As a journalist, when I do a story profile on an inmate at San Quentin, I first look for individuals who demonstrate a willingness to change. Has he come to terms with and does he understand why he committed his crime?
From sitting in circles with men, I have found that men who struggle with telling the entire truth about their offenses are worried about their images and what others might think. However, as time goes on, people who regularly attend sessions in the circle hear stories very similar to their own. This allows everyone to open up and find his own truth.
Some men sit in prison for 30 or 40 years and are never able to demonstrate to the parole board that they have changed their ways.
Sometimes they have difficulty articulating their insight into the root causes of why they committed their crime. Or sometimes they cannot accept full responsibility for committing their crime.
Stanley L. Baer, 56, from San Diego County is one of those who struggled, but eventually came to terms with his crime.
He appeared before the parole board shortly after the Marsy’s Law was enacted in 2009. This law allowed parole boards to extend the time between parole hearings for lifers by as much as 15 years.
Baer is the second person I know who received a seven-year denial from a parole board. As I read his transcripts, I couldn’t understand why he received a seven-year denial.
Baer was arrested in October of 1995 in Flagstaff, Az., extradited to California and charged with second-degree murder.
“I went to trial because I wanted to tell the truth about my crime,” Baer said. “I also needed Lorie’s family to hear the truth about what happened to their loved one.”
After sentencing, in May of 1996, Baer arrived at the reception center at Richard J. Donavan Correctional Facility. He was later transferred to Pelican Bay.
While at Pelican Bay, he was assigned to building maintenance. He was eventually transferred to a yard where he earned a certificate of completion in mill and cabinet making.
Baer came to San Quentin State Prison in 2002. He said on arriving here he felt like he had been set free. He has completed many programs while here.
During the many times we’ve attended groups together, I came to consider Baer a man who has grown and matured. I’ve always been impressed with how he came to terms with his actions and accepting full responsibility for the murder of his wife Lorie.
During a Victims Offenders Education Group (VOEG) session, he was able to talk about a secret he carried for 47 years.
Baer said when he was 5 years old, his mother put him and his two brothers in bed and set it on fire. His grandmother and father rescued them and had his mother arrested.
She was placed in a mental hospital for five months. When she was released, they were told never to discuss or repeat what happened.
In VOEG, he also revealed that his father didn’t graduate from high school and worked at cutting and baling hay for a penny a bale.
He said that his father did all of this hard work so he could marry his mother. But later, his father became physically abusive to his mother, even in front of Baer’s brothers and sisters.
Baer was devastated when his parents subsequently divorced while he was in the Marine Corps. He joined in 1976 and received an honorable discharge in 1982.
Baer’s mother died in 2004 at age 64. In 1986, his brother Ted had committed suicide. Another brother, George, committed suicide in 1999.
Baer has no juvenile record. His criminal record consists of being arrested in 1988 for assault with a deadly weapon, but the charges were dropped. In 1993 he was arrested again for assault with a deadly weapon and with corporal injury to his spouse. He butted her on the head.
After two failed marriages and having two children, he married his third wife, Lorie. They were married for almost four years before he took her life by strangulation. Baer says he was using a sleeper hold (or choke hold) in an attempt to quiet her down. He admitted their relationship was rocky and abusive.
“It was a bad situation. I should have walked away from it when I had the opportunity,” he said. “Had I known all the coping skills I learned over the years in these programs, this would have never happened and Lorie would be with us today.”
His relationship with his kids is excellent, he says. When they lived close by, he saw them every three months. He has four grandchildren.
The parole board told Baer; that their “sole purpose is to determine his suitability for parole.”
Baer said the board told him that they are not there to retry his case. But just like Baer, other inmates tell me:
“I felt like I was on trial again.”
Commissioner Kane told Baer why he thought he was not suitable for parole. “The offense was carried out in a manner which demonstrates an exceptionally callous disregard for human suffering. The motive of the crime was inexplicable. We don’t know why you killed her. You are a trained Marine, but you might not fully have the insight and remorse of why you did it and be truthful about why you did it”
Baer accepts full responsibility for his crime and does not want to minimize the truth. He knows that if he is found suitable, he must continue to involve himself in the sort of self-help, transformative programs that he participated in while in prison. The process of change takes ongoing dedication.
But the essential question is: what does an inmate have to do to be found suitable for parole if he is always being retried by the parole board for the case that got him into prison?
Like Baer, many incarcerated individuals undergo the hard work that is required of them by various programs to show they have changed and are not the same person they were when they committed their crimes. However, that hard work is not given the full credit that it deserves by the board.
The legal question that the board asks and answers: Is this person a threat to public safety? And, if their answer is yes: Is there some evidence to show his or her dangerousness?
Receiving a life sentence in California is an ongoing and agonizing punishment.
Before facing the parole board, the person understands that a parole date is not automatic. Significant work must be done to affect a change in your life condition.
You have to reconcile your past and present attitude with your proposed future course of conduct and behavior. You must face the truth of your committed offense.
The one big reality you must understand is “insight.”
Baer will appear again before the parole board in January 2016.

