CDCR Star

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Schwarzenegger's decision to reduce killer's sentence to be under review
Dave Marquis, USA Today

SACRAMENTO—A couple whose son died in a knife attack in 2008 says former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reduced their son's killer's jail time illegally.

Esteban Nunez, son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years in prison. On his last day in office, Schwarzenegger commuted the sentence to seven years, arguing at the time that Nunez did not deliver the fatal blow.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, Transgender California Inmate, Wins Parole Recommendation
Reuters, Alex Dobuzinskis

May 21 (Reuters) - A California board recommended parole on Thursday for a transgender inmate convicted of second-degree murder, the same day an appeals court put on hold a ruling requiring the state to pay for the prisoner's sex-reassignment surgery, officials said.

Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, 51, who was assigned male at birth but identifies as a woman and is held with male inmates at Mule Creek State Prison, is seeking to become the first inmate in state history to undergo the surgery.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Solano County remembers fallen peace officers
Jessica Rogness, Vallejo Times Herald

Officers from across Solano County gathered at noon Wednesday to remember those who have fallen in the line of duty.

The 26th annual Peace Officer’s Memorial Service, hosted by the Retired Peace Officer’s Association and the Solano County Sheriff’s Office, was held at the Solano County Peace Officers Memorial Garden in Fairfield.

Sentence handed down in Mexican Mafia case
Enforcer given 27 years in prison
Art Van Kraft, Moorpark Acorn

A Moorpark gang member known to law enforcement as a top enforcer for the Mexican Mafia was sentenced to 27 years in prison on May 14 in Ventura County Superior Court.

Edwin Mora, 31, pleaded guilty to numerous felony charges, including conspiracy to commit a crime, attempted extortion and attempted second-degree robbery on April 16.

OPINION

California’s realignment policy is right but it comes at a price
The San Francisco Chronicle

The nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California has been studying Gov. Jerry Brown’s realignment policy, and there’s good news and bad news.

First, the good news: Realignment doesn’t appear to have had any impact on violent crime rates in California. That means state and local officials are making good decisions about who poses a serious threat to the public.

Here’s Why Jail Sentences Now Seem So Short
Mountain News

Readers who have followed stories in this newspaper about the sentencing of convicted criminals may have noted judges sentencing an offender to, say, three years in jail and then suspending all but six months of that term, with the remaining 30 months spent on probation.

An understandable reaction to such accounts could be anger, based on the idea a soft judge was denying the public the protection it deserves, or confusion, stemming from a lack of understanding of how the justice system works.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

More than a prisoner
Jessica Cejnar, The Triplicate

Arts-in-Corrections gives inmates an escape from prison life through art

Marquis Louden regards his canvas, brush in hand, and squirts a dollop of purple onto his pallette.

There’s a rose on his canvas, but Louden says he doesn’t want to turn it into a typical rose. He blends the purple with white and begins to create a background as vibrant as his surroundings are neutral.

Bard behind bars: Prison inmates perform ‘Macbeth’
Amy Maginnis-Honey, Daily Republic

VACAVILLE — More than four decades had passed since retired College of Marin drama professor Jim Dunn had seen his former student Steven Drown perform.

The reunion took place recently at California State Prison, Solano where Drown was one of about 25 prisoners who brought Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” to life.

“I’m blown away,” Dunn said. “To do Shakespeare really brings the humanity in.”

Brooktrails Fire Abatement update
Adrian Baumann, Willits News

CalFire hand-crews continue to work in the Brooktrails Township greenbelt, as part of the long term project of fire-hazard abatement in the district.The Township faces a unique set of fire dangers, and challenges. Set in a dense forest Brooktrails residents are at a greater wildfire risk than most other communities. This means that the Brooktrails Fire Department must take extra measures, including substantial fire risk abatement in the greenbelt, to ensure that the district is safe.

Brooktrails Fire Department Chief Daryl Schoeppner and district staff have emphasized the importance of the recently enacted fire tax as key to mitigation and preparedness, but also important are efforts to reduce the “fuel load,” the amount of burnable stuff, in the greenbelt, undertaken by the department and by private individuals.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Stompers go yard – at San Quentin, that is
Sonoma News

For their first road game of the exhibition season, the Sonoma Stompers will jump from the minor leagues to the Big House – as our local squad travels up Highway 101 on Thursday, May 28 to face a team of inmate athletes at San Quentin State Prison.

The Stompers, looking to finalize their 2015 Opening Day roster, will face the team comprised of inmates from San Quentin’s two team, the A’s and the Giants, who play regularly at the prison’s “Field of Dreams.”

DEATH PENALTY

Governor seeks $3.2 million for more death row cells at San Quentin
Richard Halstead, Marin Independent Journal

San Quentin State Prison is on the verge of running out of space for condemned inmates, and Gov. Jerry Brown has asked the Legislature for $3.2 million to open 97 more cells to accommodate more death row prisoners there.

The governor’s request, part of his proposed $113 ¬billion budget proposal, has been greeted with a notable lack of enthusiasm by both those who support and oppose the death penalty.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Will Parole Keep Her From Transitioning?
Samantha Allen, Daily Beast

A 51-year-old inmate was about to make history as the first to undergo a court ordered sex reassignment surgery. How parole may affect her fate—and that of transgender inmates everywhere.

Michelle-Lael Norsworthy has been in prison for 28 years. But she only needed to stay there a few more months to establish one of the more elusive precedents in LGBT history.

Norsworthy, 51, is transgender and began her transition from male to female in the 1990s while serving a sentence for second-degree murder in a California state prison. In April, a landmark ruling from a Northern California district court judge ordered the state to cover Norsworthy’s sex reassignment surgery (SRS), which was deemed “the only adequate medical treatment for her gender dysphoria.”

REALIGNMENT

Auto theft spikes in Merced and statewide after AB 109, report says
Rob Parsons, Merced Sun-Star

A new study says vehicle thefts continue to rise California since a prison policy change in 2011 forced many local jails to release more inmates early.

The Public Policy Institute of California last week said sending low-level felons to county jails instead of state prisons created a 17 percent increase in automobile thefts in 2013. That’s similar to the spike reported in 2012.

The increase came on the heels of the 2011 Public Safety Realignment Act, commonly referred to as AB 109. The law shifted responsibility for less serious offenders from the state to the counties to help solve the state’s prison overpopulation problem.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Suspect arrested in Indio homicide
Tatiana Sanchez, The Desert Sun

Police have arrested James "Chip" Nathaniel in the homicide of Apolonio Carranza, Indio police said Friday.

Carranza was found shot in his vehicle at about 2:30 a.m. on April 19 in Indio. He died at the scene.

Program stresses rehab over jail
Monica Vaughan, Appeal Democrat

Yuba County criminal justice officials are a bit surprised by the initial success of a new defendant program, which may become a model for other counties.

The program allows some criminal offenders who would not usually be eligible for probation to attend a program, such as a residential drug or substance abuse treatment program. If they are successful, the judge will make an unusual case finding and the defendant will be sentenced to probation instead of time in jail or prison.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

State Prisons reduce water use to save during the drought
Wasco State prison reduces use by 30%
Cassie Carlisle, KERO

WASCO, Calif. - Wasco State Prison is doing their part to save water.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation started a water conservation program in 2010 and now with mandatory water restrictions, the bar has been set even higher.

"Wasco took it upon itself when we saw the water shortages coming about," Lt. Patrick Salgado said.

Lions Clubs’ vision of service realized with prison’s help
Don Chaddock, The Folsom Telegraph

On a sunny afternoon at one of the state’s oldest prisons, two Lions Club members were proudly discussing a project going on behind the walls – The Folsom Project for the Visually Impaired.

The California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA) Digital Services Enterprise, also known as the California Assistive Technology Enterprise (CATE), provides a wide-range of services to assist the visually impaired and help rehabilitate inmates at Folsom State Prison.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

SAN QUENTIN: Man on death row for Riverside pizza-store murder kills himself
Brian Rokos, The Press Enterprise

Michael Lamont Jones, 44, who was convicted of murdering a Riverside pizza restaurant employee in 1989, committed suicide on Monday, May 25, at San Quentin State Prison, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Tuesday.

The cause of death is pending the results of an autopsy; however, the death is being investigated as a suicide, a news release said. Jones was in a cell by himself.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Washington Prisons Secretary Says No Plans To Ship Inmates Out-Of-State
Austin Jenkins, Spokane Public Radio‎

The Washington state Department of Corrections has contracted with The GEO Group, Inc, a Florida-based private prison company, to house up to 1,000 prisoners in Michigan to ease overcrowding.

