San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Youth Coaches Told Why They Are So Important

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A team of prisoners met with youth coaches from the San Francisco Bay Area in San Quentin’s Protestant Chapel on Feb. 28. They talked about young people’s understanding of masculinity and the role coaches play in their lives.

Coaching4Life aims to show coaches how to maximize the impact they have on young athletes.

“We believe that youth coaches are the most influential people in their lives,” said Coaching4Life facilitator Brandon Terrell. “You may think that it’s the job of the parents, but 20 million kids are growing up without a father. I’m one of them.” He added, “Sports are in the perfect position to show young boys how to serve others and be committed to a cause bigger than themselves.”

Terrell went on to say that 92% of high school dropouts didn’t play sports, while 95% of Fortune 500 executives played high school sports and gave credit to their sports experience for their successes in life.

Coaching4Life was a one-day workshop that discussed how the definition of “man” changed since childhood, the wide range of teachings that coaches impart on youth, how to teach masculinity and “The Man Box.” The workshop also focused on defining success.

“I loved growing up in The Man Box,” Ronald Carter said. “I got picked first.”

Carter talked about the respect he gained by putting on the “tough guy” persona and how being called the wrong name, like sissy or chump, was serious business.

“If you call me one of those names, I’d go off. I’d want to fight,” Carter said. “Those names take us out of the box.”

Carter went on to talk about how maturity shifted his perspective about masculinity. Today, he says, he’s on a mission to help younger athletes.

“Show me the man you honor, and I’ll show you the man you want to be,” Carter said.

The workshop participants formed small groups to discuss each topic.

Some participants defined success as “being able to ask for help without being ashamed or to say that I love my family.” Others, “setting goals and seeing them through,” “being a positive influence,” “being happy and in a healthy relationship,” and understanding that “coaches are teachers and kids are sponges,” as well as, “coaches are authority figures that young athletes look up to.”

Kevin Sample, one of the facilitators, talked about the time coaches spend with young athletes.

“Each day my mother got 10 minutes with me, that same day my coach got four hours,” Sample said. “So, having coaches that teach life skills is important.”

Sample talked about how young kids pay attention to athletes and model the behavior they see.

He then challenged the audience to connect with the children in order “to change the world,” adding, “Our biggest problem is that we hide our brokenness from children.”

What is success? he asked. “Remember that children just don’t know— help our kids, heal their brokenness.”

The Coaching4Life facilitators have 266 years combined incarceration experience—the youngest, Juan Navarro, 33 years old, has been incarcerated for nine years.

“Nothing like this is happening in any other prison,” said Dwight Kennedy. “The volunteers could be doing something different, but they choose to come and do this.”

Some states fail to adopt court ruling favoring juvenile LWOPs

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By Kerry Rudd, Journalism Guild Writer

Hundreds of prisoners sentenced to life without the possibility of parole as juveniles now find themselves eligible to apply for resentencing, but need help to gain a hearing.

The Supreme Court held in 2012 that mandatory life without parole for juveniles was unconstitutional in Miller v. Alabama . California adopted Senate Bill 9 in 2013 that allows juvenile LWOPs to apply for re-sentencing.

Before 2012 “there were only five states that banned juvenile sentences of life without the possibility of parole, and that number has since grown to 22 states and D.C.,” reported Oct. 21.

Despite the Miller decision and California’s model for resentencing, some other states have refused to follow suit, the story reported.

Montgomery v. Louisiana hit the docket after Louisiana contested making the Miller decision retroactive. The court ruled that juvenile-sentenced LWOPs would receive retroactive relief. Yet the Montgomery decision did not outline how they should get their cases reviewed, according to the news report

“There was no letter that was received by these individuals in prison, so they had to self-identify, file to get back into court, get lawyers and make their case for re-sentencing,” said Jody Kent Lavy of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.

Lavy estimates there were about 2,600 juvenile LWOPs prior to the Miller ruling. She says only 1,700 have been resentenced.

The Michigan Department of Corrections contains one of the largest populations of juvenile LWOP cases with 181 individuals yet to be re-sentenced, according to the state records.

