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Brian Duffy, 55, of Sacramento, has been appointed warden at the California Health Care Facility, Stockton, where he has served as acting warden since 2014. Mr. Duffy served in several positions at the California Medical Facility, Vacaville from 2011 to 2014, including warden and chief deputy administrator. He was a correctional administrator at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Office of the Secretary from 2009 to 2011 and a correctional captain in the Division of Adult Institutions from 2008 to 2009.

This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $139,644. Mr. Duffy is a Republican.

California prisons reject advice to trim inmate killings
Don Thompson, The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California's corrections department has rejected a recommendation that its inspector general says could help reduce an extraordinarily high homicide rate in state prisons, officials said Thursday.

The department will not reinstate a policy dropped 15 years ago that required potential sensitive needs cellmates to fill out a compatibility form before they are housed together, Ralph Diaz, acting deputy director for adult institutions, told a Senate budget subcommittee.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Bring Your Child to Work Day a hit at local prisons
Jessica Rogness, The Reporter

It’s not every day children get to spend time with their parents at work, particularly when their parents’ office space is a prison.

But Thursday was Bring Your Child to Work Day and both local California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) institutions teamed up to make it possible for parents to show their children where they work.

Opening Day at San Quentin's Field of Dreams
The Americans with Charlie LeDuff, Fox News

Inside the walls of San Quentin State Prison in California, the Giants and the A's have started their season. Not the World Series champions or their cross-bay rivals, though. These guys have a real-life murderer's row.

There's no perfectly manicured grass or thousands of fans cheering them on; just sunshine and baseball. Just like the real Giants and A's, the National Anthem is played before the game. And yes, there are definitely hecklers.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Shasta County murderer dies at San Quentin
Redding Record Searchlight‎

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - A convicted murderer from Shasta County who was awaiting execution at San Quentin State Prison has died from unknown causes, corrections officials announced today.

Raymond Edward Steele, 67, was found unresponsive Wednesday evening and pronounced dead at 7:37 p.m., according to officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Bruce Davis, ex-Manson follower at California Men's Colony, is denied parole
The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — A Charles Manson follower who once bragged of cutting a man’s head off lost another bid for freedom for two murders that have kept him behind bars 45 years.

Bruce Davis’ record shows there is “some evidence” he is dangerous and shouldn’t be freed, Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan wrote Wednesday in upholding the governor’s reversal of a parole board decision to free him.

REALIGNMENT

Number of Jail Inmates from State Drop in Number
Lyz Hoffman, Santa Barbara Independent‎

As was the case last year, the Santa Barbara County Probation Department foresees this coming fiscal year will involve less supervision of some criminals and more of others under AB 109, California’s realignment law passed in 2011 that placed two types of convicts under counties’ microscope instead of under the state’s.

Under the state law, meant to address prison overcrowding, nonviolent, nonserious, non-high-risk sex offenders are managed by county probation departments after being released from prison, instead of being monitored by state parole agents. The other group singles out nonviolent, nonserious non-sex offenders to serve their time in county jails instead of state prison; their sentences can also be divided between jail time and supervision.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Former Susanville prison inmate pleads guilty to tax fraud scheme
Cathy Locke, The Sacramento Bee

A former inmate of the California Correctional Center in Susanville, described as the ringleader of a prison tax fraud scheme, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government and filing false claims for federal tax returns.

Edwin Ludwig IV, 34, currently an inmate in an Oklahoma state prison, entered the guilty plea Wednesday in federal court in Sacramento, according to a U.S. attorney’s office news release.

Woman who spent 17 years in prison sues LA
The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES- A mother of three who spent 17 years in prison for murder before she was exonerated is suing Los Angeles.

City News Service says Susan Mellen and her children filed the federal civil rights suit on Wednesday.

Mellen, who's 59, was convicted in 1998 of killing a homeless man in Lawndale. She was freed last fall by a judge who said she was innocent and had been convicted on the word of a habitual liar.

High-ranking Mexican Mafia ‘keyholder’ bound for prison
Darleen Principe, Moorpark Acorn

More than two years after a grand jury returned the largest criminal indictment in Ventura County history, a local highranking associate of the Mexican Mafia is now facing up to 27 years in prison for his role in an extortion and drug ring that involved multiple area street gangs.

Edwin Mora, 31, of Simi Valley pleaded guilty April 16 to two counts of attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, conspiracy to sell controlled substances and the attempted seconddegree robbery of the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy on Sycamore Drive in Simi Valley, all felonies, the Ventura County district attorney’s office announced last week.

OPINION

Last Mile gives inmates hope after jail
Peter Richmond, Mill Valley Herald

There are many among the general Marin population who regard continuing incarceration of violent criminal offenders a “waste of tax dollars,” particularly convicted murderers, whom these critics feel should be “given the needle.”

What I was privileged to observe on a recent visit to San Quentin Prison proves these ideas couldn’t be farther from accurate if their holders tried.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Cal Fire plans fire preparedness exercises in Lake County April 29 and 30

Lake County News

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, in conjunction with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, operates 39 conservation camps with approximately 200 fire crews throughout California.

This partnership of state agencies provides a large force of trained crews for all types of emergency incidents and resource conservation projects.

The Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit inmate fire crews from Delta Conservation Camp and Konocti Conservation Camp will hold their annual fire crew preparedness exercises in Lake County on Wednesday, April 29, and Thursday, April 30.

A Look Inside San Quentin State Prison's Baseball League
Lucy McCalmont, The Huffington Post

It's not exactly the opening day experience of Yankee Stadium, but for some of the inmates at San Quentin State Prison, baseball games have come to carry just as much weight.

That's right. Baseball, in prison.

The idea of prison league sports has been covered and depicted before, perhaps most-notably in the movie "The Longest Yard." And Michael Vick reportedly played prison football while serving time.

But in a recent episode of "The Americans with Charlie LeDuff," the host visited the California prison for an inside look.

Prison inmate can go home to die in Napa

Kerana Todorov, Napa Valley Register

An inmate dying from cancer will be able to die at his mother’s house in Napa after a judge ordered him released, saying he does not pose a threat to society.

Napa County Superior Court Judge Diane Price resentenced Randy Weeks on Friday to time served under the state compassionate release law. Weeks had been serving a 12-year prison sentence for voluntary manslaughter. He could have been released in July 2016.

Price let Weeks out early so over the objections of District Attorney Gary Lieberstein and pleas from the family of the victim, Edwin Njuguna, including his 18-year-old daughter, Savannah Njuguna.

SVSP inmate convicted of assaults with deadly weapons

Rachel Zentz, The Salinas Californian

Gary Raymond Xavier, 47, an inmate at Salinas Valley State Prison, was convicted by a jury on March 24 of two assaults with deadly weapons, according to Monterey County District Attorney Dean D. Flippo.

At the time of the crimes, Xavier was serving a term of 20 years for five robberies he was convicted of in 2002 and was scheduled for parole in July 2015.

REALIGNMENT

Merced County jail releases on the rise since realignment

Don Thompson, The Associated Press, and Rob Parsons, Merced Sun-Star

The number of inmates released from early from Merced County’s two jails has increased each year since 2011 when the state implemented Assembly Bill 109, also known as the State Prison Realignment Act.

The average daily inmate population has increased in Merced County each year over the same time period, according to numbers obtained by the Merced Sun-Star.

Sheriff’s Capt. Greg Sullivan confirmed the population increases and subsequent early releases are a direct result of the impact of AB 109 on Merced County.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Drop in crime offers hope of cost cuts

Steven Greenhut, San Diego Union-Tribune

SACRAMENTO — At the end of the Cold War, policy makers talked about the “peace dividend” — huge budgetary savings that could go elsewhere because fewer dollars were needed to deal with a vanquished Soviet Union. Americans may be facing a similar possibility closer to home, as crime levels plummet to the lowest they’ve been in decades.

Such a large portion of local and state budgets goes toward “public safety” — police services, courts, probation, prisons and jails — that there’s vast opportunity for a “domestic peace dividend.” Yet disagreement about the cause for the drop makes it hard for policymakers to know exactly how to respond to the good news.

And public misconception about crime rates — most think crime is stable or rising — makes it tough to back away from long-running tough-on-crime policies.

Finding Love Behind Bars

Meghan Walsh, OZY

Bonnie Lanz wakes up every morning at 5, puts on a pot of coffee and sits down to write a letter. Six hours north, her boyfriend follows a similar routine. The only difference? He’s locked in a cell at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison.

Lanz, the business manager at a Harley-Davidson shop in Vacaville, California, was 47 the first time she wrote to an inmate. She’d been married once and raised three kids, had no intention of getting involved romantically and was writing for altruistic reasons. Yet a year and a half later, she’s making the 368-mile drive every Friday night so she can spend the weekend with her sweetie, even if it’s just playing Scrabble in a cold, crowded prison visiting room.