In a May 21 press release, The GEO Group said it expects to begin taking in Washington prisoners starting this fall. However, a contradictory statement from the Washington DOC said, “There are no current plans to utilize the contract.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Top Doc Blasts California Prison Health Care
Jillian Singh, Courthouse News

Note: CDCR has no record of being contacted by the reporter for this story.

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - The California department of prisons threatened, muzzled and defamed a top medical officer at San Quentin for blowing the whistle on its shoddy mental health care, the doctor claims in court.

Dr. Christopher S. Wadsworth, former chief psychiatrist and medical director of San Quentin State Prison, claims the state and 10 prisons officials retaliated against him for a March 2014 memo on constitutionally inadequate conditions that continue today. The prison's treatment of inmates also violates federal court orders, the doctor says.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Sex offender convicted in strangulation of Oakland federal investigator
Lee Romney, The Los Angeles Times

An Alameda County Superior Court jury has found a registered sex offender guilty of first-degree murder in the strangling death of 50-year-old Sandra Coke, a federal public defender investigator with whom he had fathered a child years earlier.

Randy Alana, 58, also was convicted Wednesday of second-degree robbery, unlawful taking of a vehicle and two counts of grand theft. The trial, in which 84 witnesses were called to testify, lasted more than two months, but jurors took less than three hours to reach their verdicts.

Mother's lawsuit: Flawed GPS, overworked parole officers led to her daughter's death in O.C. serial killings
Tony Saavedra, OC Register

Faulty GPS tracking devices and overworked state parole agents led to the death of a young woman whose mangled body was found at an Anaheim trash recycling center, according to a lawsuit filed by the victim’s mother.

Jodi Pier-Estepp alleges in the suit that the state did not adequately monitor two GPS-wearing sex offenders accused of killing her 21-year-old daughter, Jarrae Nikole Estepp, and three other women kidnapped from areas known for prostitution. The two suspects violated state rules by frequently meeting, but nothing was done.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Advocates seek to end solitary confinement options for young offenders
Garrett Therolf, The Los Angeles Times

Daivion Davis, 21, was convicted of second-degree attempted murder and voluntary manslaughter in 2009 after he opened fire in a gang shooting that killed a 16-year-old honors student attending the homecoming football game at Wilson High School in Long Beach.

During his time at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, he made more than three dozen trips to the solitary confinement unit, Davis says.

Those stays, he says, ranged from four hours to 17 days. A few times, guards sent him there for fighting. At other times, they put him in "the box" for walking too slowly, not going to his room when ordered, for disrespecting staff or for drug possession. Over time, he says, his anger grew, trips to solitary became more frequent, and his stays became longer.

The Death of the Death Penalty
Why the era of capital punishment is ending
David Von Drehle, TIME

The case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev absorbed Americans as no death-penalty drama has in years. The saga of his crime and punishment began with the shocking bloodbath at the 2013 Boston Marathon, continued through the televised manhunt that paralyzed a major city and culminated in the death sentence handed down by a federal jury on May 15 after a two-phase trial.

Justice was done, in the opinion of 70% of those surveyed for a Washington Post–ABC News poll in April. Support for capital punishment has sagged in recent years, but it remains strong in a situation like this, where the offense is so outrageous, the process so open, the defense so robust and guilt beyond dispute.

Stan Statham: Prop. 47 and criminal justice
Red Bluff Daily News

In November of last year, I think most California voters unwittingly approved a bad proposition. It was Proposition 47 which made lower-level crimes, like drug possession, misdemeanors instead of felonies.

Many law enforcement groups opposed it at the time. In the subsequent months, nine legislative proposals were introduced to fix the result of this bad public policy. The problem with most of those proposed fixes is that they would again require another vote by California’s electorate to reach a better solution. A majority of Proposition 47’s backers are not fighting these proposed legislative fixes.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Murder, Tragedy Are Familiar Themes For Actors In San Quentin Production Of Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Dave Padilla, CBS

MARIN COUNTY (KCBS)— One of the toughest prisons in the United States is showcasing talent that shines new light on the plays of Shakespeare. Behind the walls of Marin County’s San Quentin Prison, inmate actors perform ‘Macbeth’ under the direction of the Marin Shakespeare Company.

Since 2003, the company has had a presence at San Quentin, where Shakespeare’s popularity has somehow penetrated both the boundaries and inmates ‘consciousness. The program grew and now full-length plays are performed.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Female Inmates Certified For Construction Trades
Lonnie Wong, Fox News

The California Prison Industry Authority graduated 65 women in its most recent class of vocational trainees at the Women’s Facility at Folsom State Prison.

Certificates were handed out in carpentry and construction labor, computer-aided design, health care facilities maintenance, warehouse and logistics, and customer representative training.

Folsom inmates acquitted in prison killing; third defendant hanged self in cell
Darrell Smith, The Sacramento Bee

Two New Folsom inmates were acquitted of murder Thursday in the bloody behind-bars killing of a convicted child molester that prosecutors said was ordered by a prison shot-caller, a verdict that came days after a third man convicted for his role in the alleged plot hanged himself in his cell.

Jurors found Michael Vera and Cameron Welch not guilty of the Feb. 25, 2012, slashing death of Richard Leonard at California State Prison, Sacramento. As the verdicts were read, Vera shed tears and looked in apparent disbelief as Welch exhaled a deep, loud breath.

OPINION

Which State Will Be Next to Drop the Death Penalty?
With Nebraska’s ban this week, a pattern emerges
Matt Stroud, Bloomberg

This week, Nebraska became the 19th U.S. state to abolish the death penalty, and the first since Maryland in 2013.

Who’s next?

Fourteen states, including Nebraska, have introduced bills this year to ban capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that gathers public data about death penalty legislation and that favors banning the sentence. Four states voted no: South Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming. That leaves bills in nine states that are still at least technically active.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Kids celebrate Father's Day with dads at California Men's Colony
The Tribune

More than 200 children were driven to California Men’s Colony on Saturday from throughout California to see their dads for an early Father’s Day.

The Get on the Bus program, organized through The Center for Restorative Justice Works, is in its 10th year in San Luis Obispo. Nine chartered buses with children from as far away as Oakland and San Diego were driven to CMC Saturday, according to organizers.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Park begins sentence for February 2014 shooting
Aaron Crutchfield, Ridgecrest Daily Independent

David Carl Park entered Wasco State Prison earlier this month to begin serving a sentence of more than 32 years for five separate felonies committed during a February 2014 standoff at the Desert Empire Fairgrounds.

Park, who was the owner of Pro Shop Nutrition in Ridgecrest, was arrested after shooting at police officers from a trailer at the Desert Empire Fairgrounds RV park Feb. 6, 2014. A standoff ensued, which included the lockdown of two schools and a response from the Kern County SWAT team, but Park was arrested about four hours later. No one was hurt in the incident.

Cold case solved? Two men charged in 1978 kidnapping, slaying in Palmdale
Hailey Branson-Potts, The Los Angeles Times

Leslie Long had told her family she was proud to be working a “man's job” as a gas station attendant.

The gregarious 20-year-old had taken the job at a Chevron station in Palmdale to pay for a new bedroom suite in the house she shared with her three young children and her husband, her high school sweetheart.

On Dec. 3, 1978, Long was working a closing shift alone at the station at Palmdale Boulevard and Division Street when two men kidnapped her at gunpoint, raped her and shot her multiple times.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

East Palo Alto man who murdered wife in 1998 to be paroled
Sue Dremann, Palo Alto Weekly

A man who claimed his murdered wife had committed suicide by slashing her own throat was granted parole on Thursday, May 28, the San Mateo County District Attorney's office said.

