San Quentin News

Written By Inmates - Advancing Social Justice

Inert gas asphyxiation the new method of execution

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Alabama lawmakers in March voted to authorize a method of execution that has never been used before—inert gas asphyxiation.
Lawmakers say this alternative method is a more humane way to carry out capital punishment. It works by directing the inmate to breathe inert gas as opposed to oxygen. Examples of such gases include helium, methane and nitrogen.
The Associated Press reported that inhaling nitrogen gas is “like dying on a plane that depressurizes in flight, swiftly killing all aboard.”
Perhaps that’s why 51 of Alabama’s 180 death row inmates have signed statements indicating their preference for that gas as opposed to a lethal injection or the electric chair.
Some may say this represents a leap into the unknown, but according to John Palombi, an attorney with the Federal Defenders Program, “the uncertain- ties of nitrogen gas” trump what he thinks is the “known torture” of other execution methods.
An example of such torture took place in 2016, when Ronald Smith Jr.’s attorney witnessed him coughing and heaving for more than 10 minutes in the gas chamber. Smith’s movement showed he was not anesthetized at any point during the agonizingly long procedure.
Others, however, believe the uncertainty behind such a new procedure may cause more harm.
“This is entirely experimental,” said Randall Marshall, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama. “It is the epitome of cruel (and unusual punishment) because it is experimenting on human beings.”
State Senator Cam Ward said he believes some inmates agreed to nitrogen gas because of the foreseeable, lengthy legal challenges. He added that it could possibly be a way for prisoners to avoid the death penalty.
Ward also attributes the fact that inmates are opting for this alternative method of execution to fear. According to the Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, lethal injections involve drugs that, if given incorrectly, can result in suffering “I think they’ve seen stories of where the three-drug cocktail lethal injection has failed and there’s that fear of it being a botched process as opposed to nitrogen,” Ward said.

The executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, Robert Dunham, said that he expects there will be considerable litigation regarding nitrogen asphyxiation. In Oklahoma, which announced in March that nitrogen gas would be the primary method of execution, officials have begun constructing a set of protocols to use the gas because there has been an issue of obtaining legal injection drugs.

In Mississippi the method has been approved, but only in the event that lethal injections have been ruled unconstitutional or are unavailable.
In Alabama, the most recent state to consider this alternative method, litigation over the state’s lethal injection method ended because inmates
chose the nitrogen gas process.
The lawsuit that challenged lethal injections was dismissed.

Immigrant requests for asylum face four year backlog

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President Trump


President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement program is failing due to a four-year asylum hearing backlog, an opinion article in The Hill contends.
It is the immigration enforcement program’s policy to deport undocumented im- migrants to their country of origin, unless they express a “credible fear” of returning. An asylum officer assigned to the claim determines whether “credible fear” is present in individual cases, said Nolan Rappaport, the article’s author. If the officer denies the claim, applicants can request an administrative review of the decision, which will be performed by an immigration judge. If the judge then rejects the claim, the immigrant is deported.
According to the article, an ongoing shortage of immigration judges has contributed to the backlog.
As of July, 330 immigration judges presided over 58 immigration courts with a combined backlog of 733,365 cases, the article said, amounting to approximately 2,200 cases per judge.
Claimants wait on average 717 days, nearly two years, for a hearing. If the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) abruptly stopped arresting undocumented immigrants, it still take four years to eliminate the backlog, according to Rappaport.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions clarified the asylum eligibility requirements to make it easier to screen out immigrants who do not have a legitimate persecution claim. Though this might stop the backlog from growing larger, it can’t reduce it, Rappaport said.
In January, Trump instructed the DHS to expand the use of expedited removal proceedings as a way to reduce the backlog. Expedited proceedings affect undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for less than two years and were not formally admitted into the country.
Rappaport argued that Trump will need a legalization program to eliminate the backlog entirely, as many of the immigrants in removal proceedings have been physically present for at least two years.

