreciative person who has kept his faith throughout this whole ordeal,” she said in a 2010 interview.
He could have been freed weeks earlier if he had accepted a prosecution deal to plead guilty to reduced charges. “He turned it down right away,” said Kaneb. “He made this great statement, on the record actually, that he’s been fighting this case for 20 years, and if he were one percent involved he would have taken this deal and walked, but he was 100 percent innocent and wouldn’t take the deal.”
Death Penalty and Wrongful Executions
There is no credible evidence that an innocent person has been executed in California, a state commission report concludes.
However, the commission “cannot conclude with confidence that the administration of the death penalty in California eliminates the risk that innocent persons might be convicted and sentenced to death,” says the report. It was prepared in 2008 by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
Californians will vote in November on whether to abolish capital punishment.
14 IN CALIFORNIA
“Nationally, there were 205 exoneration of defendants convicted of murder from 1989 through 2003,” the commission reported. “Seventy-four of them had been sentenced to death. Fourteen of these 205 murder cases took place in California, according to a separate study, ‘Exonerations in the United States.’
“Since 1979, six defendants sentenced to death, whose convictions were reversed and remanded, were subsequently acquitted or had their murder charges dismissed for lack of evidence. While DNA testing was not available and these defendants were not officially exonerated, the reversal of their convictions freed them. A subsequent acquittal or dismissal of charges rendered them legally not guilty, although there was no determination of ‘factual innocence’ pursuant to California law.”
The biggest reason for wrongful convictions is erroneous eyewitness identifications, the report says. That accounted for 80 percent of exonerations, and false confessions were a factor in 15 percent.
23 WITH INFORMANTS
California State Public Defender Michael Hersek reported that of 117 death penalty appeals pending in his office, 17 featured testimony by in-custody informants, and another six included testimony by informants who were in constructive custody.
The report recommended steps to reduce the risks of wrongful convictions resulting from erroneous eye witness identifications, false confessions, and testimony by in-custody informants. Those were enacted by the Legislature, but were vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“A national study of all death penalty sentences imposed from 1973 to 1995 revealed that 82 percent (247 out of 301) of the capital judgments that were reversed and returned for a retrial or a new penalty hearing were replaced with a sentence less than death, or no sentence at all,” the commission reported.
It notes that seven percent (22/301) of the reversals for serious error resulted in a determination on retrial that the defendant was not guilty of the capital offense.
Brazilian Prisoners Generate Electricity To Cut Sentences
A Brazilian prison is taking the idea of good-time credits to another level: prisoners can get days time off their sentences for reading books and for generating electricity for a local community.
After Brazilian Judge Jose Henrique Mallman learned about U.S. gyms using exercise bikes to generate electricity, he used the same concept to power 10 street lamps in Santa Rita do Sapucai, a town close to a prison, reported The Associated Press.
The town’s police department’s lost and found donated bicycles to Mallman. The stationary bicycles charge car batteries used to power the lights. Inmates earn one day off their sentence for every 24 hours spent peddling, the AP reported.
“We used to spend all day locked up in our cells, only seeing the sun for two hours a day. Now we’re out in the fresh air, generating electricity for the town and at the same time we’re winning our freedom,” said Ronaldo da Silva, a participant serving a 5 ½-year sentence for robbing a bakery, according to the AP report. He reduced his sentence by 20 days and said in the process he lost nine pounds.
A once-abandoned, dark promenade of Santa Rita do Sapucai is now beaming with activity, AP says. People are jogging, walking their dogs, taking strolls, and kids are riding bicycles.
Prisoners can also reduce their sentence by writing book reports, the AP reported.
The program called, “Redemption through Reading,” allows inmates to earn four days off their sentence for every book they read. The program allows inmates to reduce their sentence a maximum of 48 days a year, if they read 12 books.
Brazilian officials say they’ve received some criticism from the public, saying the initiatives are soft on criminals; however, there’s been little complaint in the country’s press or in other public forums, the AP reports.
California instituted its own literacy program, in 2011, called the Milestone Credit Initiative. It allows inmates serving sentences for non-violent offenses to earn time off for completing certain educational or rehabilitative programs.