CDCR NEWS

Transgender inmate’s sex-change surgery must proceed, judge rules
Bob Egelko, The San Francisco Chronicle

A federal judge ordered California prison officials Monday to proceed with sex-reassignment surgery for a transgender inmate who has lived as a woman in a men’s prison for two decades, rejecting the state’s request for a stay while it appeals the precedent-setting order.

The prison system has shown “deliberate indifference” to Michelle-Lael Norsworthy’s medical needs, and she is at risk of serious psychological and physical harm if her surgery is delayed during the state’s appeal, said U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of San Francisco. Performing the operation would not end the case, Tigar said, because the state could still defend its policy against future sex-reassignment surgeries in the appeals court.

DEATH PENALTY

After 13 years on death row, Redding man’s sentence overturned; guilty verdict stays
Denny Walsh, The Sacramento Bee

After nearly 13 years on death row, a Redding man’s sentence was overturned Monday by the California Supreme Court, which ruled that he was improperly barred from calling an expert witness.

The court upheld the 2002 murder conviction of Paul Gordon Smith Jr. but said his death penalty sentence was improper.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Students learn from inmates
Parlier students visit Avenal State Prison
Brianna Vaccari, The Post

Nine Parlier boys started their school day on April 21 at the Avenal State Prison during a trip to speak with inmates about life in prison.

The students participated in the prison’s Youth Adults Awareness Program (YAAP), where inmates in protective custody share their stories about how they ended up in prison, what life behind bars is like and what students should do to avoid ending up in the same situation.

CDCR NEWS

California judge denies request to stay inmate's sexual reassignment
Veronica Rocha, The Los Angeles Times

A federal judge denied a motion Monday to halt an inmate’s sex reassignment surgery but noted his order does not apply to other prisoners needing surgery.

U.S. District Court Jon Tigar in San Francisco said stopping Michelle-Lael Norsworthy’s surgery would result in substantial injury because she suffers from gender dysphoria, according to court documents. Her condition could worsen if her hormone therapy is modified or discontinued because of liver complications.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

"Jails to Jobs" program gives ex-inmates a fresh start
Santa Cruz County agency is launching pilot program to help newly released inmates find jobs
Mariana Hicks, KION

WATSONVILLE, Calif. - It's a fresh start for ex-criminals just out of jail or prison. A Santa Cruz County agency is launching a pilot program aimed at helping newly released inmates find jobs.

7 arrested in weekend probation sweep
The Sentinel

A probation sweep carried out at 50 different locations in Hanford over the weekend resulted in the arrest of seven people, according to a news release.

The multi-agency operation conducted by the Hanford Police Department and Kings County Probation Department occurred between 7 and 11 a.m. Saturday. A statement said the operation targeted more than 55 people who are on probation and post release community supervision.

OPINION

EDITORIAL: Fewer in jail equals more crime?
The Press-Enterprise

Ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to reduce the state prison population, state lawmakers rushed to implement what’s known as realignment. Through the plan, California abruptly shifted responsibility for nonviolent, nonserious, nonsex offenders to the county level.

Some counties were better equipped than others to absorb a larger number of offenders. Jail systems with chronic crowding problems, like Riverside County, have been forced to release scores of prisoners early due to a lack of capacity.

CDCR NEWS

Fire crews train for season
Berenice Quirino, Lake County Record-Bee

Lake County- Another round of inmate crews from the CAL FIRE Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit will continue their annual Fire Crew Preparedness Exercises on Thursday in Lake County. They received a full day of training on Wednesday.

Eleven crews from Delta and Konocti conservation camps, each consisting of about 15 men, receive training and evaluations on fire response procedures as well learn about bulldozer and helicopter safety.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Cartel ‘keyholder’ pleads guilty in gang extortion ring
Darleen Principe, Thousand Oaks Acorn

More than two years after a grand jury returned the largest criminal indictment in Ventura County history, a local high-ranking associate of the Mexican Mafia is now facing 27 years and four months in state prison for his role in an extortion and drug ring that involved multiple area street gangs.

Edwin Mora, 31, of Simi Valley pleaded guilty April 16 to two counts of attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, conspiracy to sell controlled substances and the attempted seconddegree robbery of the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy on Sycamore Drive in Simi Valley, all felonies, the Ventura County district attorney’s office announced earlier this month.

Local author pens street gang novel
Corning Observer

A fictional historical novel telling the story of how the Hispanic street gangs formed in East Los Angeles has been penned by local author Weldon Shaw.

Printed by Black Rose Publishing and released earlier this month, the story is about a culture of people faced with betrayal, lost dreams, migration, false hopes, civil rights, love, hate and death.

For sexually abusing a girl, Sanger man sentenced to 160 years in prison
Pablo Lopez, The Fresno Bee

In a Fresno courtroom Wednesday, the soft-spoken teenager looked at the man who raped her when she was a mere child and asked, why?

A shackled Orlando Morfin refused to tell her.

For committing one of the most horrific crimes imaginable, Judge Houry Sanderson sentenced the 31-year-old Morfin to 160 years to life in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing the girl from 2007 to 2010 when she was 7 to 10 years old.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Fewer showers: CA prisoners cut back on water use for drought

Kyndell Nunley, Bakersfield Eyewitness News

DELANO – The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been on an aggressive water conservation program since 2010.

Under an order from Gov. Jerry Brown five years ago, state prisons were urged to reduce water use, with the goal of cutting water use by 20 percent. Since then, the state system has saved 1.5 billion gallons of water a year, totaling 6 billion gallons and reduction of 17.8 percent.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Embracing life outside prison

Jennie Rodriguez-Moore, Stockton Record

STOCKTON — There was a time Raymesha Bilbo was homeless and “running the streets,” she said.

“I wasn’t doing nothing,” Bilbo, 34, said. “I was just out there.”

Drugs were at the center of her life and she didn’t know how to be a mother to her two young daughters.

Bilbo has been clean for nearly eight months and she has a new lease on life.

Bilbo’s story embodied the meaning of a graduation ceremony on Thursday at the Hilton Stockton, where 29 individuals received certificates for completing a parole re-entry program.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Death row inmate found dead in cell at San Quentin

The Associated Press

SAN QUENTIN — A 64-year-old inmate who spent 14 years on California's death row for the murder of his estranged wife has died at San Quentin State Prison.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement that Richard James Poynton was found unresponsive in his single cell on Thursday morning and pronounced dead a short time later.

Prison officials say the cause of his death won't be known until an autopsy is performed.

Man sentenced to life in prison as a teen is released after 22 years

NOTE: The reporter has been informed that the SHU is not “solitary confinement.”

Matt Fountain, San Luis Obispo Tribune

After spending more than 20 years in prison following an ill-fated escape attempt at a Paso Robles juvenile detention facility while he was still a teen, a man was ordered released from prison by the same San Luis Obispo County judge who sentenced him.

Freddie Chacon, 37, was 16 when he was convicted in 1994 of kidnapping a librarian at the El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility with another juvenile inmate and demanding a truck to drive to Mexico.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Innocence March marks 2-year anniversary

Dana Littlefield, San Diego Union-Tribune

San Diego — It may seem counter-intuitive to refer to a group of men who spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit as “lucky.”

But that’s what Justin Brooks told a gathering of law students, lawyers, former inmates and their families this week. As he introduced the five men who sat on either side of him, the director of the California Innocence Project talked about how difficult it can be to prove to a judge that a convicted inmate doesn’t belong behind bars.

Guard can sue state over injuries at home on San Quentin grounds

Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle

The state Supreme Court has cleared the way for a former San Quentin guard to sue the state for injuries he suffered when he fell on a staircase at his home on the prison grounds.

Monnie Wright, a prison guard since 1997, was on his way to work in December 2010 when he fell while descending the stairs outside the home he had rented from the state. Wright said one of the concrete steps crumbled beneath his foot, apparently because of defective construction. He needed surgery for nerve damage in an elbow and torn knee ligaments, and suffered a lower-back injury that still causes severe pain, his lawyers said. Wright received $137,000 in workers’ compensation benefits for his medical expenses and lost wages, and took early retirement in July 2012.

OPINION

Prison programmers? Should Alabama emulate California?

Shelly Haskins, AL.com

Alabama's prison reform legislation passed the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, and could be headed to a vote in House as early as Tuesday.

The Senate passed the bill, called the Justice Reinvestment Act, last month.

AL.com spent most of the past two years reporting on the problems in Alabama's overcrowded prisons, which are at nearly 200 percent capacity, and has advocated for passage of prison reform.

Every day until the bill passes, we will bring you the thoughts of regular Alabamians who support prison reform, and ask for yours.