In 2008 Warden Robert Ayers removed San Quentin News from the shelf, dusted it off and put the responsibility of managing the newspaper in the hands of a group of inmates advised by retired professional journalists.
In our previous editorial, Steve McNamara wrote about the history of SQ News and how it was revived. What you didn’t read about were the dreams that the inmate staff has to expand the newspaper to nationwide circulation.
The inmate staff is aware of the many challenges they would face to fulfill this endeavor. Nevertheless, they have stayed true to their vision. It has been an enormous challenge to implement these commitments while working with the administration to further our goal. SQ News wants the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to become fully acquainted with our ambitious plans.
We have evidence that our newspaper attracts attention throughout the California prison system and we think it is important to make the newspaper accessible to every prisoner in the state of California.
Our purpose is to educate the inmate population about rehabilitation and changes in criminal justice policies that affect them and their families. Conscious of that obligation, we have prepared a mission statement that reflects our goal.
Our Mission Statement: “We strive to report on forward-thinking approaches in criminal justice policies that support changes in prisoners’ behavior, particularly through rehabilitative efforts.” Our aim is to heighten social awareness that the incarcerated person has something to offer the community.
Since its renaissance, San Quentin News has gained the positive attention of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), where the newspaper is recognized as an official media outlet.
In 2012, Dr. William Drummond from UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism was asked to teach a Patten University class at the prison. When he became aware of the San Quentin News he immediately expressed an interest in working with the newspaper.
The following semester, Drummond brought in some of his UC students, who sat with our writers and helped develop stories. The students were so impressed with the results of these efforts that many of them returned for a second semester.
Six semesters later, visits by Drummond’s journalism students are a regular part of the newspaper. Students eagerly register for his class, wanting to become a partner in the San Quentin News vision.
Dr. Drummond realized that in order for SQ News to meet its goal of putting a newspaper in the hands of every prisoner in CDCR, the staff would require guidance from business professionals.
Professor Drummond helped us broaden our vision by introducing our news program to the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. In 2013, a group of Master of Business Administration (MBA) students from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business began meeting regularly with the SQ News’ staff to plan how to move the newspaper forward.
After weeks of interviewing, evaluating and assessing the feasibility of growing a small newspaper’s operation into a medium-size publication, the MBA students developed a business plan that outlines how SQ News could expand circulation to reach every California prisoner within 12 years.
The project was led by Jon Spurlock, MBA. Once the San Quentin Hass Project Report was completed, he assumed a continuing role as a business adviser to SQ News. His knowledge of business development provides direction on constructing an organization that will diversify and expand its efforts. The newspaper’s internal operation is being morphed to handle future growth. We want our supporters to think of this metamorphosis as analogous to that of a caterpillar and a butterfly.
Within a short time, the SQ News has attracted the attention of major media outlets such as the LA Times, New York Times, Washington Post and CNN. In 2014 SQ News won a James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for “excellence in journalism under extraordinary circumstances.”
With assistance from Spurlock and Jen Lyons of Patten University, SQ News may be able to reach its goal in 10 years and reaching the goal in 15 years would still be considered successful. Of course, SQ News’ ability to grow depends foremost on the cooperation from the administration at San Quentin and CDCR Sacramento.
Paul Cobb, publisher and editor of Post News Group, an Oakland–based news group, was introduced to SQ News staff in 2014 and agreed to support the newspaper development. Cobb has also arranged to publish some of our articles in Post News Group papers to expand SQ News reader base.
The newspaper’s expansion in the seven years since its revival in 2008 has been impressive. It is now read in 21 of the 34 state’s prisons and has a goal to give every prisoner in the system access to the San Quentin News.
For the SQ News to expand its reader base, we must continue to raise the necessary funds. It is important for all financial supporters, subscribers and readers to understand that the path of success will not come easy.
SQ News’ supporters past, present and future also should know that this prison newspaper operates without financial support from the state of California.
As one of the only prisoner-run newspapers in the country, if not the world, we strive to be on the leading edge of prison innovation. We want to lead by example. We want for our fellow prisoners what we want for ourselves. That is, the ability to enhance ourselves with knowledge and embrace truth so that we, too, see our future.