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Oklahoma has highest incarceration rate in U.S.

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Oklahoma has passed Louisiana as the state with the highest incarceration rate in the country, a new study reports.
Oklahoma’s incarceration rate is 1,079 per 100,000 population. Louisiana’s is 1,052 per 100,000, the Prison Policy Initiative study reported in May.
The Associated Press story reported Oklahoma also incarcerates at a higher rate than all countries with a population of at least 500,000.
Nonetheless, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has signed legislation designed to reduce the state’s prison population, the AP reports.
“The Department of Corrections is underfunded …but because they don’t have adequate resources, we’re simply warehousing individuals,” said Kris Steele, chairman of Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform.
Three-fourths of the total prison population were convicted of nonviolent offenses.
Correspondingly, Oklahoma District Attorneys Council president Kevin Buchanan questioned the report’s methodology.
“Where I disagree is what constitutes a nonviolent offense or what constitutes an offender who is amenable to reform,” he said. “Not everybody wants to reform.”
In 2017, Louisiana reconstituted its criminal justice laws, which resulted in the reversal of its incarceration rate, said Steele. In comparison, Oklahoma is applying legislation that would slow its incarceration rate, not reduce it, critics say.
The president of the Tulsa Regional Chamber, Mike Neal, said it is even more imperative that Oklahoma continue prioritizing and passing justice reform bills to reduce the state’s incarceration rate.
PPI’s “Correctional Control: Incarceration and Supervision by State” is the first report to aggregate data on all types of correctional control nationwide.
https://sanquentinnews.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/

United States leads world in locking up women report

Jailing of mentally ill is a growing problem in California

Prosecutors accepting guilty pleas: no executions

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It’s now been four years since a Georgia jury handed down a death sentence. In the majority of the capital punishment cases, prosecutors are allowing the alleged suspect to enter a guilty plea in exchange for a life-without-parole sentence, reported Bill Rankin in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

White House


Many of Georgia’s district attorneys still strongly support capital punishment. According to state records, last year prosecutors announced they were seeking the death penalty in 26 cases. But, this year they have filed notices to seek death in just two new cases.
Polls show that public support for the death penalty is falling nationally. Peter Skandalakis, Executive Director of the Prosecution Attorneys Council in Death Penalty, thinks the public is now more comfortable with a sentence of life without parole in capital cases.
“That’s made a huge difference,” Skandalakis told Rankin. “When you sit down with victims’ families and discuss the process of a death penalty case with all the pretrial hearings, then the years of appeals that follow, I have found families like the finality of life without parole. It lets them get on with their lives.”
Opposition to the death penalty has traditionally come from liberal activists, but recently more conservatives are turning against it.
Heather Beaudoin is the national coordinator of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, which now has chapters in 13 states. Beaudoin and others are concerned about the number of exonerations disclosed in recent years and the possibility of executing an innocent person.
“Many of our supporters are millennials, who are pro-life like I am,” Beaudoin said. “We believe that life is created by God and has value no matter what the circumstances are.”
After four years without a death sentence, Georgia’s capital defender office, a part of the public defender system, has attracted national recognition for its intervention program.

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”  NY TIMES Opinion July 30, 2018

“The average time to resolve a case in early intervention has been less than eight months,” said Jerry Word, lead capital defender. “The average time to get a case to trial is over three years. This results in saving in court time and dollar saving to the state and county.”
The office’s intervention program had success in seeking plea deals from prosecutors early on in the cases, Word said. The program has helped more than 20 defendants avoid a death-penalty trial.
Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter still thinks there are some cases in which there is no question that death is the proper punishment. But, he told Rankin that “As more and more juries give fewer death sentences, prosecutors begin to think it’s not worth the effort.”
Last year, the only two death cases that went to trial both involved the murder of a law enforcement officer—a crime that usually results in a death penalty. Surprisingly, each jury returned a verdict of life without parole.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, this decline in death sentences is not unique to Georgia. Last year, there were only 39 death sentences imposed nationwide. This represents a steep decline—10 years prior, 126 capital sentences were imposed.
The replacement for the death penalty has been, in most cases, life without the possibility of parole. Those opposed to the death penalty see this as a victory and the security that no innocent person will ever be put to death