CDCR NEWS

CDCR Announces Recipients of $2.5 Million in Grants for Innovative Programs

Imperial Valley News

SACRAMENTO – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) today announced the list of recipients of $2.5 million in one-time grants meant to boost innovative programs and increase volunteerism in prisons.

The grants provide funds to eligible volunteers and not-for-profit organizations who already operate successful programs in some California prisons and to help extend those programs to prisons that do not have the same levels of volunteer service.

“There are many positive programs in California prisons that focus on offender responsibility and have demonstrated success,” Millicent Tidwell, Director of CDCR’s Division of Rehabilitative Programs, said. “We hope to reach more inmates by expanding those rehabilitative programs to prisons that have been typically underserved.”

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Your Central Valley

The CDCR is hiring and if a person is interested in training with a K9 then it can be requested. If someone loves animals, then this is the chance to have a great career and work with man's best friend. Officer Doug Schuller brings his K9, Heathrow, and explains how people can join CDCR. People can also go to the website JoinCDCR.com to learn more.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Get on the Bus taking children to see incarcerated parents Saturday

Laurie Williams, Redlands Daily Facts

In May and June, when other kids might start thinking about what to get their parents for Mothers and Fathers days, some 200 children from around California are getting ready to visit their moms or dads in prison through a program called Get on the Bus.

“For about 50 percent of these children, this is the first time they are going to be able to see an incarcerated parent,” said regional coordinator Steve Gomez. “For a lot of their caregivers, it’s just too far to go, or too hard to manage.”

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Residency restrictions loosened on sex offenders

Kerana Todorov, Napa Valley Register

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is easing its residency restrictions on sex offenders after the California State Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional in San Diego County.

Under the new policy, which will be applied to sex offenders on parole living in Napa County, parole agents will assess each parolee on a case by case basis to find if the person has to stay 2,000 feet from schools and parks.

The state Supreme Court found that the blanket enforcement of residential restrictions in San Diego County had led to “greatly increased homelessness among registered sex offenders on parole in the county.”

DEATH PENALTY

CORONA: Couple sentenced to death in toddler torture murder

Gail Wesson, Riverside Press-Enterprise

The mother of a Corona toddler, who was scalded, denied medical care and beaten when he cried in pain for days until he died, continued to deny she was responsible for his death in a hearing Friday, May 1, where she was sentenced to death for the 2009 horrific crime.

Belinda Magana, 29, sniffled and spoke briefly about her son Malachi Magana's death as one of her defense attorneys, Darryl Exum, put his hand on her shoulder.

In a separate sentencing that followed, Naresh Narine, who turned 43 a day earlier, chose not to speak. Narine was Magana's boyfriend at the time of the crime and was a father figure to the toddler.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY: 500 warrants served in sex offender sweep

Ali Tadayon, Riverside Press-Enterprise

In an effort to keep a close watch on registered sex offenders, authorities served more than 500 search warrants in San Bernardino County on Saturday.

The result? Better compliance by those targeted, officials said.

Officers from the Redlands and San Bernardino police departments, San Bernardino County deputies, San Bernardino County Probation and Parole officials and the California Department of Corrections banded together in “Operation Broken Heart,” an annual sweep of the county’s registered sex offenders on parole or probation. The program is part of a nationwide effort.

At this L.A. art show, felons were the special guests

Jorge Rivas, Fusion

An old South Los Angeles movie theater turned into a pop-up art show this weekend with works of art by big name contemporary artists like Shepard Fairey and Swoon. But there was something unusual and maybe even extraordinary at the gallery: an area blocked off exclusively for people convicted of felonies.

The pop-up art show, called “Manifest Justice,” was centered around the theme of justice. The show included 275 pieces of politically minded artists, including one piece that made use of a police car brought in from Ferguson, Missouri.

The organizers also hosted a one-day event where people convicted of certain nonviolent felonies could meet with volunteer attorneys and start a process to reclassify their felonies to misdemeanors. The reclassification process is now possible because last November California voters approved a ballot measure that allows drug possession and minor theft convictions to be downgraded from felonies to misdemeanors.

California’s population rose last year by 358,000 to 38.7 million

Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee

California added 358,000 souls to its population last year and is now approaching 39 million, the state Department of Finance reported Friday.

The increase from 37.4 million to 38.7 million was 0.9 percent, a bit higher rate than recent years, but still well under the state’s growth rate during the 1980s, when it was more than twice as high and California’s population was growing by 600,000 a year. Since the 2010 census, California’s population is up by 1.4 million.

Why American Jails May Drastically Curtail Inmate Phone Calls

Eric Markowitz, International Business Times

For decades, every time an inmate picked up a phone to dial a friend or family member, that correctional facility received a percentage of the cost of the call, typically around 50 percent. With millions of people locked up nationwide, the prison phone industry has flourished, growing to a $1.2 billion year business.

But the jail phone industry is at a crossroads -- and upcoming regulations that threaten to limit commissions might prompt sheriffs around the country to severely curtail prison phones altogether. “It’s very possible that sheriffs could elect to eliminate the calls,” Jonathan Thompson, the executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association, said in an interview this week. “They don’t have to provide a call service.”

Former San Quentin guard publishes book

Melissa McRobbie, Grants Pass Daily Courier

SELMA — John Wedgwood Golden lives quietly these days with his wife in a house tucked away in a remote, wooded area near Selma. The peaceful spot, surrounded by birds, trees and fresh air, is light years away from the dark, dangerous, concrete world in which he started out.

Golden used to be a guard at San Quentin State Prison, a notorious prison that sits incongruously on a pretty swath of land in Marin County that boasts million-dollar views of San Francisco Bay. Back when Golden worked there, San Quentin was a maximum-security prison that housed the worst of the worst criminals, including Charles Manson.

OPINION

When a family member is headed to prison

Dennis Beaver, Hanford Sentinel

“When a loved one is sentenced to prison, if ever there was a time when they need the support of their family, this is the moment. Their greatest fear beyond the risk of injury or death at the hands of another inmate, is feeling abandoned. Dennis, that’s the message I have for your readers.”

It isn’t often that you meet a lawyer truly dedicated to using his skills to help those who society has cast adrift. But in his career as a lawyer, 75-year-old Paul Comiskey has been one of the greatest friends any prisoner — and their family — could wish for.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Records raise questions about parole monitoring of men charged in killings

Paige St. John, LA Times

State officials knew that two transients now accused of raping and killing four women were violating the terms of their parole by associating together and supervised them as "low risk" even after they cut off their GPS trackers and fled the state, according to records reviewed by The Times.

The records raise new questions about how well state parole agents monitored the men's conduct during their alleged killing rampage in 2013 and 2014.

Franc Cano and Steven Dean Gordon were considered compliant with the terms of their parole, according to the nearly 1,000 pages of daily logs and other records.

Paula Hernandez’ murderer John Zenc to be considered for parole Tuesday

Sandra Emerson, Redlands Daily Facts

John Zenc, 58, will be considered for parole this morning at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison 38 years after being sentenced for the murder of 15-year-old Paula Hernandez in a Redlands orange grove.

Zenc was sentenced to seven years to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 1977. He raped, murdered and buried Paula in an orange grove on Grove Street near Citrus Avenue while she was walking home from school on a Tuesday in March, 1977.

Parolee in custody after escaping from officers in Van Nuys

ABC 7

VAN NUYS, LOS ANGELES – A parolee was taken into custody after escaping from state parole officers while being booked at the Los Angeles Police Department's Van Nuys station Monday afternoon.

The man, whose name was not immediately available, fled into a surrounding neighborhood. The LAPD assisted state parole officers in the search near Tyrone Avenue and Erwin Street.

CDCR NEWS

California asks court to stay inmate's gender reassignment surgery

The Associated Press

California officials asked an appellate court on Monday to intervene to stay a lower court’s order that the state immediately provide a transgender prison inmate with sex reassignment surgery.

State officials said they filed a request for a stay with the ninth US circuit court of appeals.

The state already is appealing this month’s ruling by US district judge Jon Tigar that California’s corrections department must provide the surgery to 51-year-old Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, whose birth name is Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy.

California seeks to block inmate's sex-reassignment surgery

Joseph Serna and Veronica Rocha, LA Times

The state attorney general’s office is asking a federal appeals court to block a judge’s order that the state immediately give a transgender inmate sex-reassignment surgery.

In a motion filed Monday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the state sought a preliminary injunction that would delay the surgery for Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, 51, born Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy, who began identifying as a woman in the 1990s. Norsworthy was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2000.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Riot at Vacaville prison injures three inmates, one officer

Jessica Rogness, Vacaville Reporter

More than fifty inmates at California State Prison, Solano, were involved in a riot Monday morning, sending three inmates and one correctional officer to a hospital outside prison grounds.