After reading the transcripts of prisoner Duane Edward Holt, it became apparent to me that he is living in an abyss, lost in an enormous black hole with no light. Holt is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. He never knows when he will be released.
At his fourth parole board appearance on Jan. 8, he was denied parole for lack of insight and minimizing his role in the March 24, 1987, murder of Richard John Urban Jr.
Five years later after Holt’s conviction, Robert Curl was found guilty of the same murder. Curl now sits on Death Row at San Quentin, appealing his conviction and sentence.
It is interesting that separate juries found that Holt and Curl pulled the trigger of the same gun that killed Urban.
More interesting is one of the questions posed to Holt by Commissioner Garner: “OK, did you get tried jointly with the shooter?” Holt responded: “No, he got tried five years later.”
I find this exchange interesting because the way this question is framed, Holt was not the shooter.
To be clear, when I talked to Holt, he accepts full responsibility for Urban’s murder. However, since he has not admitted that he was the shooter, the board does not believe his version of the events leading to Urban’s murder. They think he is minimizing his role in the murder and therefore lacks insight.
“What do I say? They tell me to tell the truth,” Holt said. “All I want to do is be transparent with the parole board, and I often feel like I will spend the rest of my life in prison because I will not admit that I pulled the trigger. But if I did that, then I will be lying.”
This is a perfect example of a needed change in parole hearing outcomes. If a prisoner insists that the crime did not happen the way the trial transcripts read, he should not be required to lie and say it did happen that way.
Today, looking back as he tries to explain how irresponsible he used to be, Holt says, “It now makes me feel different in a way that I know I couldn’t go back. Some might think because I’m in prison that I lost my mind, but the fact is that in prison one can choose to live the same lifestyle, but I chose not to.”
He makes no excuses for who he was before coming to prison.
Born Nov. 11, 1959, in Fresno, Holt is one of four children of hard-working parents. Holt said he began using drugs at age 14 to rebel against a very strict and sometimes violent father, who worked 40 years as a carpenter before dying of brain cancer in August 1982.
“As a young man I lived as an outlaw and developed a lifestyle which included being a drug dealer,” Holt said. “I looked up to others in the underworld. These were my role models, and I was always ready to please them.”
Holt said the negative environment he grew up in was grounded in a motorcycle gang mentality. “The culture of drugs made me a slave to methamphetamine. It was all around me as a child; I knew no better.”
In 1979, he married Jeannie Cooper and had two daughters. However, their marriage ended in 1983. Today, he has five grandchildren.
 

“It became too difficult to pull away from

the drugs, the money, and all the criminal drama that goes with it”

 
In spite of the negative environment, Holt said in 1980, he earned a GED and completed a four-year apprenticeship carpenter program, eventually becoming a journeyman carpenter with a local union.
However, he still was in the drug life.
“Since I had no criminal history as a juvenile, and in an effort to save myself from drugs and self-destruction, I joined the Marine Corps at the age of 17 to serve my country,” Holt said. “I achieved rank of lance corporal, but I couldn’t leave that methamphetamine alone.”
Holt said that he didn’t understand the dynamics of the drug life until he was in too deep and over his head.
“It became too difficult to pull away from the drugs, the money, and all the criminal drama that goes with it,” he said. “It turned out to be nothing but a big whirlwind of destruction for a young man with no real sense of direction.”
He told me that all he wants to do now is help others not to become the product of a destructive culture.
“It has taken me years to unravel my life and to get a grip on my wrongs,” Holt said. “I’ve done more since arriving at San Quentin than what I’ve done in 28 years of being incarcerated,” referring to completing a vocational trade, and certification programs for building maintenance.
He said he regularly attends Narcotics Anonymous, SQUIRES, Kid CAT, the Richmond Project and Restorative Justice meetings. He has also completed non-violent communications, Hope for Strikers, Anger Management, a domestic violence course, Teaching Responsibility Utilizing Sociological Teaching and House of Healing.
Holt’s sobriety dates back to 1996. He says, “I struggled when I first came to prison because all I wanted to do was fit in. That’s the way it has been throughout my life.”
Today, Holt said that all of the programs have made him realize that he’s carried a lot of resentment, shame, guilt and a poor opinion of himself. He said those feelings stem from a poor relationship with his father.
“I have a loving but distant relationship with my children,” he said. “I have five beautiful grandchildren and used to get visits with them when my mother was alive to bring them to me.” His mother labored for years in a planing mill. She died in February 2014.