Two of these men have been incarcerated for 50 years each. They were 17 years old when their crimes occurred.

One is Clifton Gibson, sentenced to life without parole plus 18 years and 4 months for murder. He was released after 25 years following passage of a state law requiring a review of LWOP juveniles.

Gibson now works full-time at a non-profit agency which provides resources to ex-cons. He’s also on pace to receive his bachelor’s degree.

“I think everyone is capable of changing who they were,” he said.

Advocates of these laws say juveniles have a higher capacity to reform. They argue children aren’t psychologically developed enough to understand the societal consequences of their actions.

“There’s a trend to move away from these sentences altogether,” says Lavy. “I think it just reflects a broad understanding of the fact that kids shouldn’t be condemned to die in prison for mistakes they made at a time that they were still developing.”

California court rules against juveniles under 16 tried as adults

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A California appellate court ruled in late April that juveniles under the age of 16 cannot be tried as adults—or face adult life sentences.

The court upheld the new law established last year under Senate Bill 1391. Solano County prosecutors attempted to challenge SB1391 in the case of Alexander Cervantes—a young man who was 14 when he committed the attempted murder and sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl, said the San Francisco Chronicle.

The new law acknowledges “overwhelming scientific evidence that children who are 14 years old have a fundamentally different brain functioning and level of culpability,” said Peter Obstler, attorney for Cervantes. “Not like an adult criminal.”

SB1391 serves to recognize this now accepted scientific fact regarding youth offenders.

As it stands, “juvenile life” sentences mean the offenders can only be held in custody until they are 25. Cervantes previously had been tried as an adult and handed a 61-years-to-life sentence under statutes in place since 1995.

Solano County’s prosecution team tried to argue that 2016’s Proposition 57 permitted Cervantes’ adult life sentence to remain because Prop. 57 included wording that allows a juvenile-court judge discretion to transfer a juvenile’s case into adult court.

Prop. 57 “left in place mechanisms to protect the public from violent offenders who preyed on the innocent, took advantage of the vulnerable, and acted with violence,” said Solano County’s court filing. Because Prop. 57 was enacted through the statewide vote of the people, the prosecutors argued that it could not be circumvented by a legislative bill.

In the First District Court of Appeal’s 3-0 ruling, Justice Alison Tucher stated that Prop. 57 “sought to promote juvenile rehabilitation by channeling more minors into the juvenile system”—a system theoretically geared toward creating educational and training opportunities for its youth, said the Chronicle.

SB1391 “is consistent with and furthers Proposition 57’s goal of emphasizing rehabilitation,” said Tucher.

She also noted that advocates of Prop. 57 say keeping young offenders within the juvenile justice system— rather than mixing them into adult courts—actually increases and promotes public safety because “minors who remain under juvenile court supervision are less likely to commit new crimes.”

Solano County may still continue to argue against Cervantes’ reduced sentence by challenging the appellate ruling in California’s Supreme Court.

Prop. 57 allows a juvenile court judge the discretion to consider a juvenile offender’s criminal and personal history, their capacity for rehabilitation, as well as the very nature of their charged crime—and based on that criteria, determine whether their case belongs in an adult court.

SB1391, which took effect at the onset of 2019, prevents any offender under the age of 16 from being prosecuted as an adult. Therein lies the crux of this ongoing legal debate.

And although youth of- fenders sentenced to juvenile life face release at the age of 25, the juvenile court system still holds the authority to order a “safety hold” to continue detention if necessary— either in a medical center, mental health facility or some other secure institution.

Once facing a lifetime behind bars, some now offered a chance at freedom

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Juveniles sentenced to die in California prisons now have the chance to go home—if they can prove they have rehabilitated.

To help them achieve that goal, two attorneys are providing workshops to help juvenile offenders prepare for the Board of Parole Hearings that will determine their fate.

“(Elizabeth) Calvin and (Heidi) Rummel are working to help those still behind bars prepare for parole hearings that they never expected to have.” That is why the pair went to Corcoran in September and were at Kern Valley State Prison a few weeks earlier, The Nation reports.