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

Right to Police Transparency

Alabama considering asphyxia for execution

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Overworked Texas correctional officers adopted unsafe practices

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Mentally exhausted correctional officers practiced unsafe work habits, which led to the murder of a correctional officer and inhumane treatment of inmates at Telford maximum-security prison in Texas.
Understaffing forces the officers to cut corners and work too much overtime, according to sources of The Texas Tribune. The prison has the state’s highest rate of assaults on staff and following the murder, the number of vacant positions has skyrocketed.
“Working those longer hours and having that safety aspect in the back of your mind that maybe you’re not as safe as you should be or as you were, it wears on you,” said one former officer who asked to remain anonymous. “I’ve known [officers] to get physically ill at the mere thought of going to Telford.”
It’s not just Telford; Texas has a widespread problem of understaffed prisons. During the last fiscal year, three out of every 10 officers quit the department. Prison wardens have the authority to enforce mandatory overtime for up to 10 consecutive days or more than 16 hours in a day.
“I knew I’d be doing a dangerous job,” said one former Telford correctional officer who wished to remain anonymous. “But they were making me work so much overtime, I didn’t get to spend any time with my family.”
Understaffing concerns at Telford took center stage after Correctional Officer Timothy Davison was murdered. He had just opened the cell to Billy Joel Tracy’s cell in the highest security area of the prison, when Tracy slipped free of his handcuffs. Tracy knocked Davison to the floor, beating him with the metal bar used to open the food slot on the cell door.
An internal investigation found that protocol wasn’t followed. Tracy’s handcuffs weren’t fully secured, and a second officer wasn’t around. Tracy was sentenced to death last year for the murder.
Two former correctional officers confirmed that prison staff didn’t follow departmental policies even after Davison’s death, partially because of understaffing.
The Department of Criminal Justice says that no clear correlation has been found between staff assault rates and staffing numbers. Even so, inmates say that they too suffer because of the shortage.
The meager diet, the morale and the leadership make this prison the worst, inmate Omar Edwards told the Tribune. He has been housed in nine different prisons over his 25 years of incarceration. “This unit to me is like a bunch of dead souls.”
Telford was on lockdown for about 100 days last year. During lockdown the men aren’t allowed to leave their cells to go to the dining hall or buy food from the commissary. The men claimed they were underfed and given spoiled meat in sack lunches that sometimes contained bugs or showed signs of being gnawed at by rats.
The department responded to claims of inadequate nutrition by stating that the department follows federal dietary guidelines in planning nutritionally balanced meals.
While the correctional officers may not be overly sympathetic – “It’s prison,” one said – lockdowns weigh on them. During normal prison operations, the cooking and cleaning is done by inmates, but all that work must be done by prison staff during lockdowns.
To ease the burden, the department has begun the process of transferring nearly 400 men who have a history of disciplinary issues.
http://sanquentinnews.com/suicides-disturbingly-common-among-correctional-officers/

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

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CALPIA’s offers pre-apprentice programs for female prisoners

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Pre-Apprentice Carpentry and Pre-Apprentice Construction Labor
graduates proudly wear their signature pink CALPIA hard hats

The California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA) pre-apprentice program has graduated 70 women in the field of carpentry, construction labor, healthcare facilities maintenance and computer coding at the California Institution for Women (CIW), reported ABC 7.

“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/

“It’s scary, thinking about going home, not knowing how you’re going to handle things. I heard it’s hard out there, especially when you’re getting out of prison ,” graduate Jonala Jones said. “These skills give me more peace of mind knowing I obtained something that can help me get a job.

“25 percent of millennial-age American men think asking a woman who is not a romantic partner to go for a drink is harassment,” according to a recent survey by The Economist/YouGov reports The New York Times 1-17-18.