Bruce Edward Cooper, 52, of East Palo Alto is serving a 16-years-to-life sentence for murdering his wife, Antoinette Michele Smith-Cooper, 35, outside their home on May 22, 1998. Smith-Cooper was found stabbed to death in the driveway of their home on the 2500 block of Annapolis Street at about 2 a.m., according to the San Mateo County Sheriff. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The couple's two children, ages 17 and 9, were inside the home at the time of the incident.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

How Do You Define a Gang Member?
Laws across the country are being used to target young men who fit the description for gang affiliation. But what if they aren’t what they seem?
Daniel Alarcón, The New York Times

On a rainy day last December, in a courtroom in downtown Modesto, Calif., a 24-year-old white man named Jesse Sebourn, along with five co-defendants, sat accused of second-degree murder. The victim, Erick Gomez, was only 20 when he was shot to death. He was a reputed Norteño gang member who had lived just a few minutes’ drive from the working-class Modesto neighborhood where Sebourn was raised. The police estimate that there are as many as 10,000 gang members in Stanislaus County, where Modesto is, most either Norteños and Sureños, two of California’s most notorious Latino street gangs. The feud between them often turns deadly, and according to Thomas Brennan, the district attorney, this was one such instance: Sebourn and his co-defendants were Sureño gang members hunting for rivals on Valentine’s Day in 2013, when they found Gomez, out on a walk with his girlfriend.

Marin kids of jailed parents seek rights, stage rally in San Rafael
Richard Halstead, Marin Independent Journal

Jessica Stillman remembers her first trips to visit her father in Folsom State Prison at age 9, after both he and Jessica’s mother had been incarcerated.

“The first visits were behind the glass. Those were probably the hardest visits because you don’t get to touch,” Stillman said.

She could see her dad, but they had to communicate via a phone.

Merced County gang sweep nets 75 arrests
Sabra Stafford, Turlock Journal

A 10-hour sweep Thursday through Merced County by law enforcement resulted in the arrest of 75 suspected gang members, including those sought for violent crimes like murder and attempted murder.

The investigation, named Operation Red Right Hand, represents the culmination of a five month long joint investigation into the Norteno criminal street gang and the Nuestra Familia prison gang, which authorities suspect have been responsible for numerous violent crime and drug offenses in Merced County for the past few years.

OPINION

Better mental health care, less litigation
The Sacramento Bee

In January 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown stood beside legal briefs stacked several feet high from lawsuits over prison conditions, and demanded that federal courts give the state back the authority to run its prisons, including providing care for mentally ill inmates.

“We can run our own prisons,” Brown said, announcing another appeal of yet another federal court order requiring that California prisons meet constitutional standards.

All the world’s a stage, even San Quentin
Debra J. Saunders, The San Francisco Chronicle

Julius Caesar lay dead. The senators who took his life stood dumbstruck, faced with the foul deed they had done, then fled in a panic. Mark Antony stared at the corpse in horror, and then raged, “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.” He picked up Caesar’s heavily tattooed, lifeless body and exited the stage. The audience gasped.

It wasn’t just the fine performance of LeMar Harrison, a.k.a. Maverick, who played Antony, that moved the crowd. It was the heft of Azraal Ford, the larger-than-life actor who played Caesar. Big Az is a towering, well-built man. Maverick is buff, but shorter, yet he somehow managed to carry Big Az with seeming ease down the aisle of the 300-seat chapel that served as San Quentin’s stage.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Solano prison inmates learn from Shakespeare’s tragedies
Jessica Rogness, The Reporter

The first season of Shakespeare at California State Prison, Solano has concluded with the theatrical performance of two tragedies. But the Arts-in-Corrections program is receiving enormously positive reviews from its actors, instructors and audience.

In many ways, the cast members of “Julius Caesar” looked like any other acting troupe. The cast of 12 inmates and three civilian volunteers spoke to their characters’ motivations, held a Q&A session after the show and were even asked by a few audience members to autograph programs.

Ex-NFL running back Lawrence Phillips sends terrifying letters from prison: 'This place is a jungle'
Josh Peter, USA Today

The handwritten letters have arrived with the same return address: Lawrence Phillips G-31982, Kern Valley State Prison, P.O. Box 5101, Delano, CA 93216.

Yes, that Lawrence Phillips.

The star running back on University of Nebraska’s national championship teams in 1994 and 1995. A first-round pick, sixth overall, in the 1996 NFL draft. A convicted felon — sentenced to 31 years for driving his car into three teenagers and assaulting an ex-girlfriend — under suspicion for the recent death of his cellmate in a maximum-security prison 140 miles north of Los Angeles.

State found not liable for releasing rapist who then killed teenager
Maura Dolan, The Los Angeles Times

State mental-health authorities are not liable for determining that a convicted rapist — who raped and killed a teenager four days after leaving prison — was suitable for release, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday.

Elaina Novoa sued the Department of Mental Health, charging that her sister’s death was caused by the government’s failure to fulfill its duties under the Sexually Violent Predators Act. That law permits dangerous sex offenders to be confined in a mental institution after their prison terms end.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Prison overseer says inmate medical care lacking in private lockups
Paige St. John, The Los Angeles Times

Though healthcare within the state's 34 prisons continues to improve, problems persist in contract prisons where the state pays to house its overflow inmate population.

"Little progress has been made in resolving, much less improving," the care provided to 4,200 inmates in seven contracted lockups, medical receiver Clark Kelso said in a report filed Monday with the three federal judges who oversee the state's prison system. Four of the seven prisons in Kern and San Bernardino counties are owned by the GEO Group; three are owned by small communities.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Police shooting of armed CDCR employee during standoff at hotel ruled within department policy
The Bakersfield Californian

Note:“ The reporter has been informed that Burdge was a former employee at the time of the shooting.”

The Bakersfield Police Department’s Critical Incident Review Board has determined shots fired by two officers at a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employee who shot a man and holed up inside a hotel were within department policy and state and federal guidelines.

Detective Kelly Williams and Senior Officer Daniel Champness have been returned to full duty, police said.

OPINION

Marin IJ Editorial: Governor’s death row plan makes sense
Marin Independent Journal‎

The addition of $3.2 million for expanding death row at San Quentin State Prison is part of the price tag of the state’s death penalty.

Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing that the state convert existing cells at the prison to create 97 more cells for its growing population of condemned inmates.

DEATH PENALTY

California execution process tied to ruling in Oklahoma case
Don Thompson, The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The state corrections department and families of murder victims have reached an agreement, announced Tuesday, that would tie California's execution procedure to a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The settlement filed in Sacramento County Superior Court late Monday resolves a lawsuit that was filed by crime victims to force the state to more quickly adopt a new process for executing condemned inmates.

California officials reach settlement on path to resuming executions
Alex Dobuzinskis, Reuters

Authorities in California, where the death penalty has been on hold since 2006, have reached a court settlement that would require the state to create lethal injection rules that could allow it to resume executions, officials said on Tuesday.

Attorneys for the most populous U.S. state submitted the settlement to a Sacramento court on Monday in a lawsuit brought by family members of murder victims who say the state's failure to provide a viable execution method denies them justice.

State to create new lethal injection method under legal settlement
Maura Dolan, The Los Angeles Times

Nearly a decade after the state last executed a prisoner, California has agreed to a settlement that moves the state closer to restarting the death chamber.

The settlement of a lawsuit brought by crime victims’ families requires Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration to unveil a new method of lethal injection this year. That method, which Brown officials said would be a single-drug lethal injection, will be subject to public comment and court challenges.

If the plan survives the scrutiny and litigation, it still could be stymied by difficulty in obtaining drugs needed for executions. Manufacturers, pressed by death penalty opponents, are refusing to sell drugs for executions. Compounding pharmacies, another possible source of the drugs, also could have trouble procuring the necessary chemicals to make them.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Appeals court upholds Schwarzenegger's clemency for Nuñez son
Christopher Goffard, The Los Angeles Times

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger waited until his last day in office to announce the commutation of convicted killer Esteban Nuñez, the son of a powerful political ally, and then gave this explanation: “Of course you help a friend.”

His decision in January 2011 to reduce Nuñez’s sentence from 16 years to seven years sparked outraged editorials, swift legislation, an outcry from victims’ rights groups and widespread condemnation from Democrats and Republicans.

REALIGNMENT

County reports AB 109 put pressure on jail
Kern Golden Empire

BAKERSFIELD, CA- Kern County Supervisors got an update this morning on the impact of the first three years of prison realignment.

AB 109 was passed in 2011, changing where sentences for certain felonies were served.

Thousands of low-level offenders that used to go to prison were sent instead to county jails.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

California Senate passes bill limiting use of solitary confinement for juveniles
Lisa P. White lwhite, Contra Costa Times

Following a landmark ban on the practice in Contra Costa County, the state Senate on Tuesday passed a bill limiting the use of solitary confinement for juvenile offenders.

Legislation by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, permits the use of solitary confinement in state and county juvenile correctional facilities only if an inmate poses an "immediate and substantial risk" to others or threatens the security of the facility. Co-sponsors of the bill include Oakland's Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the California Public Defenders Association and the Youth Justice Coalition. The Assembly is expected to consider the bill this summer.