“At Corcoran they met with three separate groups of inmates throughout the day. Each inmate was given the chance to speak individually with a law student and talk informally with…two other former juveniles (sentenced to life without parole (JL-WOP).”

One of those former juvenile LWOPs in attendance was Joel Aguilar, 41, who was released in December 2015. Aguilar is one of only 14 California Juvenile LWOPs who’ve been released since Senate Bill 9 was passed in 2013.

Addressing the inmates at the workshop, Aguilar said, “I know what it is to walk around that track thinking that this is where you’re going to die. You know what? It’s over. You guys are coming home.”

Although there is reason for optimism, to be actually released from prison by the parole board is not guaranteed.

“Juvenile LWOPs are at a distinct disadvantage; most are ill prepared for both parole-board hearings and life outside,” The Nation reported.

One of the main criteria by the Board to find someone suitable for parole is a demonstration of rehabilitation by participating in programs. However this is nearly impossible for most inmates serving LWOP.

“Those of us who are LWOPs are considered the worst of the worst, hopeless and beyond redemption, which is why we are not a priority in rehabilitation since we have no parole,” said Timothy L. Bludworth, LWOP inmate at Tehachapi State Prison.

“I pray something will change.”

Despite the challenges juvenile LWOPs face in obtain- ing programs for rehabilitation, change is still possible.

“My mistakes were the constant finger-pointing and blatant refusal of any responsibility for my actions,” Bludworth said.

“I’m so sorry to my victims for the pain and harm I have caused them.”

Regardless of the positive changes Juvenile LWOPs may be able to demonstrate, some victim advocates do not want them to be paroled.

One is Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins, whose sister and brother-in-law and the couple’s unborn child were murdered.

For years, Bishop-Jenkins advocated against the death penalty. She said she was comfortable doing so because she knew her sister’s killer would never get out. When she learned he might one day be released she was shocked.

“I believe that there are a few very dangerous people in this world and that age has nothing to do with that dangerous aspect,” said Bishop-Jenkins, who is also leader of National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Murderers.

The Nation article noted, however, that according to a 2008 Human Rights Watch report, as many as 45 percent of California’s juvenile LWOPS had not killed anyone. Often they were tried as co-defendants with adult offenders and received longer sentences.

While the obstacles for a juvenile LWOP to be found suitable for parole are considerable, there are still things lifers can do to improve their chances.

At the mock hearing, Rummel posed several questions to be answered. What did you do? Why did you do it? How did you change? The questions are easy, she said, but the answers are not. “There were so many who…couldn’t let themselves believe that there was a chance they were going to go home,” Rummel said. “But (they) got to do this (and) start believing.” Currently there are about 300 juveniles serving life without parole in California.

Elizabeth Calvin is a senior advocate in the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. Heidi Rummel is the co-director of the Post-Conviction Justice Project at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

Both women also helped to spearhead the vast majority of juvenile justice reform legislation in California over the past decade.

Jóvenes encarcelados encaran discriminación en sentencias

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Las herramientas para evaluar – el riesgo que representan los ofensores fueron diseñadas para disminuir prejuicio a la hora de dictar una sentencia, sin embargo podrían estar causando discriminación contra los infractores juveniles, reporta Wendy Sawyer del Prison Policy Initiative.

Esta evaluación toma en consideración muchos factores que pueden incrementar el riesgo de estas personas, los cuales incluyen antecedentes criminales y la edad. Los jueces utilizan estas herramientas para dictar sentencia. Las audiencias de libertad condicional confían en ellas para determinar la elegibilidad de los infractores.

Megan T. Stevenson y Christopher Slobogin descubrieron que “los ofensores de 18 años obtienen calificaciones que en promedio son dos veces más altas que los ofensores de 40 años”.

Los jóvenes a menudo reciben un calificación que refleja “alto riesgo” sin tomar en consideración la diferencia entre su desarrollo en relación a los adultos.