The goal of the program is to rehabilitate inmates by giving them viable job training. The program has been successful in making sure they don’t end up in custody again. It has a low 7.13 percent cumulative recidivism rate for its graduates. The coding program has a zero percent recidivism rate.

“SNY [Sensitive Needs Yard] …comprises roughly half the California prison system,” according to Lody Lewn in the Prison University Project Spring 2018 Newsletter Volume 13, No.1

Once they parole, program graduates are eligible to sign up at a union hall in California. They can also apply to have their union dues paid for a year by the training organization.

“They’re enthusiastic about the programs that we bring,” CIW Warden Molly Hill said. “They’re open to change and trying new programs to make themselves more successful, and you usually don’t see that at other institutions.”

Graduate Ashley McCrimmon confirmed that she learned to be a better team player.

“My bosses taught me that you’re only as good as your last job,” she said. “You have to do your best every day. That’s something I’m going to keep with me forever.”

http://sanquentinnews.com/fight-incarcerated-women-detailed-new-memoir/

CIW Puppy Program Inspires Hope and Love for Female Inmates

Prison death a mystery after year-long investigation

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One year and a transparent investigation later, the death of inmate James Leonard Acuna remains undetermined.

Acuna’s decomposing body had been found in a cell he shared with another inmate at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, at least two days after he passed, reported Patch.

“The fact [Acuna] made bad choices and was paying his debt to society doesn’t mean he should have been neglected,” said Sara Leslie, a volunteer for California Prison Focus, an inmates’ rights nonprofit. “We as a society should care because we are a civilized country and it’s expected that we treat all people in a humane manner.”

“SNY [Sensitive Needs Yard] …comprises roughly half the California prison system,” according to Lody Lewn in the Prison University Project Spring 2018 Newsletter Volume 13, No.1

Because Acuna’s body was so decomposed, forensic experts aren’t sure how he died and they listed the cause of death as “undetermined.”

While it’s possible Acuna died of natural causes, an autopsy concluded “homicidal violence cannot be completely excluded,” as the body showed “signs of minor blunt force injury of head and extremities,” Patch reported.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department refused to release its report of the investigation, after a request from Patch, making it impossible to determine how extensive the homicide investigators’ probing was.

Patch also reported that, according to a San Diego County Medical Examiner’s report, Acuna’s cellmate told a mental healthcare professional at the prison that he had “murdered his former cellmate to get a cell to himself” while he was in Kern County.

Bardis Vakili, a prisoner rights advocate and senior attorney with the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Valley, criticized California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) employees for not finding the body sooner.

“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

“Whenever the government takes someone into custody, it bears the responsibility for that individual’s safety,” Vakili said. “However harsh the conditions in prison may be, for a dead body to go unnoticed in a cell for so long that the cause of death can no longer be determined requires a shocking level of carelessness.”

Justicia rota

Justicia rota

CDCR regulations require the physical head-counting of inmates four times a day. Inmates like Acuna, who occupied a cell, must stand at the cell door until counted, said the article.

Dan Vasquez, a thirty-year veteran of CDCR and former warden at two prisons, one being San Quentin, said he found Acuna’s death troubling from a procedural standpoint.

“It was a rule drilled into my head,” Vasquez said, “You had to make sure you saw living, breathing flesh—that’s when you knew the inmate was OK.”

A spokesperson for CDCR told  that appropriate action was taken against some employees. However, she would not disclose the number of employees, their positions, or what specific disciplinary action was being considered, citing employees’ “due process” rights.

Acuna was diagnosed with hepatitis C and suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, souces who asked to remain anonymous told Patch. But Dr. David Bernstein, an internal medicine and gastroenterology specialist and hepatitis B and C researcher, reviewed the autopsy report and doesn’t believe Acuna died from the condition. He said cirrhosis can kill, but there will be bleeding and other symptoms, none of which Acuna’s autopsy indicated.

