San Quentin Blog

New Physical Fitness Form

2013-05-24T22:01:00.001-07:00

One on One Swap for Transfers

2013-05-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2uma27JpS8LdTd1STJwcXNiRE0/edit

KGO TV SF News 7 I-Team obtains San Quentin crisis videos (A rare look at San Quentin State Prison Cell Extraction Video)

2013-05-21T07:15:00.004-07:00

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MARIN COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- We're about to give you a rare look at the tactics used by San Quentin State Prison guards in crisis situations -- an overwhelming show of force called "cell extraction teams". The I-Team's Dan Noyes has obtained internal videos from the prison.

Many reality TV shows have been shot at San Quentin, but veteran guards tell Noyes the cell extraction teams are normally off limits. These videos show how guards deal with serious threats from some very dangerous inmates.

San Quentin State Prison holds some of California's most dangerous criminals -- serial killers, rapists, robbers. And when they threaten staff or refuse to follow orders the cell extraction team goes in -- six members strong, each with a specific duty.

Inmate from crisis video: "Pop the door and you're going to have to kill me."

Before the team moves in, the guards use the prison's camera to identify which one of them will be deploying the O.C. pepper spray, handcuffs, baton, leg irons, and who will be holding the camera.

One member of the team runs a video camera to document the process, and protect the prison against excessive force complaints. Using the Public Records Act, the I-Team has obtained some of those recordings and they show one of the most dangerous jobs in the Bay Area.

Retired San Quentin Prison Guard Jeff Evans tells Noyes, "I've had coworkers that never left that gate, that never came out alive."

Evans worked more than 100 cell extractions. At 6'4" tall, 280 pounds, Evans was usually the first man into the cell with the riot shield.

Noyes: "So, you're there, got your gear on, you got the shield, you're the first one in the cell, what's going through your mind?"
Evans: "Do my job. Do it right, because the first guy in, if I do it wrong, then I'm putting my partners behind me in harm's way."

One of the three cell extraction videos Noyes obtained shows Albert Levanos, a lifer with a long rap sheet including robbery, carjacking, kidnapping and rape. He threatened to attack guards with a homemade weapon.

On the crisis video, a prison captain explains, "He was heard by a lieutenant stating that he will spear any staff members that come by the cell."

As the guards head to Levanos' cell, other inmates warn the extraction team is on the move, "Here they come, here they come!"

The team allowed Levanos more than two hours to cool off, but he still refuses to cooperate.

A prison lieutenant says, "He is refusing to come out at this time. Sergeant, deploy the O.C."

O.C. is "Oleoresin Capsicum" or pepper spray. The guard empties one large can and starts another. Levanos has barricaded his cell door with his mattress, so the team removes the wire mesh to get a better shot.

But, a guard holding the pepper spray can't see Levanos in the darkened cell and asks, "Where's he at?"

The pepper spray has failed -- Levanos won't give up, so the cell extraction team makes its move. The head of the team yells, "Go, go, go, go! Get him down."

Levanos charges at the guards, and is able to make it outside the cell door, and the captain yells, "Get control of that head, get control of the arms, don't let go of anything until you got him."

The camera keeps rolling while they take Levanos to wash away the pepper spray.

Levanos is seen in the video under the shower saying, "Whoo, that's good."

The guards get him cleared by a nurse and into administrative segregation.

Noyes took the videos to one of the foremost prison rights advocates in the nation -- the Prison Law Office based in Berkeley. Director Don Specter says he understands the need for cell extraction teams "&but we want to make sure it's done appropriately and only when necessary."

Specter questions the large amount of pepper spray in these extractions and a tactic used on inmate Brian Antaya, who didn't want to leave his cell for a TB test.

A prison lieutenant explains on the crisis video, "The last several sprays have been onto the toilet and the sink area."

Evans says, "If you shoot in those areas, when he goes over and tries to use that water or the sink and the toilet, he's actually pepper spraying himself."

But Specter argues, "That seems to me to be incredibly excessive, as well. You're supposed to use the minimum amount of pepper spray necessary to gain compliance."

Noyes reached Antaya by phone. He's now out of prison, getting his life together.

Noyes: "Tell me how that felt, that pepper spray?"
Antaya: "It didn't like burn the eyes too bad."

Antaya surrendered after being pepper sprayed. Now, he says he should have followed orders. He has no problem with how the guards treated him at San Quentin. Antaya told Noyes, "I'm kind of ashamed that I ended up being in there, but I do thank God how well it does run, and they were very courteous and polite."

On the crisis video, you can see a prison lieutenant wrapping up Antaya's cell extraction.

Prison lieutenant: "Mr. Antaya, except for the burning, are you OK?
Antaya: "Yes sir, I am Lieutenant."
Prison lieutenant: "All right."

If you have an idea for our next investigation, you can reach Dan Noyes on Facebook or Twitter, email me online here or call our tip line at: 1-888-40-I-Team.

