San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

SB620 would let judges waive gun enhancements

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Senate Bill 620, currently before the California legislature, if passed, will provide judges the power to waive gun enhancements.

Currently, gun enhancement laws, Penal Code 12022.5 and 12022.53, require mandatory additional terms of three years to 25-to-life for each victim. These enhancements often mean serving long consecutive sentences for crimes committed with a firearm.

For example, an armed robbery, which carries about five years, would net an additional mandatory 10-year sentence if committed with a gun.

“…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

“This bill would delete the prohibition on striking an allegation or finding and, instead, would allow a court, in the interest of justice and at the time of sentencing or resentencing, to strike an enhancement otherwise required to be imposed by the above provisions of law,” states Senate Bill 620, introduced by State Sen. Steve Bradford.

In most cases, these enhancements carry much more time than the primary crime committed, and they can force people into taking stiff plea deals. This was the case with Jerome Watts, currently incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.

Watts felt pressured to take a deal for 25 years because he faced multiple life sentences that were mandatory under charges involving an attempted robbery that turned into an attempted murder with the use of a gun.

“This bill would delete the prohibition on striking an allegation…”

In 2007, he and two co-defendants attempted to commit a robbery. One of them shot the victim in the back; however, tests taken right after the crime revealed Watts did not have any gunshot residue on him. There was gunshot residue found on Watts’ co-defendants, according to a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department scientific services bureau laboratory report.

Pressured by the threat of multiple life sentences and the victim’s identification of Watts as the shooter, he took a deal for 25 years, which included 20 years for the personal use of a gun to commit the crime.

“I was scared into taking that deal because the victim pointed me out as the shooter, and they said I would get 64-to-life if I went to trial and lost,” Watts said.

Watts was 23 years old at the time, and he said the attempted robbery was his first offense. Since then, Watts said he’s doing everything he can to better himself, including taking college courses with the Prison University Program, a financial literacy class, painting in the Arts-in-Corrections program, acting with Marin Shakespeare and working in the kitchen.

“I feel so remorseful for what I did, and it drives me to focus on doing positive things to help the community,” Watts said. “I have changed — I’ve taken anger management and also learned sign language. I’m taking steps to have a brighter future by voluntarily taking programs.”

For questions or comments about Senate Bill 620, contact Sue Kateley, Legislative Director, Office of Senator Steve Bradford, State Capitol, Room 2062; Sacramento, CA 95814 or suekateley@sen.ca.gov.

States considering taking guns away from domestic abusers

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Many states are now considering laws that would strip gun rights from anyone who has been convicted of a domestic violence-related crime or is under a court-imposed protective order, The Associated Press reports.

Driving this are the many instances where women and children have been killed or wounded by known abusers, the report says.

Statistics show that hostile relationships sometimes turn deadly when coupled with the presence of guns, according to the report.

“…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

An average of 760 Americans were killed with guns by spouses, ex-spouses or dating partners between 2006 and 2014,” according to FBI data covering all states except Florida and the District of Columbia, says the AP.

While the issue of gun rights remains highly contentious, there is rare consensus among lawmakers and governors in support of restrictions against known abusers, the report points out.

“Domestic violence is definitely an area where there is the most agreement between the gun lobby and gun-violence prevention advocates,” said Allison Anderman, staff attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco, says AP.

Over the past two years more than a dozen states have strengthened their laws to keep firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers, and similar proposals in several other states are being debated this year, the report says.

The country’s strongest gun rights lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), has shown some willingness to establish compromise. Although they’ve opposed the farthest-reaching measures, they’ve stayed neutral on others, and also have participated in rounds of negotiation, the report adds.

“There is no evidence that simply taking away people’s guns without a fair hearing makes the victims any safer,” NRA spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen said, according to AP.

Many who consider themselves responsible gun owners worry that legislation being proposed “could be exploited by vindictive ex-spouses who level false allegations of abuse,” the AP says. There is a feeling that the laws would be applied too broadly, the report adds.

But for Hollie Ayers, a Pennsylvania woman who three years ago witnessed her 2 ½ year old son shot and killed in front of her by her abusive ex-husband, the proposed restrictions are of common sense necessity. “This is a no-brainer to me,” she says.

Ayers, too, was shot in the leg and face, and her ex-husband killed himself after the rampage, the report details.

Although Ayers had obtained a permanent “protection from abuse” order against him, the judge did not include stipulation that her ex-husband surrender his weapons, even after he violated the protective order, the report says.

“The system failed my son, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure it never happens to another child or another woman,” said Ayers, who is now pushing for a Pennsylvania law that would require people to turn over their guns when judges issue protection orders against them, AP reports.

The federal government is assessing the problem as well. President Barack Obama started 2016 off by strengthening the federal background-check system, which has denied gun sales 120,000 times since 1998 because of domestic violence convictions, says AP.

Under federal law, all felons, anyone convicted of a misdemeanor domestic abuse crime and individuals subject to permanent protective orders are prohibited from buying or owning guns.

States, however, have been enacting their own laws that often match and in some cases exceed federal law restrictions. Gun control advocates are delighted over this, the report says.

Yet there are clear signs of compromise concerning what is certainly a divisive issue. As evidence, “South Carolina and Wisconsin are two states dominated by Republicans and with a strong tradition of gun ownership that have taken steps to restrict abusers’ access to guns,” says AP.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker signed a law in 2014 requiring that people who are subject to domestic abuse restraining orders turn over their guns within 48 hours, AP adds.