Just before 7:10 a.m., inmates began fighting on one of the institution’s Level III medium-security yards, according to the prison’s public information officer Lt. Marlaina Dernoncourt. In all, she said, 58 inmates were involved in the fight.

Expanding minds behind bars

Nigel Poor and Tommy Shakur Ross, KALW

Patten University is the only on-site degree college program in California's entire prison system. It's housed at San Quentin and the tuition-free program is so popular that prisoners across the state try to transfer to San Quentin to participate.

The Prof and the Cons: How He Lost His Faith in Journalism—and Reclaimed it Behind Bars

Glen Martin, California Magazine

UC Berkeley journalism professor Bill Drummond once met a nun who counseled Catholic priests bereft of their faith. Drummond was empathetic—with the priests, that is.

“Actually, I don’t think I know anyone in journalism education who hasn’t suffered a loss of faith,” says Drummond, who in a decades-long career covered the White House, worked as the Los Angeles Times bureau chief in New Delhi and Jerusalem, served as an associate press secretary for the Carter administration, and was one of the founding editors of National Public Radio’s news program Morning Edition.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Officials suspect homicide in Vacaville prison death
Ian Thompson, Fairfield Daily Republic

VACAVILLE — The body of an inmate discovered Monday inside one of the prison’s housing units is being investigated as a possible homicide, according to a press release from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The inmate, Nicholas Rodriguez, 24, of Alameda County, was found to be missing during the prisoner count at 4:30 p.m. Monday. The victim had been serving an eight-year sentence for second-degree robbery.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Stepfather of slain girl gets 20 years for selling meth
The Associated Press

KINGMAN, AZ - A Bullhead City man charged with selling drugs after his stepdaughter's murder has been dealt a 20-year sentence.

The Kingman Daily Miner and Mohave Daily News report 8-year-old Bella Grogan-Cannella's body was found in September, prompting police suspicions that her family was dealing drugs.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Prison sentences for 76 gas station robbers
Jaclyn Randall, Palo Verde Valley Times

BLYTHE, Calif. - A judge sentenced Darringer Gonzales and Michael Nopah to 12 years and three years, eight months, respectively, after both pled guilty to robbery. Gonzales also pled guilty to one count of an assault on a peace officer while Nopah also pled guilty to conspiracy.

Both were arrested last year after being suspected of robbing Seventh Street 76 on the corner of Hobsonway and Seventh Street. Gonzales' arrest came after he was shot by a Blythe police officer after an employee at 76 called 9-1-1 just before 3 p.m. June 23, 2014, who reported an armed robbery had just occurred.

CDCR NEWS

Prisons, jails take steps to reduce water usage, too
Officials without equipment to monitor, limit jail water usage
Claire Doan, KCRA 3 News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —In the midst of a historic drought in California, jail and prison officials are trying to cut back on water usage behind bars.

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department announced Wednesday that it, too, is taking steps toward more water reduction as state leaders seek further water cuts.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Inmates prepare to fight wildfires
Jeremy Linder, KRCR TV

PAYNES CREEK, Calif. -Hundreds of inmates are in Paynes Creek this week training to fight wildfires.

Since Monday, each group has been showing their skills at Ishi Conservation Camp for the 30th annual preparedness exercise. It covers nine different minimum security camps and is the largest in California.

Inmate Fire Fighters Prep For Summer
KAEF

when wildfires grow-- cal fire needs a little back up. that's why minimum security inmates are trained to help. it's all part of an agreement between cal fire and the California Department of corrections and rehabilitation.

California transgender inmate's lawyers seek swift surgery
Don Thompson, The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Attorneys for a transgender prison inmate said Wednesday that she could have sex reassignment surgery as early as next month if California correctional officials quickly approve the procedure.

Corrections officials said they are working to schedule the surgery but need more time.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

New use agreement will pay for upgrades at city-owned firing range in Galt
Jennifer Bonnett, News-Sentinel

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will pay the city of Galt $300,000 annually to use the city-owned gun range under a use agreement adopted by the city council at Tuesday’s regular meeting.

However, the Boy Scouts of America or any other private organization will be unable to use it under liability insurance regulations reaffirmed at the meeting.

Suspect in La Verne couple’s slaying named, was already in custody for another crime
Stephanie K. Baer, The Whittier Daily News

MONTEREY PARK - A 23-year-old man who has been in custody since mid-January on an unrelated charge was named Wednesday as a suspect in the December slaying of an elderly La Verne couple.

DNA evidence, surveillance video and witness identifications linked Luke Fabela to the fatal stabbing and beating of Armie “Troy” Isom, 89, and wife Shirley Isom, 74, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said during a news conference at department headquarters in Monterey Park.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Arts In Corrections

Kern Valley inmates find artistic escape

Jackie Parks, KERO 23ABC News

As a maximum security facility, Kern Valley State Prison is known for its concrete walls, razor wire and inmates serving hard time for crimes ranging from robbery to murder. It’s not a place most people would associate with the arts.

But with the passage of AB109 and subsequent efforts to reduce the prison population, the Department of Corrections has resurrected its Arts in Corrections program. The goal is to give inmates skills that could serve them in the future and keep them from committing more crime. Now many California prisons are offering classes ranging from drama to painting. At KVSP, the arts program is providing inmates a chance to learn how to draw.

Possible homicide attempt at prison northwest of Reno

KRNV News 4

SUSANVILLE, Calif. (MyNews4.com & KRNV) -- According to the California Department of Corrections, an investigation is underway following reports of an attempted homicide at the High Desert State Prison in Susanville.

Authorities say it occurred the morning of May 5 when three inmates attacked two other inmates; one "inmate-made" weapon was recovered at the scene.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Inmate Has a Case Over Race-Based Shower Rules

Katherine Proctor, Courthouse News Service

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - The 9th Circuit revived claims Thursday that a California prison's race-based shower restrictions violated one inmate's equal-protection rights.

Corcoran prison enacted the restrictions at issue - requiring all inmates to wear only minimal clothing to the showers, and to be handcuffed on their way there - after multiple incidents of gang-related violence in 2004 prompted a lockdown on black inmates.

REALIGNMENT

More adults on probation in SLO County since realignment, study finds

Matt Fountain, The San Luis Obispo Tribune

While fewer juveniles entered or re-entered the criminal probation system in San Luis Obispo County in the last three years, the number of adults supervised by the county Probation Department increased, according to a new report.

Officials attribute much of the increased adult caseload to state prison realignment in 2011, which requires local supervision of people who previously would have been supervised by the state, Chief Probation Officer Jim Salio said Thursday

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Lawmakers Concerned Jails, Prisons Becoming New Mental Health Institutions

Ron Jones,CBS

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The number of mentally ill people in local jails has reached a crisis point as lawmakers say millions are going untreated.

Lawmakers say county jails and state prisons are becoming the new mental health institutions. Mental health advocates and law enforcement professionals are demanding changes in how jails across the state handle the mentally ill.

Gender reassignment for inmates emerges as hot topic

Chris Johnson, Washington Blade

Ensuring access to gender reassignment surgery for transgender inmates has emerged as a hot topic in the transgender rights movement amid recent developments in court cases filed on behalf of inmates.

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said ensuring prisoners have access to gender reassignment surgery is “the same issue” as making sure private insurance pays for the procedure, which many providers refuse to cover.

What effect is Prop. 47 having on Fontana? Pastor says good, police chief says bad

Russell Ingold, Fontana Herald-News

It has been six months since Proposition 47 was approved by California voters, and controversy over the ballot measure is continuing.

The law changed the classification of some low-level, non-violent crimes, such as drug possession and petty theft offenses, from potential felonies to misdemeanors.

According to Dr. Mannie Brodie, pastor of Principles of Faith Christian Center in Fontana, Prop. 47 is a "blessing."

CDCR NEWS

Future correctional officers go through boot camp
Jennie Rodriguez-Moore, Record

STOCKTON — Forty-eight cadets are undergoing rigorous physical training, weeks away from their families, hours of classroom learning, and an adjustment to strict structure in Stockton.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Stockton Training Center is hosting its first academy for new youth correctional counselors and officers in about seven years. And it’s been four years since its Division of Juvenile Justice has had a cadet academy.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Victims, prison inmates find common ground
Amy Maginnis-Honey, Fairfield Daily Republic

VACAVILLE — One man removed his glasses,then wiped a tear from his eye. Others fought back tears, releasing an occasional sniffle.

When Teresa Courtemanche was done speaking, the 50-plus men rose to their feet and applauded.

Mothers of murder victims speak to inmates
Jessica Rogness, The Reporter

Inmates at California State Prison, Solano gathered Friday for graduation from a class that helped them understand the impact their crimes had on families, while two mothers whose children were murdered shared their own stories.

In all, 72 inmates took part in Friday’s graduation ceremony from the Victim Impact course, a 13-session course that is one part of a program for long-term offenders at the prison.