71 Arrests Made During Probation, Parole Searches In Solano Co.
The weeklong effort combined multiple law enforcement agencies.
Susan C. Schena, Patch

Law enforcement agencies in Solano County made 71 arrests during probation and parole searches in Fairfield, a police lieutenant said.

The seven-day Street Criminal Apprehension Team detail between May 24 and Saturday included compliance checks on 55 residents on probation, parole or post-release community supervision in high crime areas, Fairfield police Lt. Rob Lenke said.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Inmates walk in support of Blythe Cancer Resource Center
Palo Verde Valley Times

BLYTHE, Calif. - Ironwood State Prison (ISP) Acting Warden Neil McDowell and Reentry Hub Manager Gale McKinney led the Ironwood State Prison inmates in the institution's annual cancer walk.

The inmates expressed a desire to give back to the Blythe community again this year by raising money to give to the Blythe Cancer Resource Center (BCRC). With the assistance of Correctional Counselor III, Gale McKinney, and Veteran's Group Sponsor, Robert Huizinga, the Veteran's Group recently organized and conducted a Cancer Walk on each of the four facilities. Among the four facilities, there was over $1,300 raised for BCRC.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Turlock rapist, kidnapper granted parole
Sabra Stafford, Turlock Journal

A Turlock man convicted of kidnapping and raping a 19-year-old woman has been granted parole after serving 21 years of a 15 years to life sentence.

Daniel Ray Slayter, 43, of Turlock was deemed suitable for parole by the State Board of Parole on May 27 following a hearing at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla.

In 1994, Slayter approached a 19-year-old woman who was working in the office of the Brentwood Apartments in Turlock. He forced her into her car at knifepoint and made her drive to a canal bank off of Highway 140. He raped her on the canal bank and then took her car, leaving her stranded on the side of the road. He was convicted of rape, kidnapping during a carjacking, carjacking, use of a knife, assault with a deadly weapon and false imprisonment and was sentenced to a 15-year-to life prison sentence.

84-year-old Modestan denied parole in 1985 murder of husband
The Modesto Bee

For the 10th time, a Modesto woman convicted in February 1986 of bludgeoning to death her husband has been denied parole.

Bonnie Meyers, who is 84 and has used a wheelchair for at least the better part of the past decade, was convicted in the 1985 murder of her 70-year-old husband, Don. Bonnie Meyers repeatedly bludgeoned her husband in the head with a blunt object as he sat in a recliner chair in the couple’s Modesto home, prosecutors said.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Under Prop. 47, former felons find themselves shedding a stifling label
Marisa Gerber, The Los Angeles Times

Susan Burton knows what the first day out of jail can feel like.

So after she got sober in the late '90s, she started spending time at a spot downtown where buses dumped women just released from custody. If they had no place to go, she invited them to come stay on a bunk bed in her bungalow in South L.A. Her hospitality grew into a reentry program with five homes that helps women reunite with their children after their release.

But her career path kept hitting the same roadblock: her own felony drug record.

Interview: Tamara Perkins, director and producer of "Life After Life"
Jen Chien, KALW

When it comes to locking up young people, the US leads the industrialized world. And though youth incarceration rates have been declining for the last two decades, adult prisons still contain many inmates who entered the system as juveniles with life sentences. These prisoners have grown up and lived their entire adult lives behind bars.

So what happens to these adults if and when they are released -- and have to re-enter a society they last knew as teenagers? A new documentary film, “Life After Life," explores that question by following three men, incarcerated in their teens, as they leave San Quentin and try to forge new lives on the outside.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

70 women graduate in Career Technical Education programs at Folsom prison
Laura Newell, The Folsom Telegraph

Approximately 70 female offenders graduated from California Prison Industry Authority’s Career Technical Education program last week and received certifications in computer-aided design, pre-apprentice construction labor, pre-apprentice carpentry and healthcare facilities maintenance.

“California Prison Industry Authority Career Technical Education programs are some of the most effective rehabilitation programs for CDCR,” said Charles Pattillo, the general manager for the California Prison Industry Authority and executive officer for the Prison Industry Board. “Cumulatively, California Prison Industry Authority Career Technical Education program graduates have a recidivism rate of 7.13 percent.”

Facebook Now a Place for Prisoners, Too
Civil rights advocates lobbied Facebook to stop automatically deleting all profiles of current American prisoners, The Daily Beast has learned. But the debate on whether someone is too dangerous ever to have one is still raging.
Sarah Shourd, Daily Beast

One day at work, Larissa admitted to logging onto Facebook “to see my kids’ Easter pictures.”

She had been put on work furlough because the Alabama Department of Corrections deemed her a low security risk. She was allowed to leave prison to work shifts at a local Burger King.

While Larissa was logged on, someone sent her a message and she replied.

DEATH PENALTY

California Faces Deadline For Approving New Execution Method
The Associated Press

The state corrections department and families of murder victims have reached an agreement, announced Tuesday, that would tie California's execution procedure to a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The settlement filed in Sacramento County Superior Court late Monday resolves a lawsuit that was filed by crime victims to force the state to more quickly adopt a new process for executing condemned inmates.

OPINION

Editorial: Criminal justice reforms under fire in Sacramento
The Press-Enterprise

Worries about crime have some California legislators and local officials working to amend two landmark criminal-justice reforms of recent years. Proposition 47, passed by voters last November, reduced many felonies to misdemeanors. And Assembly Bill 109, passed by the California Legislature in 2011 as the California Prison Realignment Plan, shifted thousands of state prison inmates to local jails.

Several bills have been introduced in the Legislature to curb the recent reforms. Two top bills are:

Assembly Bill 150 is by Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore. It would make theft of any firearm a felony. It’s supposedly needed because Prop. 47 reduced to a misdemeanor from a felony theft of property worth less than $950. Critics claimed that meant criminals would be able to steal guns worth less than $950 and mostly get away with it.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

SAN QUENTIN: Early Father's Day celebration at State Prison

KTVU

Note: “Click the link above to watch KTVU’s coverage of the Father’s Day Get on the Bus visiting event at San Quentin State Prison.”

Merced postal carrier recognized for helping save a life

Ana B. Ibarra, Merced Sun‑Star

There is something to be said about being at the right place at the right time. Just ask Penny Guillory.

Guillory is a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service out of the Merced office on M Street, and the newest recipient of the Postmaster General’s Hero Award.

In February, Guillory was driving to work when she noticed a man waving his hands frantically on the side of a Chowchilla road near Robertson Boulevard. When she stopped, she found that a female passenger was unconscious.

Officers don running shoes to carry torch

Chino Champion News

Chino and Chino Hills police and officers with the California Institution for Men will take part in the Flame of Hope Special Olympics torch run Monday.

Chino Hills police will receive the torch from Pomona Police officers near Garey Avenue and the 71 Freeway, run south on Peyton Drive to Chino Hills Parkway and pass the torch to Chino and CIM officers at Ramona Avenue.

A Musical View from Inside San Quentin

Bruce Robinson, KRCB

Every inmate inside San Quentin prison has at least one story to tell. Some of them have now been melded into music by a North Bay singer-songwriter. She talks about that process on today’s North Bay Report.

Mixed in with the regrets, longing, anger and remorse shared by the inmates in her writing sessions, Auld also found the ingredients for a love song of sorts—one that she says is the essence of mixed emotions.

CDCR NEWS

Inmates sue, saying they got Valley fever while in state prisons

John Ellis, The Fresno Bee

Four inmates who contracted Valley fever while housed at prisons across the region are suing state officials including Gov. Jerry Brown, saying they knew of the fungal infection’s dangers but did nothing to protect prisoners.

The legal actions are the latest in a string of federal civil rights lawsuits filed by multiple Southern California law firms on behalf of inmates housed mainly at Avenal and Pleasant Valley state prisons who have contracted the fungal infection. Pleasant Valley is located in Coalinga. One lawsuit filed late last year has 45 plaintiffs from the two prisons. A third, filed in July 2013, seeks class-action status on behalf of African Americans, those older than 55 and others with compromised immune systems who contracted Valley fever while at either prison.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Yolo Day Reporting Center honors parolees and probationers

Daily Democrat

The persistence of a select number of Yolo County probationers and parolees has paid off.

A total of 46 members of the spring 2015 graduating class of the Yolo Day Reporting Center were honored at the Woodland Senior Center Thursday for successfully completing the core components of an innovative transition program for probationers and parolees who are making successful transitions back into their communities.