And South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed a measure in June 2015 that includes a life ban on gun ownership for the most serious violence offenders, AP reports.

Lifers: Gun Enhancements

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(Back Row) Gilbert Villalovos, Jim Mardis, Ozair Richie, Emile DeWeaver, Chris Anderson,
Jahkeem Stokes-Gulley, Clinton Martin, George Coles-El (Front Row) Sean Malis,
Christopher M. Christen, Christopher Bell, Rodney Davis, Dwayne Jones, Michael Lain


Incarcerated men impacted by California’s “Use a gun and you’re done” law sat down to discuss its effects inside the San Quentin News room with Producer Michael Bott and reporter Stephen Stock of NBC We Investigate scheduled to be aired Feb. 26 at 11 p.m. and Feb. 29 at p.m.
“We deal out punishment instead of fixing problems in society,” said Bott.
He became interested in doing a story about gun enhancement after learning that a 16-year-old kid was sentenced to life for a drive-by shooting where the victim was not critically injured.
Under California Penal Code 12022.53, using a gun to commit a crime earns a mandatory extra 10 years, 20 extra years if the weapon is fired, and an additional 25-to-life if someone receives great bodily injury or dies.
Panel members included Ferrari Moody, Demond Lewis, Antoine Watie, Emile DeWeaver, David Le, Phoeun You, Fanon Figgers, Anthony Ammons and Miguel Quezada. They expressed their opinions about the law.
Moody killed David Thomas, who had just beaten him up. He was sentenced to 15 to life for second degree murder, with an extra 25 to life for using a gun that resulted in someone’s death. He hasn’t had any serious rule violations during his 13 years of imprisonment, and he has become a youth minister.
Other panel members, Demond Lewis, Antoine Watie, Emile DeWeaver and Miguel Quezada expressed similar opinions.
“The gun enhancement laws are the new ‘life without the possibility of parole,’” said Lewis, who received 109 years for shooting a man in the leg.

“…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

received multiple punishments for the single offense under the three strikes law (45 years), gun enhancement (25), ex-felon with a gun (25) and prior prison term laws (14), he says.
One of the problems our panel stressed is that the law disregards mitigating circumstances.
“I think there is a different level of culpability, of intent,” said Watie. “I don’t think someone who kills and rapes a little girl should receive the same life without the possibility of parole as someone who committed a crime with the intent of protecting his family.”
Watie was convicted of manslaughter for acting in imperfect self-defense against his stepfather, who had just beaten up his mother. Watie went to retrieve his little brother and sister from the abusive man’s home. Watie fired the fatal shot when his stepfather came at him with what turned out to be something made of wood.
Normally, only a 10-year gun enhancement applies to manslaughter, but because the shot went through a screen door, Watie received the 25 to life gun enhancement attached to the crime of shooting into an inhabited dwelling for a total of 36-years-to life, according to the published Appellant Court’s decision.
No one on the panel sees the law as deterring gun violence.
“I felt in the environment I was raised, it was safer to have a gun than be caught in the streets without my gun,” said Moody.
Watie said, “I used the gun to remove my little brother and sister from a dangerous situation; no law would change that.”
 

|“The gun enhancement laws are the new‘life without the possibility of parole’ ”|

 
Quezada added, “In my community, there were no laws, other than to survive.”
The discussion turned next to better solutions.
“The law isn’t working,” said DeWeaver. “The better solution is to repeal the law. It is ineffective; it contributes to the money we don’t have for our schools; it’s breaking the taxpayer bank, and it’s not making the public any safer. Nothing is a better alternative than the gun law.”
“We won’t find the roots of criminality in gun stores. You find them in neighborhoods that feel like they are under siege by law enforcement. You find them in schools where 13-year-olds are treated like criminals and then shamed when they grow up and become criminals. You find them in houses without fathers because their dads are serving 109 years to life because they got in a fight and shot a guy in the leg.”
Quezada added, “A lot of root causes of crime in these communities are poverty, lack of education and resources. Allocating the appropriate funds to go into these communities, provide jobs and opportunities other than jail would be a solution.”
Watie said, “I needed education on how to handle emotions, how to handle anger and hurt feelings. If I’m educated on how to deal with these emotions, I wouldn’t have gone over there.”
Lewis commented, “There were years of stuff that led up to that day. The whole thing is stability and normalcy in the house. I grew up in a house that wasn’t stable. As a kid, you shouldn’t have to worry about being able to eat or if there is gonna be a fight. When you’re a kid in adult situations, you always overanalyze situations. I would have all the answers to my problems and yours if I could tell you what a kid is supposed to do in an adult situation.”
Moody added, “It starts in the household. The fabric of whole household broke down. Women raising young men on their own. We raise each other. We learn from each other. We need to get back to a place where we are back in a family structure.”
Watie said, “It’s the culture that shapes the need to carry a gun. If you weren’t flashy, you wouldn’t need a gun. We turned this thing into a fad. Since I’m insignificant, I click up, so I can be seen. We need to change the culture.”
The panel ended the conversation with advice for their younger selves.
“I would tell young Emile, you are right, life is unjust,” said DeWeaver. “Life is messed up and racism is real, but the way you are going about dealing with the injustices isn’t helping you or solving the injustices. If you don’t like the way this world is, I can show you how to change it.”
Quezada said, “I think the generic answer is stay in school and listen to your parents. I would tell the kids to understand who you aren’t. We get so caught up in who we think we should be, or what other people tell us to be, we don’t take the time to understand who we don’t want to be.”
Moody would tell his young self, “not to allow current conditions to dictate future outcomes.”

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