Stevenson y Slobogin encontraron que muchos jueces no conocían todos los factores que fueron considerados en las evaluaciones de los jóvenes y a menudo clasificaron de alto riesgo a las personas sin una explicación sobre cómo llegaron a esa conclusión.

Ese desconocimiento crea serias implicaciones legales y éticas y también ocasiona que los jueces cometan la misma clase de errores que estas herramientas deberían prevenir.

La juventud es una “espada de doble filo”, apuntan Stevenson y Slobogin. Los infractores juveniles son catalogados menos culpables, pero también son considera- dos de alto riesgo para cometer actos de violencia. A lo largo de la nación, los jueces a menudo atribuyen a los ofensores juveniles menor culpabilidad al sentenciarlos. Sin embargo, los métodos que se utilizan para determinar el nivel de riego no consideran este aspecto.

Stevenson y Slobogin analizaron el COMPAS Violent Recidivism Score (VRRS), una de las principales herramientas de evaluación. Los resultados indican que “la edad constituye aproximadamente el 60% del resultado de la examinación”.

El estudio examinó otros siete algoritmos de la evaluación y descubrió que cada uno de ellos considera la juventud igual o más importante que los antecedentes criminales al determinar el riesgo de los infractores jóvenes. Esto ocasiona que el juez perciba el carácter del ofensor de una manera injusta, lo cual influye la sentencia impuesta.

Una encuesta reciente a los jueces de Virginia, reveló que únicamente el 29% tenían “conocimiento pleno” de las herramientas que estaban utilizando, mientras el 22% no tenían “conocimiento” o únicamente “un poco de conocimiento”. En Virginia, los resultados de la evaluación del riesgo de los ofensores vienen con una recomendación de sentencia, reportó Sawyer.

Las evaluaciones para determinar el riesgo se complican aún más por los factores agravantes y mitigantes, tales como trastornos por el abuso de sustancias, enfermedades mentales y desventajas socioeconómicas.

Los jueces y las comisiones de libertad condicional pueden ejercer discreción al realizar recomendaciones, pero como Stevenson y Slobogin señalan, no puedes contrarrestar la influencia negativa que la etiqueta de “alto riesgo” tendrá en los ofensores.

Kid CAT’s hygiene drive raises money for homeless youth

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Kid CAT members with hygiene products donated from the residents of San Quentin for Huckleberry Youth Multi-Service Center

A group of San Quentin prisoners collected money and hygiene items for Bay Area homeless youths. 

“Even in prison, guys got that spirit of giving,” said Gregory “Eagle” Coates, a member of the youth offender organization Kid CAT. 

Gregory Coates, Tommy Ross, Nou Phang Pang and Kid CAT Chairman Si Dang loading hygiene products in the rain

“It’s always rewarding, especially for the guys that’ve had the experience of being homeless kids themselves. A lot of guys in Kid CAT know about that,” Coates added. 

The group pounded the pavement daily throughout October, November and December to collect donated hygiene items and inmate trust account donation funds for the Huckleberry Youth Multi-Service Center. The San Francisco-based organization provides care and housing to homeless and at-risk kids. 

The men of Kid CAT asked their peers to contribute whatever they could spare for a collective donation. 

Kid CAT is a self-help group that primarily serves offenders who committed their crimes at a young age. 

“We’ve collected hygiene for other organizations in the past, but we’ve been giving to Huckleberry House for the last three years because of the connection to underprivileged youths,” Coates explained. 

Chase Benoit, Thanh Tran amd Ryan Dietz unloading soap bars

Outside volunteers Phil and Gail Towle helped deliver the hygiene items to a Huckleberry representative on Jan. 6. 

Cody Brown, Mark Hensley and Joe Hancok organizing hygiene products

Kid CAT members sorted the items and put them in about 50 individual care packs containing soap, shampoo, toothpaste, lotion and deodorant. 

“You guys are undiscovered treasures,” said Phil Towle. “Gail and I are the lucky ones because we get to see firsthand your heartfelt desire to serve the world. 

“You guys give because it’s in your bones. That’s the unspoken and deepest truth I see – you give not because you’re trying to pay back society but because your hearts care about the well being of other human beings.” 