David W. Gordon, superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education, spoke to the crowd that filled the center’s multipurpose room said “we are a nation of second chances” and that the honorees can and will turn things around.

1,000s of miles away

These states’ prisons are so full that they have to ship inmates thousands of miles away

Daniel Rivero, Fusion

By this time next year, the tiny village of Baldwin, Michigan (population 1,200) could more than double in size, thanks to people moving in from other states.

But the town is not attracting outsiders with a North Dakota-style economic boom. It is, in fact, one of the poorest municipalities in the state of Michigan. Rather, the new arrivals will be coming from Vermont and Washington, after both states reached an unprecedented agreement to ship inmates from those states to a private prison, located just outside the town.

The North Lake Correctional Facility, which will reopen at the end of June after being closed for four years, will strictly house inmates from other states, as Michigan will send none of its own to the facility. It’s the latest development in the controversial practice of how some states send local prisoners thousands of miles away from home to serve their sentences.

Program dies that let juvenile offenders clear their records

Bob Egelko, The San Francisco Chronicle

An unintended casualty of California’s criminal justice realignment of 2011, which shifted low-level criminals from state to county custody to relieve prison overcrowding, was a program that allowed juvenile offenders who did well on parole to erase their records that could follow them for the rest of their lives.

The apparently unintended repeal of the rehabilitation program was disclosed Thursday by a state appeals court in San Jose in the case of a young South Bay man seeking to clear a record that now subjects him to lifetime registration as a sex offender. The court urged legislators to remedy the oversight by either restoring the previous program or expressly eliminating it.

Salinas Valley prison officer pleads not guilty to brandishing weapon

Ana Ceballos, Monterey Herald

Salinas - A Salinas Valley State Prison correctional officer accused of holding another man at gunpoint has pleaded not guilty to all charges and continues to work at the prison.

Brian Gertsch, 35, denied all allegations against him stemming from a January heated argument that led to his arrest. Gertsch is facing a misdemeanor charge for brandishing a loaded weapon at a man in San Ardo. Matthew Castro told authorities Gertsch held a loaded gun at his chest after having an argument. Both men had been drinking at the time, deputies said.

OPINION

Editorial: Use state funds first on alternatives to jail

The Los Angeles Times

A California board with $500 million to award for jail construction is set on Wednesday to begin a two-month process under which counties can apply for the money. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has before it on Tuesday reports from the sheriff and other officials on their plans for a $2-billion replacement project for Men's Central Jail, as approved in principle by the supervisors a year ago. The timing might appear perfect. It's not. Both processes are moving too quickly and are too likely to result in construction of expensive new jails built around outmoded thinking, outdated circumstances and nonexistent needs.

The inmate population in California has changed drastically in the last several years, first due to a continuing drop in crime, then because of state laws adopted in 2011 that made counties and their jails responsible for many low-level felons who previously had been housed in the state prison system. The Board of State and Community Corrections grew out of that process of “criminal justice realignment” and is charged, in part, with making sure counties have what they need to handle their new responsibilities.

CDCR NEWS

Governor Brown Announces Appointments

Imperial Valley News

Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced the following appointments.

Kelly Harrington, 51, of Roseville, has been appointed director of the Division of Adult Institutions at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where he has been acting director since 2014 and served as deputy director of facility operations from 2013 to 2014. Harrington served in several positions at Kern Valley State Prison from 2008 to 2013, including associate director of high security and transitional housing, warden and acting warden. He served in several positions at Wasco State Prison from 2003 to 2008, including chief deputy administrator and correctional administrator, and from 1997 to 2000, including facility captain and correctional counselor. Harrington was a correctional administrator and facility captain at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Community Correctional Facilities Unit from 2000 to 2003, a correctional counselor at North Kern State Prison from 1995 to 1997 and a correctional counselor and officer at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi from 1987 to 1995. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $163,200. Harrington is a Republican.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Transgender CA Inmate Finds Circuit Receptive

Katherine Proctor, Courthouse News

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A transgender California woman seeking sex-reassignment surgery seemed to curry favor from the Ninth Circuit on Monday.

Mia Rosati, though state records still call her Philip, filed her 60-page handwritten complaint from the San Diego's R.J. Donovan State Prison where she is serving 80 years to life for murder.

DEATH PENALTY

Ninth Circuit upholds reversal of death penalty in 1981 case

The Associated Press

PASADENA, Calif. — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a district judge's reversal of a death sentence in the 1981 murder of a baby in San Bernardino County because of an error in instructing the jury about so-called special circumstances that enable capital punishment.

In August 1982, a jury convicted Brett Pensinger of two counts of kidnapping and one count of first-degree murder in the death of five-month-old Michelle Melander, whose mutilated body was found a year earlier.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

LA County finds housing key to tackling ex-felon problem

This month, L.A. County's Probation Department will start paying the rent for hundreds of homeless probationers. "Breaking Barriers" may be the first criminal justice program of its kind in the nation.

Rina Palta, KPCC

Under a program administered by the county's Department of Health Services, 300 homeless ex-felons under the supervision of a probation officer will get a case manager, employment services, any substance abuse and mental health services they need, and a permanent home in a rental property. The program will cost probation $4.2 million of its own funds, which will be paired with a $2 million donation from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

"You might bear some significant costs up front, but the assumption is it's more of an investment, because the individuals will then not continue to cycle through the criminal justice system," said Assistant Probation Chief Margarita Perez.

Vincent T. Bugliosi, Manson Prosecutor and True-Crime Author, Dies at 80

David Stout, The New York Times

Vincent T. Bugliosi, who successfully prosecuted the cult leader Charles Manson and several acolytes for the savage murders of the actress Sharon Tate and six other people in August 1969, then became a best-selling writer of true-crime books, died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 80.

He had been treated for cancer, his son, Vincent Jr., told The Associated Press in confirming the death.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Acting warden made permanent at Salinas Valley prison

The Salinas Californian

Gov. Jerry Brown has announced that William Muniz, 51, of King City, has been appointed warden at the Salinas Valley State Prison, where he has been acting warden since 2014 and has served in several positions since 1998, including chief deputy administrator, correctional administrator, captain, lieutenant and sergeant.

Muniz served as a correctional officer at the Correctional Training Facility, Soledad, from 1994 to 1998. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $141,204. Muniz is a Republican.

Governor appoints warden of California Medical Facility

The Reporter

A warden for the California Medical Facility was officially appointed to the post by the governor on Monday.

Robert Fox, 46, of Vacaville, has been appointed warden at CMF in Vacaville, where he has been acting warden since 2014, according to a statement from the governor’s press office. In addition to Fox’s appointment, the statement announced six other appointed positions to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) facilities statewide.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Convicted killer to be freed from prison

Ericka So, ABC7

A convicted killer from Shasta County sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison for the 1985 murder of a Redding woman is scheduled to be released.

Howard Glen Burgess, 85, was scheduled to be released from the California Medical Facility in Vacaville Monday, after nearly 30 years in prison.

The victim’s family said they only learned five days ago that their mother’s killer would be allowed to walk out of prison.

OPINION

Return death to ultimate penalty

Logan Jenkins, U-T San Diego

What do the following individuals have in common?

Bernard Hamilton; Richard Gonzales Samayoa; Ronaldo Ayala; Hector Ayala; David Allen Lucas; Kurt Michaels; Christopher Box; Dean Carter; Billy Ray Waldon; Rudolph Jose Roybal; LaTwon Reginald Weaver; Cleophus Prince, Jr.; Steven Bell; Jaime Hoyos; Bryan Maurice Jones; Robert Jurado, Jr.; Randall Clark Wall; Kerry Dalton; Johnaton George; Brandon Arnae Taylor; Ramon Jay Rogers; Ivan Gonzales; Veronica Utilia Gonzales; Correll Lamont Thomas; Susan Eubanks; David Alan Westerfield; Calvin Lamont Parker; Scott Erskine; George Williams, Jr.; Michael Flinner; Eric Anderson; Jeffrey Scott Young; Manuel Bracamontes, Jr.; Adrian Camacho; Tecumseh Colbert; Jean Pierre Rices; Derlyn Ray Threats.

If you answered that every one is a resident of California’s Death Row, sentenced in San Diego County for capital crimes committed here, you’re on the money, lots of money.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Charles Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi dies: What became of others

Christine Mai-Duc, Los Angeles Times

Vincent Bugliosi was asked in 2009 – around the 40th anniversary of the infamous Manson murders – why the case has endured for so long.