Incarcerated Mothers in Chowchilla Receive Early Mother's Day Gift
Connie Tran, Your Central Valley

Hundreds of mothers incarcerated in the women's prison in Chowchilla received an early Mother's Day present on Friday. They were able to spend hours with their children and caregivers, as the families traveled from all throughout the state thanks to the non-profit organization Get on the Bus.

Get on the Bus has implemented their Mother's Day program for 16 years. The organization, spearheaded by the Center for Restorative Justice Works and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation allows children to travel to the Central California Women's Facility, and all expenses are paid.

San Quentin Inmates Performing Shakespeare, Play About Veteran Suicides
The inmates have been preparing for the performances for the past eight months.
Alexander Nguyen, Patch

San Quentin State Prison inmates are performing two plays by William Shakespeare and an inmate-written play about issues facing military veterans this month, according to a spokesman for the prison.

Inmates will perform “Julius Caesar” on May 15, the veterans’ play on May 21 and “Macbeth” on May 22.

Folsom inmates hold Relay for Life event
Laura Newell, The Folsom Telegraph

More than 1,100 inmates walked in the Folsom State Prison and Folsom Women’s Facility Relay for Life event today, raising funds and awareness for cancer research.

Turlock man set to return from prison to schedule second murder trial
Rosalio Ahumada, The Modesto Bee

Darren Jack Merenda is scheduled to return to a Stanislaus County courtroom next week so a judge can schedule his second trial.

Merenda of Turlock had been serving a prison sentence of 25 years to life for the deadly stabbing of Donald Dean Futch, but an appellate court overturned that murder conviction and ordered a new trial.

REALIGNMENT
County jails adjusting to realignment
Andrew Creasey, Appeal Democrat

NOTE: The reporter has been informed that state prison inmates are not transferred to county jails under Realignment.

Realignment — the shifting of prisoners from state facilities to county jails — is still making its mark locally, but the extent of the impact varies between Yuba and Sutter counties.

An April state auditor report identified prison overpopulation as a lingering issue of realignment, also known as AB 109 for the legislation behind the program. County jails across the state released 37 percent more inmates in June 2014 than were released in September 2011, before realignment began, the auditor reported.

But that is not an issue in Sutter County, said Sheriff J. Paul Parker.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Incarceration to convocation
Life after solitary confinement: How education paved the way for Danny Murillo
Jessie Lau, The Daily Californian

Sipping beer in his apartment and eating homemade ceviche, Danny Murillo, 35, could be any other UC Berkeley student.

But spend a little more time with him, and other things become apparent. Odd little details. Such as how his closet is unusually neat — winter jackets hang on the far right, followed by long-sleeved shirts, pants, belts and a white towel folded exactly in half. Medicine is organized in tidy rows on the top shelf, next to a small storage box and a suitcase. No space is wasted. In his bedroom, he keeps to-do lists and records of deadlines for what seems like countless scholarships and programs, all written in neat print and colored markers. He’s easy-going most of the time, but now and again, he’s restless. He talks very fast.

“I’m a creature of habit. If I have to work out at 7 in the morning, I have to work out every day at 7 in the morning,” Murillo said. “That’s how I function.”

Off Duty Safety
Brian Parry, Corrections.com

Safety while on and off duty is crucial to the correctional professional. When off duty you are responsible for your safety and the safety of your loved ones. It may not be uncommon to see a former inmate or parolee in the community whether at a shopping mall, a grocery market or in a local park. Most encounters entail nothing more than a glance, a head nod or an exchange of a few words. However, if in the rare occasion you are confronted in a threatening manner you should have a plan on how to react. We all want to be safe while off duty in our homes and in our communities and with our families and loved ones.

Some offenders, particularly gang members are accustomed to using threats, fear and intimidation against victims and witnesses. Those same tactics have been used against law enforcement and correctional staff. In fact, no one is exempt. Offenders and inmates have threatened judges, prosecutors, police officers and correctional professionals including probation and parole officers.

Prop. 47 giving future back to low-level felons: Guest commentary
Susan Burton, LA Daily News

I never thought I’d want to see the inside of jail again. But a new law, Proposition 47, has allowed me to focus on my future, not my past, opening new doors in my mission for criminal justice reform. I can visit prison again with confidence.

Let me explain. In 1981, my 5-year-old son was struck and killed by a car driven by an off-duty policeman. I was devastated. My life fell apart.

CDCR NEWS

Crime Victims to Benefit from Improved Collection of Restitution from Offenders

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

SACRAMENTO- The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is streamlining the collection of restitution which should translate into thousands more victims getting money that was collected on their behalf.

The department’s Office of Victim and Survivor Rights and Services (OVSRS) has updated its Trust Accounting and Restitution Canteen System to now fully and automatically coordinate with the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) referral system.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

VIDEO: How a Caltrans job changed one parolee’s life

Jon Ortiz, The Sacramento Bee

The bottle and the rage had already ruined Rudy Contreras’ life before he hurt a cop in 2011.

He’d lost his welding job in Fresno. Wife and kids: Gone. Fresno home they had bought together: Lost.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Ask Sacto 911 crime Q&A: What happened in 1990s case involving woman suspected of killing husband?

Cathy Locke, The Sacramento Bee

Q: What ever happened with the murder case of Michael Perry, who was shot and killed in approximately 1995 by someone who turned out to be connected to his wife?

Mark, Fairfield

A: Five years after the shooting death of her husband, Joan Lisa Featherston admitted that she hired his killer.

Featherston pleaded guilty in 1992 to first-degree murder in the March 25,1987 death of 37-year-old Michael Anthony Perry. She had been the prosecution’s first witness at the 1987 trial of Elwin Keith Lay II, who Featherston said shot Perry as she and her husband walked through an open field near their Foothill Farms home. She testified that she had never seen Lay before he stepped up to them and shot and killed her husband.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Video: Alternatives to Incarceration

Linda Strean, Public Policy Institute of California

Under continuing pressure to reduce its prison and jail populations, California is expanding alternatives that hold offenders accountable, are cost-effective, and do not harm public safety. At a Sacramento event last week, PPIC researcher Brandon Martin summarized a new PPIC report about the potential impact of this expansion. His presentation was followed by panel discussion in which state and local corrections officials talked about their own experience and provided examples of success.

Jeremy Verinsky, undersheriff of Santa Cruz County, said his department has long had a work release program— having offenders clean up graffiti in county parks, for example. The county has increasingly paired work release with home detention and electronic monitoring since corrections realignment began in 2011. Offenders in Santa Cruz are required to be involved in programs based on their needs and risk factors, Verinksy said.

California Community Outraged Serial Rapist Will Stay Free

Tami Abdollah and Olga r. Rodriguez, The Associated Press

A judge decided not to send a serial rapist back to a psychiatric hospital, outraging the California community where he has lived since his release last year and where some fear he will attack again.

Santa Clara County Judge Richard Loftus ruled Monday that Christopher Hubbart, known as the "pillowcase rapist," is not a danger to the health and safety of others, though prosecutors said he violated the terms of his July release when he twice allowed the power in his ankle monitor to run low.

Human Rights Watch details abuse of mentally disabled prisoners

Sari Horwitz, The Washington Post

In jails and prisons throughout the United States, correctional staff have sprayed mentally disabled prisoners with painful chemicals, shocked them with electric stun weapons, and strapped them for days in restraining chairs and beds, according to a report that will be released Tuesday.

In its 127-page investigation of mostly state and local prisons, Human Rights Watch details incidents in which prison workers have used unnecessary and excessive force against prisoners with mental disabilities.

Sentenced to Abuse: Trans* People in Prison Suffer Rape, Coercion, Denial of Medical Treatment

Zoe Greenberg, Investigative Fellow, RH Reality Check

In 2009, Janetta Johnson was sentenced to 71 months for possession and intent to distribute methamphetamine. When the economy plummeted in 2008, Johnson says she panicked and, like many women offenders, began selling drugs as a way to survive.

What makes Johnson’s case stand out, however, is that she is a trans woman. Designated as male at birth, Johnson has identified and lived as a woman since she was a child.

CDCR NEWS

California Funds Prison Rehab Programs
Correctional News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) earlier this month awarded a number of one-time grants aimed at expanding rehabilitative programs in the state’s prisons. In total, the state committed $2.5 million to efforts to “boost innovative programs and increase volunteerism in prisons,” according to a statement by the CDCR.

Grant funds will support volunteers and not-for-profit organizations that already operate successful programs in some California prisons. It will also help extend those existing programs to prisons in need of greater volunteer involvement or assistance.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Longtime California Men's Colony employee killed in dirt bike crash
Matt Fountain, The Tribune

A well-known longtime correctional deputy at the California Men’s Colony was killed Monday afternoon after crashing his dirt bike on a private trail while practicing for an upcoming out-of-state dirt bike race, officials said Tuesday.