Nou Phang Thao, the last of the original founding Kid CAT members still incarcerated, has experienced and witnessed the effects of giving from one’s heart. 

“What I’ve seen myself is how great a feeling it is for the guys that do walk the tiers every night, speaking and interacting with everyone in their unit,” said Thao. “They may not realize it when they first sign up for that duty, but man – it’s powerful stuff. 

“You can talk about ‘being of service’ all you want, but when you get out there and actually do it, you really feel it.” 

Coates said with a smile, “There’s always some guys in their cells and on the tiers being sarcastic – you know, saying, ‘Hey, what about me? I need a donation. (Others) are very giving.” 

“A huge part of Kid CAT’s mission is to serve our entire community” 

After years of being the driving force behind the hygiene campaign, Coates stepped aside to allow Miguel Sifuentes the opportunity to hone his organizational skills on this year’s event. 

“Eagle’s still the heart and soul,” said Sifuentes. “I just helped out with keeping track of all the paperwork.” 

Kid CAT raised close to $1,200 for this year’s drive – all from inmate trust account donations, some as little as $5. KidCAT members in each housing unit engaged in a fierce but friendly competition to see which unit would generate the most contributions, with West Block winning hands down. 

“We always try and put together as many bags as we can,” said Coates. “But with the money we raise, they can get more bang for the buck out there than what we have to spend at the store in here. 

“Molly Brown, the lady we work with at Huckleberry House, always seems really touched by the men in prison who are willing to give — ‘really impressed that you guys would do that.’ ” 

“A huge part of Kid CAT’s mission is to serve our entire community,” explained Kid CAT Chairman Si Dang. “It makes us feel human, and it’s such a valuable lesson to encourage and instill in incarcerated youths.” 

On a stormy Sunday, the SQ Firehouse provided a truck to carry the hygiene bags from inside the prison out to the parking lot, where the Towles waited to meet with Molly Brown. 

“I’m just humbled and deeply moved by the passion and involvement of Phil and Gail Towle,” said Dang. “They sacrificed their time, stood out in the heavy rain to deliver the goods, and did it all with a great spirit. That’s just who they are.” 

Kid CAT Chairman Si Dang’s 2019 youth address

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For many of us who are incarcerated, the ultimate dream is freedom. The question of whether we will achieve that dream, however, often lies in our pursuit of it. 

Kid CAT members

My name is Si Dang, and I am the new chairman of Kid CAT. Over the last 22 years, I have pursued my freedom in a variety of ways, many of them dysfunctional and leading me right back to where I started: without freedom and with no meaningful change in who I was. 

It was not until six years ago that I finally tapped into my courage and begin facing my personal issues, which ultimately lead me on the road towards my pursuit of freedom and the change I was after. 

It is now my purpose as the new leader of Kid CAT to bring that change and pursuit of freedom to all of our members and the youth, which we represent. 

It is my hope that I might serve Kid CAT with a spirit of accountability and change that inspires each of us to find the courage to not only pursue our most important dreams, but achieve them.

In fact, it is with this spirit in mind that I would like to thank our out-going chairman, Charlie Spence, for his many years of service, leadership, and mentorship to our organization and members. 

It is under Charlie’s guidance that our organization has thrived and Kid CAT successfully achieved many of its goals and objectives in 2018. 

For example, in 2018, Kid CAT officially implemented the Power Source curriculum in its Youth Offender Program (YOP) “BE-IT.” At the same time our First-Step Childhood Development curriculum graduated over 40 individuals and has now entered into a new cycle with new participants. 

We also helped raised over $15,000 for Project Avary, and raised close to a $1,000 in support of The Beat Within program through our Foodsale.

Additionally, in October we hosted our annual banquet to raise awareness of the “forgotten” voices of youth, highlighting youth violence and the power of restorative justice to heal. 

Both inside and outside guests shared their personal stories while representatives from the Huckleberry House, Project Avary, The Beat Within and long-time Kid CAT volunteer, Bev Shelby, spoke about the importance of advocacy and volunteerism within our communities and institutions. 