“The very name ‘Manson’ has become a metaphor for evil, and evil has its allure,” said Bugliosi, the prosecutor who got guilty verdicts in the mass murder case. In the summer of 1969, Charles Manson and his murderous “family” went on a rampage in Los Angeles that left nine people dead. Victims of the so-called Tate-LaBianca murders included actress Sharon Tate (wife of director Roman Polanski) and Los Feliz residents Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

1978 West Sac murderer denied parole for eighth time

The Democrat

A West Sacramento man convicted of a 1978 murder has been denied parole for the eighth time, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office reported.

Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig announced that Douglas Bentley was denied parole on Thursday by a two-commissioner panel of the Board of Parole Hearings. The hearing took place at California State Prison in Folsom.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Famous escapees from Folsom State Prison

Tauhid Chappell, News 10, and Doug Stanglin, USA Today

As a massive manhunt continues across the nation for two convicted New York killers who fled a maximum-security prison that hadn't been breached in 150 years, a Northern California prison, that once harbored one of the FBI's current most wanted fugitives and was included in two famous Johnny Cash songs, has had its fair share of escapes.

Folsom State Prison, which was one of the nation's first maximum-security prisons and California's second-oldest prison, has had its own infamous prison-break attempts over its 137 year history.

DEATH PENALTY

Jurors: Killer is competent for penalty phase

Stephanie Weldy,, Visalia Times Delta

Thirty-four years have passed since Michael Hamilton killed his 27-year-old pregnant wife with the squeeze of a shotgun trigger, a reload, and another blast.

But despite the years that have passed, emotions are still deeply embedded in the case against Hamilton — a man now 63 years old who has before called death row home.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Hard time exposes the soft benefits of deep energy retrofits

Laurie Guevara-Stone, GreenBiz

Talk of building energy-efficiency retrofits usually focuses on commercial offices. But there’s another type of building—prisons—where the non-energy benefits of those retrofits really stand out in stark relief. True to their name, deep energy retrofits generate a suite of deep retrofit values that are quantifiable and go well beyond straightforward energy cost savings, such as rents, sales and lease-up rates, employee health and productivity and more.

In office environments, the beyond-energy-cost value-add of deep retrofits is subtler, but prisons are a world of extreme contrasts where we can more plainly see the impact of deep retrofit value.

Long Beach Felon Charged With Sexual Assault of 88-Year-Old Woman During Break-In

Melissa Pamer, KTLA5

A Long Beach felon was charged Wednesday after allegedly breaking into the home of an 88-year-old Harbor City woman and raping her, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Emmanuel Stanley Reales, 40, was charged with forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, and first-degree residential burglary with a person present.

CDCR NEWS

People in the News

Central Valley Business Times

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Convicted rapist sues prison over loss of entertainment equipment

Jess Sullivan, Daily Republic

FAIRFIELD — A twice-convicted rapist partway through his 45-year prison stint has sued staff at California State Prison, Solano in Vacaville claiming they wrongly took away his Xbox video game console, his color television and its remote control, his electronic piano keyboard and his CDs and cassettes.

Lionel Tate, 66, pleaded guilty to multiple rape charges in 1987 and 1993 in Santa Clara County. He is set to be released from prison in 2037, shortly before his 90th birthday.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Hayward Man Killed by Oakland Police Had Violated His Parole

Autumn Johnson, Piedmont Patch

A man who was fatally shot by an Oakland police officer on Saturday morning had been wanted by authorities since April for violating his parole for a drug crime, a California Department of Corrections spokesman said Wednesday. Demouria Hogg, a 30-year-old Hayward man, absconded from his parole on April 21, which means that he wasn’t abiding by the terms of his parole, which include meeting regularly with his parole officer, Department of Corrections spokesman Luis Patino said.

Department of Corrections records indicate that over the past 10 years Hogg, who has three felony drug convictions, absconded from parole three times and committed eight other parole violations that caused him to be returned briefly to state prison. Information on the nature of Hogg’s parole violations isn’t available, Patino said.

REALIGNMENT

Grand jury: Realignment gives SLO County Sheriff's Office headaches

Matt Fountain, San Luis Obispo Tribune

The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office continues to grapple with violence and smuggling at the County Jail, due mainly to the changing inmate population since state prison realignment in 2011, according to a civil grand jury report.

But it is too soon to realize the effects of last year’s successful Proposition 47 ballot initiative that reclassified many non-violent drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, the grand jury found.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

A 'Good' Year

Officials predict a busy fire season. What does this mean for the men and women who make their money from the flames?

Linda Stansberry, North Coast Journal

Speculation is stock-in-trade during fire season. Rumors don't spread, exactly, but grow apace with the high grass watered by late spring rains. The state of the season is monitored with the same weather eye of a lookout watching the horizon for lightning strikes. As they did last year, hotshots check their gear, contractors gas up their trucks and battalion chiefs brief their crews on the latest incident protocol. And, like last year, they wait for the calls to come in. Last year, the waiting lasted a long, long time. Whether this year — the hottest on record — will flame or fizzle depends on a delicate mixture of weather, wind, fuel and human cooperation. And, as in every year, fear and anticipation do an uneasy dance. No one actually wants the world to burn, but many look forward to the money that flows when it does.

"I'm excited. I'm breathing heavy already," says Ken Richardson. "It should be a good year but that's what they said last year and I didn't turn a wheel last year."

CORRECTIONS RELATED

State updates system to see victims receive restitution

Josh Thompson, Chino Champion

Crime victims could soon receive more money from state prisoners through an improved restitution plan implemented by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

Two of the 33 state prisons in California are in Chino: California Institution for Men and California Institution for Women.

Under the updated system announced last month and coordinated with the Franchise Tax Board, prison officials can increase the number of restitution cases referred from the tax board from 1,800 to about 4,000 a month, state prison spokesman Joe Orlando said.

Man named to Corrections post

Porterville Recorder

WOODLAKE - Ralph Diaz, 45, of Woodlake has been appointed deputy director of facility operations at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where he has served as acting deputy director of facility operations since 2014.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

The Golden State’s Other Warriors Play in San Quentin

Ben Cohen, Wall Street Journal

SAN QUENTIN — It was an off day during the NBA Finals, and the general manager of the Golden State Warriors was in prison.

Last weekend, as Golden State’s players and coaches arrived at their arena for a light practice, Bob Myers and a team of Warriors executives, former college players and pickup basketball regulars surrendered their cell phones and checked themselves into San Quentin State Prison. The gates of California’s oldest correctional institution locked behind them.

Police torch bearers take Olympics flame on tour

Josh Thompson, Chino Champion

About two dozen officers traded in their work uniforms for running clothes Monday afternoon during the annual Southern California Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch run.

Officers from Chino and Chino Hills police departments and California Institution for Men in Chino took part in the run, which is part of worldwide opening ceremonies of local Special Olympic events. The run has raised more than $46 million annually since 1981. Money provides free year-round athletic training and competition opportunities for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Sonoma Co. Sex Assault Inmate Deemed Unfit For Parole

Susan C. Schena, Sonoma Valley Patch

An inmate convicted of a sexual assault in Sonoma County will remain in prison for another five years after having his parole denied at a hearing Wednesday, prosecutors said.

The Board of Parole hearing for 44-year-old Santa Rosa resident David James Battensby took place at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, according to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said a two-person panel ruled that Battensby is unfit for parole because of his mental health, controlled substance addiction and behavior that includes violence and impulsiveness.

Battle to stop early parole for 'San Francisco Witch Killers'

Steve Fiorina, ABC10 News

SAN FRANCISCO - The couple labeled the San Francisco Witch Killers, Michael Bear Carson and his second wife, Suzan, are seen smiling as the camera rolls on television file video from the early 1980s.

They are both on track for early parole hearings due to a new California law that older inmates be given special consideration.

One victim was Clark Stephens, a young man who moved to Humboldt County to grow marijuana in the early 80s. His stepmother Rose Marie Stephens recalls, "He ran into the Carsons, who were traveling through and they were killing witches and she said Clark was a witch and they, therefore, killed him."

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Ex-Con Starts Over With Antioch Roastery

Tiffany Camhi, KQED

Bay Area cafes have something of a reputation, maybe a stereotype, for young, hip baristas selling caffeine at top dollar.

So you might not expect the person carefully preparing your espresso to be an ex-convict.