KGO-TV/DT

New Study Gives Snapshot of Realignment Results

2013-05-19T07:49:00.001-07:00

The California Corrections and Rehabilitation Department offered a glimpse today of how

realignment is working. The program diverts low-level offenders to county jails in an effort to reduce state prison overcrowding.

A study done by the department compares inmates released pre- and post- realignment. It found post-realignment offenders were re-arrested at a lower rate than pre-realignment offenders. Both groups were convicted of new crimes at nearly the same rate. The department’s Jeffrey Callison stresses this is just a snapshot.

“This is not intended to be a definitive statement on realignment. It’s just showing people what’s been happening with some people who were released from prison after serving their time,” says Callison.

The study found post-realignment offenders were far less likely to be returned to prison for a parole violation. But that’s because most are ineligible to go back to prison under the realignment policy.

$50,000 Prisoner Prescription: Inmates Get Expensive Hepatitis C Treatment

2013-05-17T23:30:00.001-07:00

CBS 13 — There’s a disease running rampant and the cost of treating it is astronomical.

Hepatitis C is one of the most common diseases and can carry a death sentence. The cost of fighting it runs into the tens-of-thousands of dollars.

But with tight budgets there’s debate on whether prison inmates be given the most expensive, top-of-the-line medications? It’s a question of responsible compassion. “I was living, at one point in my time, in my life, as a youth pretty recklessly,” Paul Sousa admits with quiet candor.

Life for Sousa was filled with drug use. He says it was destiny; he just did what he saw his mother, and the other relatives who raised him, do – they were hippies who loved to party.

And the party didn’t end when, in 1992, Sousa tested positive for Hepatitis C. continue reading...

Inmate slashes two Correctional Officers at California Men's Colony

2013-05-17T23:28:00.002-07:00

Two California Men’s Colony correctional officers are in the hospital recovering from slash wounds to their heads and necks after being attacked by an inmate Tuesday morning, according to prison officials.

Inmate William Mikeworth, 39, used a toothbrush handle sharpened into a knife to slice one officer in the head and neck several times about 10 a.m. Tuesday in the prison’s medium-security yard, according to a news release issued by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

An alarm alerted other officers to the attack, and responding officers used physical force and batons to subdue Mike worth, according to the release. During the altercation, a second officer was injured, also cut on the head and neck.

CMC Lt. Bob Furster said assaults on officers are not uncommon, but added that Tuesday’s attack was deliberately intended to kill. “Based on evidence collected and staff observations, this is clear attempted murder as opposed to battery,” Furster said.

Both officers are expected to recover and are considered in good condition.

CMC is a medium/minimum-security prison housing 4,917 inmates off Highway 1 outside San Luis Obispo.

Mikeworth, from San Bernardino, is serving a nine-year term for assault with a deadly weapon and has been housed at California Men’s Colony since Feb. 18, 2013. He has been in state prison since Sept. 9, 2008.

The case is being investigated as attempted murder by investigators at California Men’s Colony and the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney's Office.

Mikeworth is being kept in segregation, away from other inmates and staff during the investigation. He has a history of assaulting prison staff, Furster said.
SLO Tribune

Read more here: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2013/05/16/2511236/california-mens-colony-assault.html#storylink=cpy

Inmate death at Kern Valley State Prison under investigation as a homicide

2013-05-17T23:26:00.002-07:00

DELANO, Calif. -

Kern Valley State Prison investigators are working with the Kern County Coroner and District Attorney’s Office to investigate the death of an inmate, which has been classified as a homicide.

Prison staff discovered an inmate, whose name is being withheld pending next-of-kin notification, unresponsive in his cell at 9:30 a.m., on Thursday, May 16. He was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m. The cell and all its contents have been secured and processed as a crime scene.

The dead inmate’s cellmate, Dennis John Bratton, has been identified as the suspect in the case. Bratton, 43, is serving a life sentence from San Diego County for attempted murder, multiple counts of assault with deadly weapons and firearms, and an in prison assault with a deadly weapon. He was received by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on November 13, 1997, and has been housed at KVSP since May 23, 2012.

Corcoran inmate gets death penalty

2013-05-17T23:24:00.002-07:00

A lifer at Corcoran State Prison has been sentenced to death for murdering his cell mate, a Kings County judge ruled this week.

Judge Peter L. Spinetta handed down the sentence for Robert Galvan at a hearing Wednesday, said Kings County prosecutor Thom Snyder. Galvan was immediately taken to death row at San Quentin State Prison.

In March, a jury found Galvan guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances of torture and lying in wait, and assault with a deadly weapon by a life prisoner causing death.

Snyder said Galvan murdered his cell mate, Robert Johnson, 28, of Clear Lake, in September 2010 by getting him drunk on inmate-made wine, then slitting his throat, strangling him with an electric cord, then smashing his head against the concrete bed several times. Johnson was 30 days away from release, Snyder said. They shared a cell in a high-security housing unit.