Larry Dean McCracken, 61, of Atascadero was pronounced dead at the scene, which was within a private network of trails in a rural area north of Wellsona Road and east of North Star Lane in Paso Robles.

Close dilapidated, rodent-infested prison, California lawmaker says
Sharon Bernstein, Reuters

California should shut down a state prison in Riverside County that is dilapidated, infested with vermin and expensive to operate, the chairwoman of the state Senate's public safety panel said on Tuesday.

The California Rehabilitation Center at Norco houses 2,400 inmates in unsafe conditions that include standing pools of water, rodents and cockroaches, and water that does not come out of the pipes at temperatures deemed safe for food preparation, according to Democratic state Senator Loni Hancock.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Inmate walks away from Vallecito Conservation Camp
Calaveras Enterprise

Local and state authorities are searching for a minimum-security inmate who walked away from the Vallecito Conservation Camp Wednesday morning.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials said that Taurus Hendricks, 22, was last seen at approximately 5:10 am while being interviewed by camp staff members. Later, when staff members became concerned he was missing, they conducted an emergency count and alerted local law enforcement agencies and the California Highway Patrol.

Boston Marathon bomber: Would life without parole be punishment enough?
Jury deliberations on whether to execute Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or sentence him to life in prison without parole could begin Wednesday. The use of life without parole sentences in the US is growing rapidly.
Henry Gass, Christian Science Monitor‎

Boston — Ken Hartman is 55 and healthy, but he says he feels like he was killed decades ago. When he was 19, he beat a homeless man to death in an alcohol- and drug-fueled rage, and he has spent the past 35 years in prison. So long as he is alive, he will not be eligible to leave.

Mr. Hartman is among the 50,000 prisoners in the United States serving life without parole sentences, a number that has increased 22 percent since 2008, according to a 2013 report by the Sentencing Project. And on Wednesday, the jury in the Boston Marathon bombings trial will begin deliberating over whether to add Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to that group.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Behind Bars: A Correctional Officer’s Story
Jolene Polyack, Enterprise Recorder

What boy doesn’t dream of becoming a police officer at some point? It’s a perfectly natural desire of many, yet only a few follow it through to adulthood. This is the story of one of those boys. He became a correctional officer (CO) at California State Prison, Corcoran. To protect his identity, we’ll call him “John.”

John started out in construction work, but it wasn’t as fulfilling as he had hoped. When the opportunity came up to apply for a CO position, he jumped at the chance. He submitted his application and was accepted into the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Academy. He eventually ended up as a CO in Corcoran, California.

We thought it would be interesting to find out what it’s like to work under those conditions, especially considering that the CDCR expects to hire 7,000 correctional officers by 2016.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

California prison inspection uncovers unsanitary conditions
Sharon Bernstein, Reuters

An inspection of a controversial California prison revealed unsanitary conditions, from a lack of hot water and incorrect storage of raw food to rodent droppings, a state report shows.

The report on the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, obtained by Reuters on Wednesday under a Public Records Act request, exposed dozens of violations of health rules.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Folsom inmates walk for Relay for Life
Inmates raised $21,000 for American Cancer Society
Laura Newell, The Folsom Telegraph

More than 1,100 inmates walked in the fourth annual Folsom State Prison and Folsom Women’s Facility Relay for Life event last week, raising funds and awareness for cancer research.

According to Folsom State Prison Lt. Joe Tuggle, two six-hour relays were held simultaneously at each of the prisons where inmates have donated money to help the American Cancer Society.

For Lawrence Phillips, a Dead Cellmate and Another Day of Reckoning
Lars Anderson, CNN

Before death was unleashed in his two-man cell on April 11, inmate No. G31982 led a quiet life inside the stone and concrete walls of California's Kern Valley State Prison, a haunting, fortress-like structure that rises out of a dusty patch of land in the San Joaquin Valley.

Most mornings, inmate No. G31982 was stirred awake at 6 a.m. as guards at Kern told the nearly 4,000 all-male prisoners—the maximum-security facility was built to hold 2,400—it was time to begin the day. Soon, a hot breakfast that typically consisted of eggs, hash browns and thinly sliced ham was delivered room-service style to his cell. Many mornings, he purchased a special package of vitamins and proteins, the fuel for his late-morning workout.

DEATH PENALTY

Artist's 600 plates depict the final meals of death row inmates
Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune‎

Six tacos, six glazed doughnuts, one Cherry Coke.

Julie Green remembers exactly when she stopped on this detail and she remembers why: She was living in Oklahoma in the summer of 1999, flipping through a local newspaper when she came across a notice of an execution. "It was a regular feature that ran on state executions. It would describe a man's facial expression at the time of his execution — and it was always a man — and it would say what the crime was, which was always horrid, and it would say what his last words were, and then what he ate for a last meal. I had no connection with capital punishment then, but when I read that — six tacos, six glazed doughnuts, Cherry Coke — it humanized death row. Someone had asked for that, those specific things, that specific number."

CORRECTIONS RELATED

No ordinary wedding shower planned by Brandman employee
Cindy O'Dell, Brandman News

You could say that Natasha Yeates’ wedding shower is going to the dogs. Instead of receiving the traditional shower of gifts before her wedding, Yeates, a faculty services specialist at the Ontario campus, and her fiancé Russell Pennington are holding a fundraising wedding shower that will benefit Canine Support Teams.

Yeates previously worked as a One Stop student advisor at the Temecula campus(since relocated to Menifee), where a majority of the students were veterans or current military. Those students, what they went through and their struggles to adjust after duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompted Yeates to look for a local nonprofit to support that worked with wounded veterans. She found Menifee-based Canine Support Teams, which provides service dogs.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

California prisons working to conserve water
YourCentralValley.com

State prison inmates have to watch their water use just like the rest of us.

All 34 state prisons are trying to conserve water. That includes regulating how often toilets are flushed, limiting inmate showers to three times a week and other water-saving steps. So-called "drought managers" are monitoring water usage at each prison to meet the governor's conservation goals.

"What we've learned is that we have actually saved about 1 and half billion gallons of water each year for the last four years," Bill Sessa, with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Inmates trained in fighting grassland fires
Travis Taborek, Calaveras Enterprise

Fire crews made up of inmates from Vallecito and Baseline conservation camps participated in readiness drills this week near New Hogan Reservoir.

The training was under the direction of the Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in preparation for the upcoming fire season.

Inmates train for fire season
Natalie Weber, KRCRTV

REDWAY, Calif. - A partnership between CAL FIRE and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is helping fire crews prepare for the upcoming fire season, which begins on June 8.

Inmates at the Eel River Conservation Camp are going through the Redwood Coast Fire Preparedness exercise. The exercise is a three day training course to test the knowledge and abilities of the inmates in the program.

Mother’s Day for prisoners
Corey Pride, Chowchilla News

Mother’s Day came early last week for scores of women who hadn’t seen their children in months.

On Friday, 300 children across the state boarded buses with a parent or guardian to come to the Central California Women’s Facility to spend a few hours with their mothers.

Vallecito Conservation Camp inmate bolts; recaptured the same day
Calaveras Enterprise

An inmate who walked away from the Vallecito Conservation Camp Wednesday morning was recaptured about 1:45 p.m. that afternoon by the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Department.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials said that Taurus Hendricks, 22, was last seen at approximately 5:10 a.m. while being interviewed by camp staff members. Later, when staff members became concerned he was missing, they conducted an emergency count and alerted local law enforcement agencies and the California Highway Patrol.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Mindful of Prop. 47 sentence reductions, Brown aims to scale back private prisons
Paige St. John, The Los Angeles Times

Gov. Jerry Brown proposes to cut California's reliance on out-of-state private prisons by half, but seeks to postpone long-term discussion about the state's own aging lockups and need to rent space from others until next year.

The governor's latest plans, contained in revised spending proposals released Thursday, call for shrinking the number of inmates housed outside California in the next year by 4,000 -- reducing related state spending by $73 million. As of this week, the state had a little more than 8,000 inmates in private prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma, and another 6,250 prisoners in contracted lockups within the state.

Prop. 47 shows promise, but fixes still needed
The Editorial Board, The Pasadena Star-News

There’s no doubt about it, Proposition 47 is helping to ease crowding in prisons and forcing a rethinking of the criminal justice system in California.

That’s good. The dated lock-’em-up-and-throw-away-the-key mentality has no place in a justice system premised on rehabilitation.

Still, there remain problems that need to be fixed with the initiative passed last November by an electorate wary of tough-on-crime laws that often disproportionately hurt African American and Latinos.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Weekday teacher is weekend hero

Jennie Rodriguez-Moore, Stockton Record

STOCKTON — Edith Otero sat in the visiting area with her 17-year-old son Arturo, waiting to hear about her son’s progress, on a recent Sunday.