Another pressing question is why healthcare professionals who should have had daily face-to-face contact with Acuna and should have provided him with medication in person didn’t discover him dead in bed. It is uncertain whether Acuna was supposed to be receiving medication through his cell door or from the “pill window,” noted the article.

While Acuna’s post-mortem toxicology test reported traces of antidepressants Venlafaxine, Amitriptyline, and Nortriptyline—a drug prescribed for headaches and sleep issues—there was no indication of any medication prescribed to treat hepatitis C, reported Patch.

https://sanquentinnews.com/prosecutors-have-great-power-over-criminal-cases/

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Mississippi’s approach to ‘making America safe again’

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Jackson, Mississippi’s approach to making America safe again mandates that any conviction that involves possession of a firearm in the commission of a crime should result in a five-year enhancement of federal prison time.

Project EJECT is the means by which U.S. Attorney Michael Hurst executed his plan to remove violent offenders from communities, reported the Jackson Free Press.

“Today is a new day,” Hurst said. “The message to violent criminals in Jackson is simple: you break the law, you terrorize our neighborhoods and you will be ejected from our community.”

With 343 homicides in 2017, Baltimore “had the highest murder rate in its history, and by far the highest among the nation’s 30 largest cities,” according to The New York Times 1-17-18

In late December of 2017 he called a press conference on the steps of the U.S. District court building in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, to advocate for Project EJECT, according to the article.

Hurst explained that the threat of being shipped away can lower violence. “That’s kind of the deterrent effect that we’re looking at here. I understand the opposing arguments, and that’s definitely a concern.”

The expulsion comes once the person has been convicted, Hurst said. The felon would be incarcerated without parole in the federal system “far, far away from Mississippi,” so that the incarcerated person is unable to continue their criminal activity behind bars.

“…the number of privately held firearms in America has nearly doubled in the last two decades, while the number of gun murders per capita was cut in half.” Reason Magazine December 2017 REASON.COM

The idea is that the criminals would be away from their criminal network, said the Free Press. They would also be removed from their families and any existing support while imprisoned.

Not everyone who has been in prison or involved with efforts to rehabilitate criminals agrees with this approach, however. Sending prisoners far away from their families and expecting them to come back as better citizens doesn’t make sense.

The Free Press reported that every single case Hurst has pursued under Project EJECT involved illegal use or possession of firearms in some way under the initiative.

On Jan. 2, Interim Police Chief Anthony Moore took over the position and has been tight-lipped on virtually all of Jackson’s police matters, including Project EJECT. The Free Press requested an interview with him, but has been denied thus far, the article said.

The citizens of Jackson forced a public comment hearing about Project EJECT, reported the Free Press. On Feb. 27, 2018, during a town hall meeting not every citizen of Jackson supported Project EJECT.

Jacksonian Calandra Davis spoke at great length about the disproportionate effect Project EJECT has on African Americans.

Davis wanted the mayor of Jackson, Chokwe A. Lumumba, to state his opinion of Project EJECT. According to the Free Press, the mayor responded by saying that he does not, nor does his administration, support Project EJECT. 

Recently Phillip Goff, co-founder and president of the Center for Policing Equity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, investigated the risk of removing people from their social support. He told the Free Press in a phone interview that the criminal-legal system tends to target the poorest, most vulnerable, poorly educated, least advantaged and the least connected to opportunities.

“Who among us,” Goff said, “…can be removed from social networks and become better for it? Any policy that removes someone from their social support is not a policy that is aimed at making them more likely to succeed when they re-enter….”

Inmates who are released from prison unprepared are at a great disadvantage when it comes to employment, health care and taking advantage of services on the outside and, hence, more likely to reoffend.

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

Deportation Crimes Explained

John Jay College’s new president worked for Obama


 
 

Indiana hires formerly incarcerated

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Incarcerated men working in the garden

Incarcerated men working in the garden

More and more employers are hiring former inmates with the assistance of Indiana’s state and local government reported the Indianapolis Business Journal. 