In 2018, five Kid CAT members who served life sentences paroled, two of which were commuted by the Governor. They are all now being productive members of their communities. 

Additionally, this past Thanksgiving, five more of our Kid CAT members had their life sentences commuted by the Governor, bringing the total to seven commutations. 

With the departure of our members, we invited five new faces into Kid CAT all of who are (YOP) inmates. All of who have shown tremendous potential and willingness to carry on Kid CAT’s mission of creating awareness and community service. 

Going into 2019, we are excited to get to work. Some of our goals include expanding our charity work with the Huckleberry House, Avary Project and The Beat Within.

With our partners, we hope to bring greater awareness to the issues of homelessness, youth with incarcerated parents, and the overall challenges that youth offenders face in the juvenile justice system. 

Additionally, it is our organization’s goal to expand the accessibility of Kid CAT Speaks page in the San Quentin News as a platform for more youth offenders to share their voices and send messages of hope and gratitude.

We also plan to increase accessibility of our Childhood Development curriculum to more incarcerated individuals in other prisons.

Since making our Childhood Development curriculum available, three of our paroled Kid CAT members hosted an orientation of the curriculum at Lancaster State Prison. We also held a joint training with volunteers from Tracy State Prison who will be starting a Kid CAT curriculum there. 

It is also our goal to advocate for provisions that would allow youth offenders to earn milestone and RAC credits toward their youth offender date as opposed to their minimum eligible parole date (MEPD). 

Throughout the new year, our organization will be working toward becoming more transparent in our individual and collective efforts to uphold the integrity of our goals and vision. 

It is our objective to begin to hold each other more accountable for our actions while administering higher standards of professionalism within the organization. 

It is our hope that transparency and accountability will translate into a stronger group and individual commitment in supporting and advocating for all youth offenders. 

In closing, this year, Kid CAT would like to inspire everyone to pursue their dreams and find the courage to face the new challenges that may stand in their way. There is nothing that one cannot achieve without hard work. 

We encourage all of you to take advantage of new opportunities and work to create meaningful change in your lives and, in the process, make your dreams a reality. 

“All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.”-Walt Disney

Risk assessment tools designed against youth offenders

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Risk assessment tools designed to decrease prejudice in sentencing may be causing discrimination toward youth offenders, reports Wendy Sawyer for the Prison Policy Initiative.

These risk assessment tools score people based on many factors that can add to risk, including criminal history and age. Judges use them when sentencing, and parole boards rely on them to determine parole suitability.

“Eighteen-year-old defendants have risk scores that are, on average, twice as high as 40-year-old defendants,” law professors Megan T. Stevenson and Christopher Slobogin found.

Juveniles are often given a score of “high-risk,” with no regard to their developmental difference from adults. 

In a recent academic paper by Stevenson and Slobogin, they determined that many judges did not know all the factors that went into these risk assessment algorithms and often receive classifications of risk without an explanation about what led to the determination. 

This raises serious ethical and legal implications when judges who use these assessment tools don’t fully understand them. They’re also causing judges to make the same sort of discriminatory errors that the tools are supposed to prevent. 

Youth is a “double-edged sword,” according to Stevenson and Slobogin, as youth offenders are seen as less culpable, but they are also seen as having a higher risk of violence. Judges across the nation often consider the diminished culpability of juvenile defendants when sentencing them, but risk assessment tools don’t.

Stevenson and Slobogin analyzed the COMPAS Violent Recidivism Risk Score (VRRS), one of the leading risk assessment tools. They found that “roughly 60 percent of the risk score it produces is attributable to age.” 

The study examined seven other risk assessment algorithms and found that each of them considers youth to be equal or more important than criminal history in determining risk. This causes a judge’s perception of the defendant’s character to be unfairly affected, which also impacts sentencing.

In a recent survey of Virginia judges, only 29 percent of them were found to be “very familiar” with the risk assessment tool they were using, while 22 percent were either “unfamiliar” or only “slightly familiar” with it. In Virginia, risk assessment scores come with sentencing recommendations, Sawyer reports.