But that is what you’ll find at Big House Beans, a cafe in the East Bay.

Its founder is an ex-con who discovered coffee on his road to redemption.

4 options for contraband cell phone detection

Melissa Mann, Corrections One

Frequent discoveries of contraband cell phones in correctional facilities have emerged as a serious problem in the last few years. These discoveries result in dangerous security ramifications and have grown into epidemic proportion. Cell phone usage by inmates poses both a safety and security risk by interrupting the monitoring processes in prisons.

Cell phones can record conversations, video images, provide internet access and ultimately be used to commit crimes and threaten facility security. According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NITA ) “contraband cell phone use by prison inmates to carry out criminal enterprises is intolerable and demands an effective solution.”

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Tim Robbins on How His 'Prison Project' Gives Inmates Essential Tools for Post-Prison Life

Tavis Smiley, The Huffington Post

Tonight, I'm joined by Academy Award-winner Tim Robbins. The prolific actor has starred in such classic American films as The Shawshank Redemption, Bull Durham and Mystic River. His latest project is the HBO comedy series, The Brink, a political satire in which he plays a womanizing and often drunk Secretary of State.

Widely respected for his advocacy work, Robbins is the Founding Artistic Director of The Actors' Gang, a theater group which has spearheaded a project that provides rehabilitative acting workshops for incarcerated men and women in California. In the clip below, he shares how the Prison Project prepares inmates with better emotional tools for building meaningful bonds with one another, and for post-prison life.

Inmate from TI treatment facility located

Sharon Song, KRON 4

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A female inmate who walked away from a treatment facility on Treasure Island has turned herself in, after a search was launched, state prison officials said on Monday.

38-year-old Maria Vasquez has been participating in the Alternative Custody Program (ACP) at the Treasure Island Female Offender Treatment and Employment Program (FOTEP) facility since May 20, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). She walked off the facility grounds on Sunday.

Inmate Missing From Julian Camp

Andie Adams, NBC 7 San Diego

Prison officials are searching for a minimum-security inmate who walked away from a Julian prison camp Monday, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The staff at La Cima Conservation Camp first noticed Jesse Lozano, 41, was missing at 2:30 p.m.

Manson Family murders: Key players in the Tate-LaBianca killings

Jonelle Lawrence, KABC-TV

LOS ANGELES (KABC) --Forty-five years ago today, the trial began for Charles Manson and four of his followers responsible for the Tate-LaBianca murders.

In the early morning hours of August 9, 1969, actress Sharon Tate, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and four others -- including celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, filmmaker Voityck Frykowksi and 18-year-old Steven Parent -- were brutally murdered at the Beverly Hills home of Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski. All of the victims were shot or stabbed multiple times by "Manson Family" members Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Charles "Tex" Watson. There were 169 stab wounds between the five. The killers used Tate's blood to write "pig" on the front door; a macabre message that shocked and confused the city.

CALIFORNIA PAROLE

Darren Sharper admits raping 3 women in New Orleans, in final plea of global deal

Ramon Antonio Vargas and John Simerman, The New Orleans Advocate

Former Saints player Darren Sharper on Monday admitted raping three women in 2013 in New Orleans, where he helped capture the city’s lone major professional sports championship a little more than five years ago.

SEE THE PLEA DEAL DOCUMENTS HERE.

Wearing an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit and shackles, Sharper pleaded guilty to two charges of forcible rape and one of simple rape in front of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Karen Herman. That followed his pleading guilty or no contest in March to raping a total of six other women in Los Angeles; Las Vegas; and Tempe, Arizona.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Your Call: How do people re-enter society after released from prison?

Malihe Razazan, KALW

On the June 15th edition of Your Call, we’ll hear stories of people who turned their lives around after spending many years in prisons and jails. The Welcome Home Project collects stories and photographs of 20 formerly incarcerated men and women who changed their lives around after spending many years behind bars. What stigma and barriers do the formerly incarcerated face? Join the conversation, with Rose Aguilar and you.

HuffPost What's Working Honor Roll: Prison Gardens Are Making A Comeback, With Benefits For Inmates And Communities

Catherine Taibi, The Huffington Post

A growing number of prisons nationwide are starting gardening programs to teach inmates new skills, improve prison life and feed communities in need.

"It’s planting season behind bars, where officials from San Quentin in California to Rikers Island in New York have turned dusty patches into powerful metaphors for rebirth," The Washington Post's Michael S. Rosenwald writes. "The idea: transform society’s worst by teaching them how things bloom — heads of cabbage, flowers, inmates themselves."

Police initiative tackles gang violence

Officers make 36 arrests, seize guns, drugs

Joe Goldeen, Record

STOCKTON — A multiagency law enforcement task force over the weekend made 36 arrests and confiscated guns and drugs in an effort to curb ongoing gang violence in Stockton.

The enforcement teams fanned out Friday and Saturday, making a point of being highly visible in known crime areas “with a focus on quality field contacts,” according to the Stockton Police Department.

OPINION

The Death Penalty Is Cruel. But So Is Life Without Parole.

Stephen Lurie, The New Republic

Prison cells don’t attract many spectators, but executions have always drawn crowds. Paradoxically, the names and identities of death row inmates only come to matter when their execution had been scheduled: from impending death we take a sudden interest in life.

Despite the incongruity, this isn’t all that surprising. Twenty-first century America is still susceptible to the time-honored spectacle of state-sanctioned death, even if much of the attention now scrutinizes, rather than cheers, the practice. Recently, there have been many stories typical of the current fascination with American capital punishment, most notably Ben Crair’s piece in this magazine and Jeffrey Stern’s in The Atlantic. Like other recent examinations of the death penalty, both accounts focus specifically on the act of execution by lethal injection; each covers botched executions and the question of cruel and unusual punishment in the death chamber itself. Stern’s story centers on the act and ramifications of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett’s execution: A paramedic—and later, a physician—fail to find a vein in a dozen stabs into Lockett’s flesh so the execution can proceed. (Which it does, equally gruesomely.) Crair’s investigation deals with the national execution drug shortage—including Lockett’s experience along with many others—and highlights Ohio prisoner Joseph Wood’s story; his execution was so mishandled that he “gasped and snorted for one hour and 57 minutes… the longest execution in modern history.”

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

San Quentin prison families visit dads, granddads

Christina Gray, Catholic San Francisco

Almost 80 family members of San Quentin State Prison inmates traveled by bus from Southern California June 5 to share an early Father’s Day, thanks to a family visitation program started by two Catholic sisters concerned about the welfare of children separated from their incarcerated parents.

Founded by Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Suzanne Steffen and Susan Jasbro, Get on the Bus helps reunite prison families, with free trips to the state’s 11 prisons, for children, grandchildren and their guardians every year between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Officers carry Special Olympics Torch through Salinas

Jay Dunn, The Salinas Californian

Aiming to promote awareness of and raise money for the Special Olympics, four enthusiastic groups of law enforcement officers teamed up Tuesday to participate in the annual Torch Run through Salinas.

The morning's relay through the city began with the passing of the torch from Correctional Training Facility (Soledad) staff to members of the California Highway Patrol's Monterey Area office in Salinas.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Transgender movement may not have to wait long for its day in court

Liz Goodwin, Yahoo News

The Supreme Court will announce whether it has found a fundamental right to same-sex marriage any day now, dramatically altering the course of gay rights history. But a much lower-profile case that is currently wending its way up through the federal courts could offer the Supreme Court an opportunity for another potentially transformative decision on LGBT rights as soon as next year.

The case — about whether the California state prison system should be required to pay for an inmate’s sex reassignment surgery — may change public perceptions about medical care for transgender people at a time when Caitlyn Jenner and other high-profile trans people are lending more visibility to the group.

Veteran court reporter Linda Deutsch recalls covering Charles Manson trial

Robert Holguin, KABC-TV

LOS ANGELES (KABC) --Linda Deutsch was only 24 years old when she got the assignment of a lifetime - covering the murder trial of Charles Manson.

"It was truly like going to the circus every day," said Deutsch, a veteran court reporter for The Associated Press. "At an age when a lot of kids are just getting their start, I was covering the biggest trial in the country for the largest news agency in the country by myself."

DEATH PENALTY

Death row inmate back in Kern County for resentencing

Jason Kotowski, The Bakersfield Californian

Constantino Carrera is experiencing a change of scenery for the first time in more than 30 years.

The death row inmate was transported from San Quentin State Prison to Bakersfield last week and made his first appearance in Kern County Superior Court Tuesday since being sentenced for two counts of murder and robbery in 1983.