A decade and a half ago, Californians passed a ballot measure to provide drug offenders with treatment instead of jail time. Recently, a state appeals court clarified Proposition 36, saying addiction treatment must be given, unless the offender poses a danger to the public.
The case stems from a parolee who was sentenced to county jail for drug possession. After the jail term, he was given a parole violation and sent to state prison. He challenged the prison sentence, saying he should have been given drug treatment according to the 2000 ballot measure, and the court agreed that he should not have been sent to prison.
As I reflect on my own struggles, the concept of drug rehabilitation instead of prison is personal because all the crimes I committed were directly tied to my addiction.
Now, as I wait to see if I will qualify for the elderly parole program known as SB 224, which would allow me to appear before the parole board and seek suitability, I envision getting out of prison after 15 or 25 years and going home to my loved ones. Release in 15 years would be contingent upon SB 224 passing, while release within 25 years would be possible under the current policy.
I’m excited by the prospect of not waking up to a guard’s voice blaring over a loud speaker, chow release fifth tier, work release, the yard opening or hearing my name being called to report somewhere. It will be a new life once I get out of prison, and there will be a set of rules different from those I have dealt with while locked up.
 

“You didn’t learn the first time.

Maybe this time you’ll learn something”

 
I envision having a job and making new friends. My new friends will probably be accustomed to going out for a beer or two after work. When they do, I won’t be able to join them because I can’t drink. I don’t want to be in an environment where I could easily slip up.
But as much as I try to be careful, there’s always “The Test.”
It will happen one day when one of my new friends edges me on, not understanding that I must abide by a different set of rules.
I’m familiar with this type of peer pressure. The old me had so many tests like this, brought about when I didn’t want to feel left out by not joining the party. Back then I failed those tests by not recognizing how peer pressure made my addiction harder to deal with.
It took me years of incarceration and programs to understand why I felt the way I did. I learned I had abandonment issues and was afraid, and that I wanted to be accepted — to fit in.
My drug and alcohol addiction led me to commit crime after crime. Each time, when I was caught and put in jail, I would beg for help. However, the system wasn’t geared to look at my addiction and how I dealt with it differently.
In 1974, a judge told me, “You didn’t learn the first time. Maybe this time you’ll learn something.” I was sent to prison, where the help I needed was not available, yet drugs were everywhere.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to learn as the judge said; I just didn’t know what I had to learn. I didn’t know about techniques that would help me change my criminal or addictive thinking or how to manage my emotions. That’s what addiction does to you, and it’s something the criminal justice system needs to understand. Many courts and substance abuse experts have only recently found that addiction is not a crime, but a disease.
Looking back on my life, what I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter where an addict is — if they ask for help and are not helped, their negative behavior will continue. Addicts who are locked up need more opportunities for treatment. If not, bad choices will continue to negatively affect everybody — guards, prisoners and, once released, the community again.
The solution is not so difficult. No matter the crime, if an individual is suffering from addiction, the best policy is treatment. Treating the addiction would stop the criminal behavior that drives them to support the drug habit. It would make the community safer by default.
Lately, some lifers are being sent back to prison because of substance abuse. They’re explaining where they went wrong to the board, to their fellow inmates and to their supporters.
Seeing inmates returned to prison for being under the influence made me consider the idea behind Prop. 36 and the different set of rules applied to convicts and parolees.
All of the lifers who are back because they violated the substance abuse clause in their parole terms must appear before the parole board for a suitability hearing. The question the board should asks itself is basic: “Did using drugs while on parole make you a danger to public safety?” If the answer it finds is “yes,” the inmate has to reappear before the board in a year and try again. This process can go on indefinitely.
The same dilemma has another feature for lifers who are doing time and need to establish a parole date: If that person is caught using drugs in prison and given a rules violation, then he or she has to explain to the board why they were using drugs and why treatment was not sought.
Most of the time, the board tells the person to get treatment and schedules the next parole date at three years. There’s a provision that allows the person to come back in one year, if there are extraordinary circumstances or new evidence to support an earlier hearing. But, in the extreme case, the board is fully authorized to schedule the next hearing 15 years later.
In California, there are multiple ways to deal with addiction, depending on who is evaluating the person and where that person is living. If the addict is on the streets, there is one set of rules. If the person is locked up, there’s another.
I end with this question: If someone has cancer and treatment requires several doses of chemotherapy to cure him, is locking him up for treatment necessary?