On a sunny Bay Area day, six prosecutors took the time to make a two-hour trip from Santa Clara to San Quentin to discuss rehabilitation, sentence recalls, and racial justice at a San Quentin News forum with the Santa Clara County District Attorneys office.
Eleven residents met David Angel, Adam Flores, Maurilia Luevano, Alisa Esser-Kahn, Shalese Huang, and Tyrone Wilson in the SQTV studio. They formed a circle facilitated by resident Vince Turner.
Angel joked that coming into San Quentin felt like having a reservation at a fancy restaurant, but the conversation soon turned serious.
“Every time I first see a defendant, I see him at a low point in his life, as a person who does not want to go to prison,” said Angel, the prosecutor who arranged the visit.
Angel said many defendants “come in with priors, so 100% of the people I see have failed. It would be really helpful to see them here in a more human setting. I know that they did terrible things.” Angel paused and surveyed participants. After a moment, he continued with a different tone. “What I thought at age 19 or 20 is totally different from now.”
Resident Bernard Ballard followed up on Angel’s positive note. He said, “Our recidivism rate runs really low. How does that play out in resentencing?”
Angel replied, “When I look to recall a sentence, I look for a positive development. If you got issue on racial justice, talk to us.”
Ballard asked Angel whether anyone had taken steps that would let offenders work with someone for preventive measures. “What steps has your office taken to talk to kids?”
Angel replied that his office often stepped up if they saw a need.
Flores added, “We work very closely with schools. Positive mentors can truly change someone. We want to make sure that offenders go to school. I want students to participate in pro-social activities. They build skills and they do not even know that they are doing it. I am very proud that we can do something for them.”
Angel said, “If a crime was very serious, I have to go to the community, to the family of the victims, and I have to have something to put in front of them. Was the original sentence too long? Can one say, ‘No one today would get such a long sentence’? A judge has to approve it and no judge ever refused us.”
“We want to look at a journey of a person,” Angel continued. “I want to know what was the moment at which they have changed. Do they have write-ups? We all know that recidivism goes down as one gets older. What would have changed? Someone who has committed a lot of small crimes would seem more difficult to rehabilitate than someone who has done one big crime.”
Esser-Kahn said she worked on cases in which mental health played a part and she often worked with persons in mental hospitals. “Some victims have not heard from us in 40 years. Victim advocates are very important.”
She said most of the people she worked with had committed murders. “Did they misunderstand the crime? I still have contact with the victims’ families. Will they keep taking their medications? I have all these professionals that tell me about these defendants. I look at who these people are now and I see them ten years later and they have succeeded.”
Wilson, in his job for 12 years, said he specialized in mental health treatment cases: “The DA’s office does not keep track of treatment of offenders. I wonder if it would benefit our victims. The resources are not there. We reframe the lens on how these crimes are committed. When I applied to law school, I wrote in my essay ‘the ink on this page does not define the man’ and this is how we should look at a defendant. One thing I want to know: what was the nexus that made you want to change? Time — or something else?”
Huang said she dealt with resentencing and prosecutor-initiated recalls. “We are all cognizant that the criminal justice system has multiple stakeholders. We are trying to recalibrate how cases handled before all to benefit inmates. We are trying to find reasons to bring these back to court.”
About prosecutor-initiated recalls, Huang said, “If no other avenues exist, we now have this one. Not too many inmates have the opportunity to program in the first ten years. What has transpired in 15 years of incarceration? Justice holds a scale while blindfolded. The importance of the blindfold says that prejudices do not exist.”
San Quentin News editor-in-chief Marcus Henderson concluded the forum, saying, “The crime will never change. There are lots of success stories out there.”