“We [aim to] better prepare our offenders for opportunities in today’s economy with more high-demand critical training that they need to succeed once they are out,” Gov. Eric Holcomb said in an interview with the Journal.

One example of these efforts is Indianapolis’ HIRE program. The initiative started in 2012 with 300 employers and has since grown to nearly 1,140 businesses, with a 97 percent retention rate. 

The city of Indianapolis also plans to offer tax breaks to companies that hire ex-offenders. The Metropolitan Development Commission, and possibly the City-County Council, must approve such employment agreements between employers and ex-offenders.

“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/

Brooke Daunhauer, reentry director for the Office of Health and Safety, told the Journal that the department aims to provide inmates with the necessary soft skills and hands-on training that would give former inmates a career pathway upon their release. 

“I’d like them to have an employer willing to hire them when they get out,” Daunhauer said. “That’s something we’re working toward.”

The Journal also reported that “the Indy Chamber recently won a second year of funding for a program that helps formers inmates becomes entrepreneurs.”

Find more information at: www.ibj.com.
http://sanquentinnews.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/

Female correctional officers win lawsuit for hostile work environment

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Corrections Officers guarding the East Gate

Female correctional officers have won a $20 million settlement of a lawsuit claiming sexual harassment and a hostile work environment in federal prisons.

The settlement also includes 20 pages of procedural changes to improve employee safety, including improved training about sexual harassment, better monitoring for processing incident reports, and removing front pockets from inmate clothing to eliminate hidden masturbating.

The settlement resulted after a judge ruled in 2016 in favor of the lawsuit filed by a collective of women working at the nation’s largest male federal prison in Coleman, Fla.

The settlement was one of the largest class-action settlements leveled to date for pervasive sexual harassment, The Washington Post reported Jan. 27.

“These women walked into a high-security prison every day, knowing that they were going to be harassed by inmates and told by male colleagues and supervisors that they shouldn’t be there,” said Heidi Burakiewicz, lead attorney for the case.

The lawsuit alleged that more than 500 female correctional officers, teachers, nurses and office services employees were subjected to a hostile work environment, sex discrimination, and deliberate indifference.

The lead plaintiff was Correctional Officer Taronica White. She said from the first day she started working at the new maximum-security prison, she routinely got catcalls as she walked across the exercise yard post and inmates exposed their private parts to her during count time.

White said she reported the incidents to her superiors. Nevertheless, little to nothing was done to stop the behavior.

The Post reported that another plaintiff said one night she was exposed to 25 to 30 inmates masturbating. “It felt like a free for all … I was afraid for my safety.”

25 percent of millennial-age American men think asking a woman who is not a romantic partner to go for a drink is harassment, according to a recent survey by The Economist/YouGov reports The New York Times 1-17-18.

More than a third of millennial say that if a man compliments a woman’s looks it is harassment, according to a recent survey by The Economist/YouGov reports The New York Times 1-17-18.

Sexual misconduct by the inmates remains a serious problem in a male prison, said Unit Manager Tammy Padgett.

Improvements are being made “but we still have growth to do,” said Shirley Moore Smeal, president of the Association of Women Executives in Corrections. “Some people would still rather not have women working in corrections at all.”

“Women are drawn to these jobs for the same reason anyone would be, they are stable government jobs with low entry requirements,” said Dana Britton, director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.

Prisons provide attractive jobs in pastoral, economically depressed areas. Nevertheless, women’s increasing presence in men’s prisons has often sparked conflict with the men who have traditionally held those jobs.

The Post article says that men’s prisons did not start hiring women until the 1970s, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Today women account for 30 percent of correctional department workers; this includes community-based facilities, juvenile facilities, and jails.

A similar lawsuit involving the District of Columbia Department of Corrections was settled in 1999. Lawsuits have also been filed in New Mexico, Denver and Cook County, Ill.

http://sanquentinnews.com/former-prisoner-files-sexual-harassment-suit/

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