Carrera, 53, is back for resentencing after a federal judge in 2004 threw out his death sentence in the stabbing deaths of a Mojave couple. The judge ruled in part that a prosecutor twice committed misconduct in the case.

OPINION

Confront reality and end death penalty charade

The Sacramento Bee

California authorities paid $10,000 in legal fees to the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation earlier this month when they settled a death penalty-related lawsuit. It was the latest insult inflicted by leaders who won’t publicly admit that capital punishment is an abject failure, and end it.

The $10,000 is a pittance, compared to the hundreds of millions California taxpayers have spent on endless death sentence appeals, and to ensure that the 750 people on death row receive adequate health and mental health care, and are housed in quarters that meet constitutional standards against cruel and unusual punishment.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

Second prison's health care OK as state seeks to end control

The San Francisco Chronicle

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The state inspector general has given a second California prison a passing grade on health care, allowing federal officials to consider returning control to the state.

The inspector general said Wednesday that it rated overall care at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad as adequate.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

Search on for inmate camp escapee

Pauline Repard, U-T San Diego

EAST COUNTY — A search continued Tuesday for a minimum-security inmate who walked away from a prison fire camp in the mountains near Lake Cuyamaca.

The escape of Jesse Lozano, 41, is a first for La Cima Conservation Camp off Sunrise Highway, said an official with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Convicted Killer Fined $300 for Refusal to Testify Against Stepson

William McCrumb refused to testify Taireece Ross, who was convicted last Thursday of involuntary manslaughter.

Alexander Nguyen, Patch

A 63-year-old convicted murderer was fined $300 Wednesday after being found in contempt of court for refusing to testify in his stepson’s murder trial.

Prosecutors wanted William McCrumb to give sworn testimony against 22-year-old Taireece Ross, who was convicted last Thursday of involuntary manslaughter in the April 2, 2014, shotgun slaying of Damon Capacchione in Desert Hot Springs.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

The right choices

America’s bloated prison system has stopped growing. Now it must shrink

The Economist

DAVID PEACE, a 35-year-old from Dallas, has never used the internet. Neither has he ever used a mobile phone, possessed a driving licence or received a pay-cheque. Mr Peace, who is black, stockily built, with a broad smile, was convicted of an aggravated assault in 1997 after using a knife in a fight with a neighbour. The years most men of his age would have spent working, or starting a family, he has spent in various prisons in Texas. Next year he will be released from the minimum-security prison in Cleveland, a town near Houston, where he is currently held. The prospect of the outside world is still daunting. “I feel left behind,” he says. “I’ve been living in a place where all of my choices are made for me, and now I have to learn to make the right choices.”

No country in the world imprisons as many people as America does, or for so long. Across the array of state and federal prisons, local jails and immigration detention centres, some 2.3m people are locked up at any one time. America, with less than 5% of the world’s population, accounts for around 25% of the world’s prisoners. The system is particularly punishing towards black people and Hispanics, who are imprisoned at six times and twice the rates of whites respectively. A third of young black men can expect to be incarcerated at some point in their lives. The system is riddled with drugs, abuse and violence. Its cost to the American taxpayer is about $34,000 per inmate per year; the total bill is around $80 billion.

Prop 47: Sentencing Reduction Awareness Campaign in California Expands

New America Media‎

LOS ANGELES -- The punishment didn’t really end when Rochelle Solombrino was released from state prison after serving an 18-month sentence for petty theft, drug possession, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. After all, people with felony convictions are often barred from employment and housing opportunities.

Even though Solombrino had overcome her addictions with the help of the San Pedro-based Fred Brown Recovery Services, she was denied Section 8 subsidized housing because of her felony record. She did get a job at Fred Brown but her position became an issue earlier this year when the nonprofit learned that it could not qualify for a Los Angeles County government grant if any staff members have a felony record.

CDCR NEWS

Dozens indicted after three L.A. gangs unify under Mexican Mafia, feds allege

Richard Winton and Joseph Serna, The Los Angeles Times

Nearly two dozen members of three Northeast Los Angeles gangs united by the Mexican Mafia have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of racketeering, extorting money from drug sellers and conspiring to kill rivals.

The indictment unsealed Thursday reveals the Mexican Mafia or La Eme united the leadership of three multi-generational gangs — Frogtown, the Rascals and Toonerville -- that control territories in Atwater Village, Glendale and northeast Los Angeles.

Note: For more coverage, visithttps://goo.gl/ifgW4r

3 Los Angeles Gangs Indicted for Uniting in Conspiracy

Brian Melley, The Associated Press

Three rival Los Angeles gangs united in a rare alliance to conspire to control drug trafficking and carried out crimes that included murder and extortion, federal prosecutors said Thursday in announcing a racketeering indictment against 22 gang members.

Gangs that trace their roots back as far as the 1950s along a gritty stretch of the Los Angeles River were brought together by a convicted murderer who ordered the truce from his state prison cell near the Oregon border.

CDCR’s Special Agents help lead Mexican Mafia Takedown in Los Angeles

Imperial Valley News

Los Angeles, California - Special agents from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Office of Correctional Safety, in conjunction with federal and local authorities, have arrested 15 defendants named in a federal racketeering indictment that describes the development and implementation of a coalition of three criminal street gangs in the Northeast Los Angeles area.

The gangs were brought together under a truce ordered by a Mexican Mafia member for the purpose of controlling criminal activity in the neighborhoods where the trio of gangs operated.

Visalia man appointed warden at San Quentin State Prison

Stephanie Weldy, Visalia Times-Delta‎

Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday announced a Visalia man has been appointed warden at San Quentin State Prison.

As warden, Ronald Davis, 45, will provide supervision at the prison.

The position is not new to Davis, as he has served as acting warden at the facility since 2014.

CALIFORNIA INMATES

6 inmates on San Quentin Death Row sue over time in solitary

Bob Egelko, The San Francisco Chronicle

A group of Death Row inmates has sued the state for keeping them in solitary confinement for years or even decades, locked in windowless cells with no phone calls or human contact. It’s treatment, they said, that “amounts to torture.”

The suit was filed in federal court Wednesday by six condemned prisoners, who said they were among about 100 inmates, out of 750 on Death Row, who are kept in isolation in the Adjustment Center at San Quentin State Prison as suspected gang members or associates. The suit said they are held in their cells 21 to 24 hours a day, with no natural light, no access to education or work programs, no phone calls and no contact visits from family members, who must speak to them by phone across a glass barrier.

Death-Row Prisoners Challenge Conditions

Nick Cahill, Courthouse News

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - California holds death-row inmates in unconstitutional "extreme isolation" at San Quentin, six prisoners claim in a federal class action.

Lead plaintiff Bobby Lopez sued for about 100 men held in "extreme isolation" at San Quentin State Prison's "Adjustment Center," one of three units that hold condemned men.

All are classified "Grade B" prisoners, subjecting them to "stark and cruel deprivations," including 21 to 24 hours per day in their cell, just three showers per week and lack of sleep due to constant suicide checks by jailers.

CORRECTIONS RELATED

Across US, over 220 prison escapees listed as on the loose

Jennifer Peltz, The Seattle Times

NEW YORK (AP) — Somewhere out there are an admitted killer who crawled through a Texas prison’s ventilation ducts, a murderer who apparently escaped from an Indiana institution in a garbage truck, and a Florida convict who got other inmates to put him in a crate at the prison furniture shop and had himself delivered to freedom by truck.

They’re among more than 220 state prison escapees nationwide who are listed as on the loose, The Associated Press found in a coast-to-coast survey.

Most broke out decades ago, meaning the chances of finding them have dwindled dramatically — that is, if they’re even alive.

Justice Kennedy practically invites a challenge to solitary confinement

David G. Savage, The Los Angeles Times

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in an unusual separate opinion in a case, wrote that it may be time for judges to limit the use of long-term solitary confinement in prisons.

His comments accompanying a decision issued Thursday marked a rare instance of a Supreme Court justice virtually inviting a constitutional challenge to a prison policy.

Ex-Jamestown correctional officer pleads no contest in workers’ comp case

Bill Lindelof, The Sacramento Bee

A former state prison worker has pleaded no contest to workers’ compensation insurance fraud after authorities said he went on rugged hikes, including one trek of 50 miles.

Ex-California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation correctional officer Alan Lemke filed a workers’ compensation claim alleging he injured his foot while working at the Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown.

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