Otero, 36, visits her son at O.H. Close youth correctional facility on the outskirts of Stockton every week, often bearing questions about his well-being, education and custody, as any worrying mother would.

She often feels she is in the dark about that information, since her son was charged as an adult and, therefore, any updates about his custody are communicated directly to him.

But there to place her at ease was Jose Reynaga, who volunteers on the weekends to act as an unofficial liaison between parents and the facility. Reynaga, 65, is a teacher at Johanna Boss High School at the facility, which houses youths from throughout California who have committed some of the most serious or violent offenses.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Tracking and Treating California’s Paroled Sex Offenders

Scott Shafer, KQED

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), there are about 6,000 sex offenders on parole in California. When it comes to public image, you’d have to place them near the very bottom of the totem pole.

Their crimes range from rape to indecent exposure. And when they’re paroled to San Francisco, it falls to Fernando Mata to keep track of them and make sure they’re not a threat to public safety.

“In my job, I have to treat everybody the same,” says Mata. “It doesn’t matter if you’re indecent exposure or child molest. You’re still a person and you’re still here to get the services that you need. I have a job to do, and that’s all I can do.”

Fugitive California sex offender arrested in Vernal

Geoff Liesik, Deseret News

VERNAL, UTAH — A paroled sex offender being sought by authorities in California was arrested Thursday in Vernal.

Jerome Cleveland Maston, 28, was taken into custody without incident during a traffic stop near 4200 S. Vernal Ave., according to Vernal police detective Shaun Smith.

The arrest came two days after the Uintah Basin Violent Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team, working with the U.S. Marshals Service, learned that Maston might be in the Vernal area, Smith said. Vernal police, Naples police and Uintah County sheriff's deputies took part in the arrest.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Shakespeare at San Quentin State Prison

Tyler Sipe, Seattle Times

Inmates at California's San Quentin State Prison performed Shakespeare's Julius Caesar for other San Quentin inmates and a select audience of outside guests on Friday, May 15, 2015. The inmates have been rehearsing for the past 8 months.

California transgender inmates fight for medical care

Howard Mintz, San Jose Mercury News

From inside California's Mule Creek State Prison, convicted murderer Michelle-Lael Norsworthy is one of a growing number of transgender inmates around the country pushing a new civil rights fight.

The 51-year-old Norsworthy, serving a 17-years-to-life term for shooting a drug dealer to death in a Fullerton bar in 1987, has turned to the federal courts to force the California prison system to provide sex reassignment surgery to complete her decades-long transformation into a woman.

Norsworthy's effort has now put a federal appeals court at the center of what has become an emerging legal issue confronting prison systems nationwide: whether transgender inmates in certain circumstances are entitled to such surgery as part of a prison's constitutional obligation to provide adequate medical care.

San Manuel-linked murder-for-hire civil trial resumes Monday

Joe Nelson, San Bernardino Sun

The second phase of a civil trial in which a San Bernardino man is seeking millions of dollars from two San Manuel tribal members who authorities say conspired to have him killed begins Monday in San Bernardino Superior Court.

According to attorneys and court records posted online, the punitive damages phase of the trial will begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday before Judge Michael A. Smith.

In September 2008, Leonard Epps sued San Manuel tribal members Stacy Nunez-Barajas, 32, and her brother, Erik Barajas, 42, after the siblings solicited high ranking members of the Mexican Mafia to kill him, according to authorities.

Fourth suspect identified in local homicide case

KSBY

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office says investigators have identified a fourth suspect in the August 19, 2014 murder of Javier Limon.

A group of field workers found the 37-year old Santa Maria man's body in an agriculture field near the entrance to the Guadalupe Dunes. According to investigators, Limon died of multiple gunshot wounds.

In September of 2014, detectives arrested Gregorio Augustine and Arturo Granados on suspicion of murder and Yesenia Granados on suspicion of being an accessory to the crime. All three are residents of Santa Maria.

DEATH PENALTY

Save the life of your mother's murderer? He would

Jessica Bliss, The Tennessean

The day Clifford O'Sullivan went to meet his mother's killer, he purchased a few snacks from the vending machine in California's San Quentin State Prison — a somewhat-frozen chicken salad for himself, and tacos and ice cream for the convicted murderer.

Over the years, O'Sullivan thought a lot about what he would say to the man who abducted his mother and drove her up the winding roads in the Santa Monica Mountains. The man who shot her three times. Who left her to die.

In a few moments, that man would sit across from O'Sullivan in a wire cage barely big enough to fit a table, two chairs and two adults — men who hadn't been in the same place together since O'Sullivan testified at the killer's death row sentencing hearing. That was nearly two decades ago. O'Sullivan was just 6 years old.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Dream fulfilled at Dominican graduation ceremony

Adrian Rodriguez, Marin Independent Journal

Donning a black cap and gown Bill Merkle rocked from heel to toe as he stood among his classmates from Dominican University of California in front of Angelico Hall Saturday morning, eager to receive his diploma.

“It’s been a long journey — 36 years,” he said.

He was captain at San Quentin State Prison when he began the criminal justice program at Dominican. The 82-year-old retired warden of High Desert State Prison in Susanville returned to the university in fall 2014 to complete over two semesters the remaining six units he left unfinished in 1979.

Parlier PD Conducts Another Gang Sweep, Following Triple Shooting Two Weeks Ago

Connie Tran, KSEE

The Parlier Police Department teamed up with Orange Cove, Selma, Sanger, Firebaugh, Coalinga, and Avenal state prison officers on Saturday for a gang sweep in the City of Parlier.

Police Chief David Cerda said they've arrested at least four gang members in Saturday's operation, that went from 2pm to 10pm

Chowchilla passes ordinance to deter ‘halfway houses’

Thaddeus Miller, Merced Sun-Star

The City Council put restrictions on group homes in Chowchilla last week with a unanimous vote, an effort to deter anyone looking to open a so-called “halfway house.”

The decision came Tuesday, just weeks after neighbors near what was going to be a group home in the area of Plum Way near Santa Cruz Boulevard in Chowchilla expressed their ire to the council on April 28.

The residents said they were unhappy that low-risk offenders would be living so close to where their children play every day.

OPINION

Drummond: Oakland mayor taps parolee for violence prevention post

Tammerlin Drummond, Oakland Tribune

Garry Scott had begun to question whether he could make it outside the prison gates. Then 31, Scott had asked to be paroled from San Quentin to Alameda County because he didn't want to return to the same bad influences in Los Angeles that had helped land him in prison. But he had no family in Oakland, his new hometown. He was living in transitional housing and anxious about his future.

One day, he went to fill out an application for a job at a restaurant. It asked if he'd ever been convicted of a felony.

"It's one thing to say, OK, I was convicted of a felony, it's another thing to have to explain what I did and knowing it was a homicide," Scott says. "I didn't even finish the application. I threw it away."

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Some suggest San Quentin land is ripe for development
KTVU

MARIN COUNTY, Calif. (KTVU) -- There are few pieces of Bay Area real estate with a more spectacular location than San Quentin State Prison, a fact that leaves many residents wondering why California houses its death row penitentiary on such a valuable piece of property.

San Quentin opened in July of 1852, and in one part of the building, the prison is showing its age.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

CA Won't Block Surgery for Transgender Inmate
Nick Cahill, Courthouse News

SACRAMENTO (CN) - California prison officials have set a date with doctors for the first sex-reassignment surgery on an inmate in the state's history, new federal court documents show.

Transgender inmate Michelle Norsworthy will receive the historic surgery on July 1 as long as she passes preliminary checkups and health screenings. In a status report filed Friday by the court-appointed receiver for the state's prison medical care system, Clark Kelso said the state has reached an agreement with Brownstein & Crane Surgical Services to perform the surgery at Marin General Hospital.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Kimberly Long Is in Prison for Killing Her Boyfriend. She Says She Didn't Do It—and the Evidence Is on Her Side
Brian Blueskye, CVIndependent

Kimberly Long spent the day of Oct. 5, 2003, bar-hopping around the Corona area with her boyfriend, Oswaldo “Ozzy” Conde, and their friend, Jeff Dills.

The three ended the day at a bar called Maverick’s and then went to the home she shared with Long, around 11 p.m. There, she and Conde got into a fight, after which Long left with Dills to cool off.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Deported 'Home': Kosal Khiev's Path from Prison to Poetry
Sahra Vang Nguyen, NBC News

It was during solitary confinement when Cambodian American spoken word artist, Kosal Khiev, found his voice through a weekly prison writing program.