Risk assessments are further complicated by both mitigating and aggravating factors such as substance use disorders, mental illness and socioeconomic disadvantages.

Judges and parole boards can exercise discretion when making determinations, but, as Stevenson and Slobogin point out, you can’t undo the negative influence that a “high-risk” label will have .

Kid CAT curriculum now available

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Attention Readers: Kid CAT Childhood development curriculum and facilitator manual is now available. 

If you are interested in creating a Kid CAT branch/youth offender support group at your institution, please have your sponsor/volunteer or community partnership manager contact Kid CAT Speaks c/o San Quentin News, 1 Main Street, San Quentin, CA 94964 for a copy of our curriculum and facilitator’s manual.

The curriculum’s objective is to help participants address the root causes of criminal thinking, childhood trauma and violent behavior. It accomplishes this by helping participants explore three phases of their lives:

Past (childhood to pre-conviction)

Present (current incarceration) 

Future (post-release). 

The 26-week curriculum is broken into eight modules: 

Masculinity 

Self-identity

Identifying emotions

Consequences 

Communication

Environmental influences

Compassion

Empathy and forgiveness

A typical session consists of written assignments, self-exploration, lectures and group discussion.

CA court orders new board hearing for youth offender William Palmer

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A California State Court of Appeal ruled that the Board of Parole Hearings (Board) denied parole without considering the youth of William Palmer, who committed kidnapping for robbery as a juvenile. The court ordered the board to give Palmer a new parole hearing and consider his age at the time of the crime.

“Considering the Board’s statutory obligation to give “great weight” to those (youth) factors, its decision to find Palmer unsuitable for release, despite the presence of almost all the variables the Board itself has deemed indicative of statutory youth offender factors, cannot stand.” (First Appellate District, Division Two of the Court of Appeal of California. In re Palmer 27 Cal.App.5th 120)

The youth offender laws requires the Board to presume a person who committed their crime when they were under 26 years old suitable for release “unless there is substantial evidence” the youth offender remains an unreasonable risk to public safety.

In 1988, Palmer, a 17-year-old high school dropout pled guilty to kidnapping for robbery and was sentenced as an adult to 15 years to life with the possibility of parole. He appeared before the Board 10 times, without success. 

In June of 2015, Palmer received a five-year parole denial as a result of two rule violations he received for using an illegal cell phone in 2012 to tell his sister their mother died and giving a T-shirt to his girlfriend during a visit in 2014, court records show.

Board, in making their determination, did not give “great weight” to the fact Palmer committed his crime when he was 17 years old and the changes he has made since.

The First Appellate District found that denying Palmer youth offender parole was arbitrary and capricious because the Board did not give “great weight” to the statutory youth factors and the Board did not explain why Palmer’s two rule violations were substantial evidence that outweighed all of his other positive achievements that he had accomplished while incarcerated.

During his incarceration, Palmer obtained his high school diploma, earned an Associate in Arts degree, joined Arts in Corrections and learned how to paint; he sold some of his artwork and painted three murals on the prison grounds. He also participated in a range of self-help programs, including substance abuse and victim impact, the Long-Term Offender Pilot Program, courses on conflict resolution and anger management, faith-based self-improvement programs, Narcotics Anonymous, Criminal Gangs and Violence Prevention Program; tutored other youth offenders; volunteered as an inmate peer health educator; and participated in the Visiting Beautification Project. Palmer also had solid parole plans, letters of support from family, friends, prison staff and correctional officers, and community volunteers. 

The court noted that the statutory “great weight” provision of the youth factors “diminishes the Board’s discretion to determine the basis upon which suitability or unsuitability for release may be determined.”

UPDATE: On January 16, 2019, as this article was going to print, the California Supreme Court granted review in In re Palmer, Case Number S252145 and ordered that the opinion filed September 13, 2018 which appears at 27 Cal.App.5th 120 be de-published. Therefore, this case may not be cited for precedence. The questions presented on review may take up to a year to decide. 

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