After three decades of incarceration Noel Valdivia Sr. left San Quentin a free man on July 8. I met Noey on a beautiful spring day in 2002 as we were running laps on the track. After I passed him for the third or fourth time I said, “It never gets easier, does it?”
Since then I worked with him in the Sheet Metal Shop, participating in numerous groups such as Trust, Impact and college classes. I played baseball with him several seasons, and we lived as “next door” neighbors for several years. His odyssey of incarceration began as a teenager on the hard streets of Stockton, where he fell in with a rough crowd and began experimenting with drugs and alcohol. That led to a murder.
Noey admitted what he did, signed the dotted line for guilty and went to prison for 25 years to life.
One thing about Noey that anyone who knows him will tell you, he was a fierce litigator. He spent much of his free time in the Law Library fighting for his freedom. The Parole Board never found Noey suitable for release, always concluding that he would pose “an unreasonable risk of danger to society” if released. Noey appealed these findings and ultimately had the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals order his release with no parole.
The beauty of Noey as a person and litigator is that he helped others with their appeals. There is a long list of people he got out. He never said “no” when asked for help. There were guys at his door all day and everyday asking for legal help. Another thing about Noey is that he had this ridiculously inappropriate optimism. Living next door to him I would be laying there late at night and hear him laughing, all the time. I would say to my roommate, “What’s up with that dude?” After all these years of being locked up, no end in sight, enduring decades of oppression, he always laughed. Now that he’s gone I miss the sound of that laughter.
When told there would be only one baseball team this year, thereby excluding dozens of people, he organized a second team. People often refer to Noey’s squad as the “B” team or “second” team, yet in head-to-head competition against the Giants, the B team is up two games on the A team.
Noey is also a family man. He has a son, a daughter and grandchildren whom he loves dearly. The last visit Noey had I recall looking at him sitting next to his 80-something-year-old mother. She was in a wheelchair, holding on for dear life until her son came home, and she had the most beautiful smile. She held on. Noey is home with his family.