California Inmates
Misha DiBono, Fox 5 San Diego
SAN DIEGO – Tens of thousands of California inmates serving 25 years to life under the 1994 Three Strikes Law may never walk out of the prison gates, but under the new voter passed amendment Proposition 36, hundreds of inmates, like Sergio Ayala, may be set free.
“This is a guy who had a drug problem and was stealing to pay for drugs,” said attorney Justin Brooks of the California Western School of Law. Brooks had been working to get Ayala’s case reviewed for more than a year. Ayala was sentenced to 25 years to life in 1995 after being convicted for stealing a leaf blower worth about $150. It was his third strike. He was a heroin addict and had two prior none-violent burglary convictions.
“Today, the judge ordered Mr. Ayala to be released from prison after serving 17 years for theft of a leave blower – a $150.00 leaf blower,” he said. “This is exactly what Prop. 36 was designed to do. It was to get non-violent non-serial offenders out of our system.”
Under Prop 36 those convicted under the Three Strikes Law may apply to have their cases re-evaluated and then re-sentenced by a judge. But it’s not a blanket pardon. Every case will be looked at individually through the district attorney’s office.
“We estimate there are about 325 cases that are statutorily eligible for re-sentencing,” said Deputy State Attorney General Gary Schons. “We will oppose their release if we believe they pose a risk or danger to the community.”
“If one of these guy re-offends, gets re-sentenced under Prop 36, there’s going to be people who say it’s a mistake, “ Brooks said. “But we are going to save millions of dollars and that money can be reallocated to policing and to keeping more serious criminals in prison.”
For Ayala, now drug free for 17 years, Prop 36 is a chance to start over.
“This is a guy who had given up hope that he was ever coming home. It was one of the best things that I have ever been able to do as an attorney,” Brooks said.
Ayala remained at San Quentin Prison Thursday night. He is expected to be released in five days and will most likely be deported to his hometown in Tijuana.
The Associated Press |
COMPTON, California — A man who was serving prison time in Washington state has been charged with killing a 16-year-old girl in Southern California more than two decades ago.
City News Service says 63-year-old James A. Boyd was extradited to Los Angeles earlier this week and remains jailed without bail. He's facing a December arraignment on suspicion of committing murder during a rape.
Prosecutors haven't decided whether to seek the death penalty.
Boyd is charged in connection with the October 1991 killing of Melissa Alcantar. Her bound body was found in the locked bathroom of a Compton thrift shop where she worked.
Authorities say the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department took over the case from Compton police in 2000 and developed new evidence that led to Boyd.
Paige St. John, Los Angeles Times
California prison officials are revising official procedures and even prison garb to get up to date with changing mental and medical treatment of inmates who identify with one sex and their bodies, another.
The state issued part of an updated operations manual this week that directs employees to stop using the prior official term, "effeminate homosexual." Those inmates are now to be called "transgendered," in keeping with current nomenclature used by the medical and mental health fields.
Services for transgender inmates also are being expanded, and a provision for clothing accommodations has been added. Transgender inmates, if they ask, can receive a state-issued bra or boxer shorts.
California already pays for hormone treatment for transgender inmates already taking the drugs when incarcerated.
The challenge of where and how to house transgender inmates has been an issue in California prisons. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009 vetoed a bill that would have required corrections officials to consider an inmate's sexual identity when deciding where to put him.
A transgender inmate at the men's prison in Vacaville last year lost her lawsuit demanding that California pay for sex-change surgery for those who request it.
CDCR Related
Mark Hansen, American Bar Association Journal
A California man who falsely passed himself off as an immigration lawyer has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Rey Martin Lespier, 45, pleaded no contest Wednesday to four counts of theft by false pretense in Merced County, Calif., the Merced Sun-Star reports.
Lespier, who is not a licensed attorney, opened offices in two cities under the name
"American Legal Incorporated." He advertised on Spanish-speaking radio stations that he could help immigrants with their legal problems, demanding large sums of money from prospective "clients" upfront, according to prosecutors.
In one particularly egregious case, Lespier took $8,000 from a couple who went to him for help getting green cards, said deputy district attorney Walter Wall, who prosecuted the defendant. Lespier also videotaped the couple's child, who has Down's syndrome, telling them that it would help them in their cause with immigration officials.
Deputy public defender Chris Loethen, who represented Lespier, could not be reached for comment by the Sun-Star.
One year into California's prison realignment program, the county is seeing an unexpected number of high-risk offenders coming under its supervision.
Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times
One year into California's state prison realignment program, Los Angeles County is seeing an unexpected number of high-risk offenders coming into its probation system, including some with a history of severe mental illness.
It remains unclear whether realignment — which shifted responsibility for some nonviolent offenders from prisons to county jails and from state parole to county probation — is having an effect on crime rates. But a report by a county advisory body found that a majority of state prison inmates who have been released to county probation are at a high risk of reoffending.
In the first year of the new system, which took effect in October 2011, 11,136 offenders were released from state prison to Los Angeles County probation. Of those who reported to probation for assessment, 59% were classed as high risk, 40% as medium risk and only 1% as low risk.
The department uses probationers' criminal history and other factors to determine the risk that they will commit new crimes and the resources required to supervise them.
Deputy Chief Reaver Bingham said the department originally projected that 50% of the offenders coming out of state prison would fall into the high-risk category.
And a handful of people previously classified as mentally disordered offenders — people considered dangerous because of mental illness — were downgraded or "decertified" while in state hospitals, making them eligible for county supervision, according to the report issued Thursday by the Countywide Criminal Justice Coordination Committee.
County officials said that runs contrary to the spirit of realignment, which was pitched as a money-saving measure for the state that would transfer low-level offenders to less costly county supervision. The committee's report said the decertified mentally disordered offenders "present high public safety risk, present significant placement issues, and consume high levels of resources."
Jeffrey Callison, a spokesman with the state corrections department, said the courts, not the department, determine who is decertified and that under the current law, people not classified as mentally disordered who are eligible for realignment are required to go to county supervision.
"It's not for me to say that a given county does or doesn't have the resources to supervise a person who has been decertified," he said.
The committee's report recommended that the county seek legislation to shift back to the
state responsibility for probationers formerly designated as mentally disordered offenders as well as "medically fragile" people and prisoners serving long sentences in county jail.