Having made some bad decisions as a teenager, Khiev was arrested at fifteen after a gang-led shooting. A year later, he was found guilty by association for attempted murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Road Twenty-Two's convention T-shirts help women find a post-prison path
Adam Tschorn, The Los Angeles Times

Political conventions are hardly a hotbed of haute couture, but what people choose to wear at them -- from the simplest of screened T-shirts to the most larded-up logo-wear -- speaks just as loudly and profoundly as any runway confection. A recent case in point: one of the T-shirts commissioned for last weekend’s California Democratic convention in Anaheim.

For a Friday night event presented by the California Young Democrats, organizers ordered 500 T-shirts and tote bags bearing the words “Turn Up” (a reference to the slogan “Turn Up for Turnout”) on one side and the letters “CDY” (the group’s initials) on the front, each accompanied by an arrow and star graphic. (They also made 50 T-shirts with “Newsom” printed on one side and “California” on the other for the lieutenant governor.) The message wasn’t in the logo, though, but the accompanying label was marked with a simply, stylized “22.”

The ‘Death Row Chaplain’ Who Played Chess With Charles Manson
Grim Reaper, Katie Zavadski

Earl Smith on praying—and playing—with men sentenced to die in San Quentin.

The last game of chess Earl Smith played was with a man who was about to die.

For 23 years, Smith was a chaplain at San Quentin State Prison in California, often ministering to men sentenced to die. Smith recounts his experience in a new memoir, aptly titled Death Row Chaplain.

OPINION

Marin IJ Editorial: Reflecting importance of a diploma
Marin Independent Journal‎

To the casual observer of commencement at Dominican University of California, Bill Merkle could have been mistaken for an older member of the faculty who had donned his robe and mortar board for the graduation.

But the 82-year-old Merkle was seated with his fellow students, having earned the diploma for a personal achievement he had given up on 36 years ago.

REALIGNMENT

Policy center links auto thefts to California prison shift
Paige St. John, The Los Angeles Times

A California policy center concludes the state's policy to send low-level felons to county jails instead of state prisons had only "a very limited impact on crime," resulting in increased auto thefts but no impact in violent offenses.

The report, released late Tuesday by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, relies on crime data from the FBI for 2013.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

San Quentin Prison Report: How an introvert became a comedian
Adnan Khan, KALW

Jonathan Chiu is an inmate at San Quentin State Prison. He was born in Hong Kong in 1982 and moved to the United States with is family when he was eight years old. Soon after that, Chiu discovered his love of comedy. Writing jokes helped him cope with adapting to life in a new country. And comedy continues to help him adjust to life at San Quentin, where he regularly does stand up.

“I love watching movies, but coming to America watching American movies I really couldn't relate to them. You know, Star Wars is one of my favorite films, but what I couldn't understand was in a galaxy far, far away, there's no Chinese people,” Chiu joked at a recent performance. “I mean, I thought R2D2 was made in Japan. And I thought the death star was outsourced.”

A Lifer’s Retirement Plan
Most of us get out old and broke. Not me.
Rahsaan Thomas, The Marshall Project‎

“Someone stole my freaking identity,” I said aloud to the empty cell. Someone free stole my identity – a prisoner’s. According to the piece of mail in my hands, Rahsaan Thomas owed the IRS $5,000, a tax refund that the IRS now wanted back.

I am Rahsaan Thomas1, but I’m not the person who filed the tax return or received the five grand. The last time I filed taxes was in 1996, when I was employed as an assistant graphic designer for a theater advertising agency. I lost that job in 1997, and my life spiraled out of control. I didn’t work another legitimate job afterward, and I ended up in prison.

Ask Sacto 911 crime Q&A: Is man who killed Rancho Cordova girl in 2000 still in prison?
Cathy Locke, The Sacramento Bee

Q: Is the person who murdered Courtney Sconce still in prison?

Curious, El Dorado Hills

A: Justin Michael Weinberger pleaded guilty to the November 2000 kidnapping, rape and murder of 12-year-old Courtney Sconce.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Vacaville Police conduct sweep of parolees, probationers
Jessica Rogness, The Reporter

A total of 20 arrests were made during a parole and probation sweep conducted by the Vacaville Police Department on Tuesday.

Approximately 36 locations were visited by officers in Vacaville and the unincorporated area surrounding the city.

OPINION

Jerry Brown can savor an accomplishment as crime falls, along with prison population
The Sacramento Bee

Gov. Jerry Brown has big plans for building high-speed rail, fixing the state’s plumbing and battling climate change.

Whether he will succeed with any of those undertakings in the final 3 1/2 years of his time in office remains to be seen. But Brown is entitled to a feeling of accomplishment for his criminal justice realignment, as are the county officials who are making it work.

CDCR NEWS

State Drops Appeal In Coleman Prison Case
Katie Orr, Capital Public Radio News

The long running Coleman case alleges that the mental health system operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is unconstitutional.

The state filed a motion to terminate the case in 2013, but was denied. The state appealed the decision to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But in a statement CDCR says significant progress has been made in delivering quality mental health care to inmates so all parties have agreed to dismiss the appeal and work toward a solution.

The state has been able to negotiate agreements with plaintiffs on several issues, such as use of force on mentally ill inmates. However the legal case will likely continue for several more years.

Appeals court delays transgender California inmate's surgery
Don Thompson, The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif.— A federal appeals court delayed sex reassignment surgery for a transgender prison inmate in California on Thursday, hours after a state panel recommended that she be paroled.

The pair of decisions makes it less likely that convicted killer Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, who has lived as a woman since the 1990s, will receive the surgery before she is released from prison.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Parole recommended for California inmate seeking sex reassignment surgery
Don Thompson, The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A state panel recommended parole for a Northern California transgender inmate on Thursday, a decision that could keep her from receiving the prison-funded sex reassignment surgery she says is necessary for her emotional health.

Michelle-Lael Norsworthy is no longer dangerous and should be freed, a pair of parole commissioners decided after a hearing. Norsworthy, 51, has served 28 years in prison for a second-degree murder conviction from Orange County.

Parole could end inmate's effort to have sex change surgery
Don Thompson, The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California inmate who is seeking sex reassignment surgery at taxpayers' expense faces a painful irony: If she wins freedom from a parole board, she would no longer be eligible for the prison-funded operation she says is crucial to her emotional health.

State officials say 51-year-old Michelle-Lael Norsworthy has postponed her parole hearing several times with the hope of having the surgery. They are citing the delays as they appeal a judge's order that she undergo the procedure as soon as possible.

Parolee forcefully removed from inn
Monica Vaughan, Appeal-Democrat

Agents with protective shields rammed a door at a Yuba City motel on Wednesday afternoon after a parolee refused to exit a second floor room.

David Theodore Miller, 39, was taken into custody with the help of Yuba City police more than an hour after agents with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Fugitive Task Force attempted to make contact with him at about 11:45 a.m.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Sierra Conservation Center Riot
Tracey Petersen, MML News

Jamestown, CA – Sierra Conservation Center (SCC) officials report nearly 150 inmates were involved in a “large-scale” uprising where some prisoners used handmade weapons to attack each other.

The riot began around 8 p.m. Tuesday, on the A-Facility main exercise yard, according to prison officials, who confirm no staff members were injured in the outbreak. However, two prisoners were flown to area hospitals, due to injuries they sustained. California Department of Corrections (CDCR) officials report one had surgery Wednesday morning and his condition is unknown at this time. The other had multiple injuries and is in stable condition. Additionally, five were treated at local hospitals and are back behind bars.

REALIGNMENT

Intensive Monterey County program helps probationers turn life around
Ana Ceballos, Monterey Herald

Salinas- Graduation season is in full swing, but high school and university students are not the only ones celebrating new beginnings — 20 Monterey County probationers are, too.

On Wednesday, 18 men and two women clad in formal attire reminisced about their troubled pasts and lauded Monterey County’s Day Reporting Center counselors, probation staff and parole officers for helping them leave that strife behind.

Study finds lingering spike in car theft after California prison change
The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO -- A new study says California continues to see a spike in auto thefts since a change in prison policy four years ago forced many local jails to release more inmates early.

The Public Policy Institute of California said Tuesday that sentencing lower-level felons to local lockups instead of state prisons led to a 17 percent increase in auto thefts in 2013. That's similar to the bump seen in 2012.

OPINION

California’s Death Penalty: All Cost, No Justice
Natasha Minsker, ACLU of Northern California‎

Today the Nebraska Legislature voted to pass a bill to repeal the death penalty, becoming the first state with a Republican-controlled legislature to pass such a bill. But Nebraska isn’t alone. In fact, it is the latest of several states to affirm that the death penalty has failed to deliver on its promise of swift justice.

For years now, the death penalty has rapidly been losing steam throughout the country, both legally and in practice. To date, 18 states have legally abandoned the death penalty. And over the last ten years, eight other states have either carried out zero executions or sent zero new people to death row.

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