“An inmate can earn up to six weeks off their sentence by passing five GED section tests and earning a GED. Time off their sentence can also be earned for completing a college course,” said San Quentin Literacy Coordinator Tom Bolema.
Jurors’ Mixed Views About Capital Punishment Focus of High Court Ruling
Jurors cannot be excluded from death penalty trials because they have mixed views about capital punishment, the California Supreme Court has ruled.
The court voted unanimously that a prospective juror was improperly dismissed because of her conflicting views in a written questionnaire on the death penalty.
In its ruling July 16, the high court upheld John Riccardi’s murder conviction. It will be up to the California attorney general to decide whether to hold another penalty trial, or whether he will be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
A similar juror issue is raised in several other Death Row inmates’ appeals, including Scott Peterson.
In 1984, a narrowly divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that reversal of the death penalty is automatic when potential jurors are dismissed because of their written answers to questions about their views on capital punishment.
“I’m afraid I could not feel right in imposing the death penalty on someone even though I feel it is necessary under some circumstances,” the prospective juror wrote.
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote that the trial court judge should have questioned her more instead of dismissing her. The ruling “compels the reversal of the penalty phase without any inquiry as to whether the error actually” led to an unfair trial. She wrote a separate opinion to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the automatic reversal in such cases.
Cliff Garner, Peterson’s attorney, argued in his appeal that the mistake occurred in his trial and can be the basis of appeals of a few other Death Row inmates.
–Charles David Henry
After Serving Over 24 Years Behind Bars Henry ‘MC’ Montgomery Makes it Home
Self-help groups have been important instruments for helping Henry “MC” Montgomery become a better human being, he said, as he rejoins society after 24 years in prison. They helped him overcome his life’s hardships.
Looking forward to freedom, he said to those he left behind, “I will be representing you guys in prison, and I will be letting the world know that there are many more guys that have been doing the work that will be behind me. And I am sure that they will be doing bigger things than I am doing.”
After serving all those years in prison for second-degree murder and assault, he is paroling to Options transitional facility. He said he has an immediate job offer to work with at-risk youth. He also said that his first music venture will be making a pop album.
“The first 10 years were extremely rough, stressful, lonely, and hopeless,” Montgomery said. “I watched a lot of violence and suffering, went through a lot of violence and suffering. As time went on, I developed more anger than what I had before I came in. The horrible experiences were making me better. But I didn’t know that at the time. Now that I reflect back, I can see it clearly; those experiences were needed to make me into who I am today.”
“It took a particular incident where I over-reacted that showed me that I had an anger problem I needed to work on. This led me down the path of reading books on spirituality, meditation, and self-help,” he said.
Montgomery pointed to numerous self-help groups for enlightenment and change. “I started involving myself in groups such as anger management, Non-Violent Communication, Conflict Resolution, Community Impact, etc. After years of study, I finally started to internalize the tools and eventually learned to use them in potential troublesome situations,” he explained.
He described his troublesome childhood: “I wasn’t really a bad person growing up, I grew up watching my mom being abused… My mother got beat with a billy club by an L.A. policeman; I remember that like it was yesterday. As a teenager, I began being attacked by Crips and Bloods.”
He also mentioned the good times of his life, expressing how he and his uncle formed dance groups and rode motorcycles together. He said before his incarceration he was enrolled in a class called California Impact, training to retake a test to join the military. “The real reason I wanted to join the service was not to make myself a better life; it was actually to escape my life in Los Angeles because I feared that I would be killed,” he said.
Montgomery described his early introduction to hip-hop: “In elementary school I used to be in the back of class making beats. I would dance in my room for hours trying to mimic the guys I saw at dance parties. I started a group in 1983 called Erotic Freak Daddy’s at World on Wheels in L.A. I was with my uncle when he danced for Ice-T.”
He said that he started rapping in the Los Angeles County Jail, where he got into a rap battle with a gang member and came out victorious. “That victory made me think that I was pretty good at rapping. I used my rapping skills to keep the gangs off of me, which eventually led them to embrace me,” he added.
As for the men he’s leaving behind, Montgomery has this advice: “Keep yourself clean, because the biggest prize is freedom. Join groups, internalize what you learn in the groups, and put what you learn to practice.”
-JulianGlenn Padgett contributed to this story
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