Galvan told investigators that he killed Johnson because his cell mate had "disrespected" him by calling him stupid, and that he was punishing Johnson for violating an unwritten rule not to complain to guards about disputes with cell mates, Snyder said.

After attacking his public defender in 2011 and breaking his nose, Galvan served as his own lawyer.

In July, while being taken back to Corcoran prison from court in Hanford, he slipped out of his handcuffs and stabbed a guard five times with an inmate-made weapon.

Galvan was in Corcoran serving four consecutive life terms. Two were for a 1999 kidnapping, robbery and ransom when an evening at the movies turned into a night of terror for a young couple who were carjacked outside a Fresno theater.

The couple, both in their 20s, had just left Edwards Cinemas on North Blackstone Avenue when they were accosted by a man with a knife.

The woman was forced into the back seat and her companion ordered to drive to an ATM, where he took money out and handed it to the kidnapper.

Instead of letting the couple go, he forced them them to drive to several other ATMs, but they were unable to withdraw more money. The male victim said his mother would give them money, so they drove to her apartment in Clovis.

While the son went inside, the robber held the woman hostage in the car.

The mother telephoned Clovis police while her boyfriend, driving his own car, agreed to lead the robber and hostages to an ATM in Clovis, where officers surrounded the bank and arrested Galvan.

The young couple, now married, testified during the penalty phase, Snyder said.

While in the Fresno County jail, Galvan attacked a correctional officer, for which he got his third life sentence. The fourth was for assaulting an inmate with a weapon at Salinas Valley State Prison.

"He's the absolute poster for the death penalty, " Snyder said in March.

Fresno Bee

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/05/17/3303640/corcoran-inmate-gets-death-penalty.html#storylink=cpy

New Haven hip hop group heads behind bars for day of peace

2013-05-11T23:37:00.004-07:00

NEW HAVEN — Growing up, Adam Walker said he would never go to prison.

But soon he will find himself behind the prison bars he wanted to avoid, though for a positive purpose.

Walker, 42, a featured emcee of the rap group Coalition Hip Hop, will travel to San Quentin, Calif., to perform at the San Quentin State Prison’s Day of Peace celebration.

Coalition Hip Hop had been expected to perform Saturday, but due to a quarantine in the north block of the prison and with a new case of the norovirus, the performance has been rescheduled for June on a date to be determined.

“I was one to say I would never go to any prison, but now I find myself years later going to prison for a whole different reason,” Walker said. “A peace festival in a prison, I think it’s fascinating, and to be going there from New Haven to perform for different races of people and to help encourage positivity is something I’m proud of.”

Coalition Hip Hop is made up of Elm City natives and was created in 2009 in the interest of projecting a positive voice for the city. Other featured emcees of the group include Moureese Mitchell, 16; Darrel Grimes, 31; Tyra’ Pearson, 30; Jon Green, 27; Robert House, 25; and Derek Walker, 24, the group’s producer.

“We are excited about this opportunity to represent New Haven,” said Grimes, the founding member of the group, who goes by the name stage name Shiek Abdul.

“We are a sign of the struggle of what’s happening in the world and feel we represent the soundtrack of the streets,” he said.

The Day of Peace celebration was founded in 2006 by a group of inmates, many of whom are serving life sentences and decided to come together after a race-riot took place in the lower yard of the prison.

According to inmate committee organizers, the Day of Peace program stems from the senseless violence that plagues the prison system, their communities and society as a whole. Organizers also said they wanted to become voices of reason in times of crisis and help others find their voice through a commitment to peace. Continued...

Condemned Inmate Mario Lewis Gray Dies

2013-05-06T17:20:00.003-07:00

SAN QUENTIN – Condemned inmate Mario Lewis Gray, 55, who was on California’s death row from Los Angeles County, was found unresponsive in his cell on Saturday morning at San Quentin State Prison. Subsequently, he was pronounced dead at the prison on May 4, 2013, at 6:59 a.m. The cause of death is unknown pending the results of an autopsy. Gray was single-celled.

Gray was sentenced to death on March 14, 1990, by a Los Angeles County jury for the April 24, 1987, burglary, rape, and murder of 87 year old Ruby Reed. Gray had been on death row since March 21, 1990.

Since 1978 when California reinstated capital punishment, 59 condemned inmates have died from natural causes, 22 have committed suicide, 13 have been executed in California, one was executed in Missouri; and six have died from other causes. One is currently pending autopsy results. There are currently 735 offenders on California’s death row.
cdcr

Why Isn't Randy Kraft Dead?

2013-05-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

"Do you know the area around where Mission Viejo is, and all that?” Max Gambrel asks over the phone. “That’s where Kraft was apprehended. California Highway Patrol made the stop there.”

Max is a truck driver in his mid-40s who lives in Commiskey, Ind., a small farming town not far from Crothersville, where he grew up. There’s not a whole lot going on there—if you need anything much more elaborate than fresh fruit and vegetables, he explains, you’ve got to go over to Seymour, the big town about 15 miles north. Max doesn’t mind. He prefers the gentle pace of life in the country. He’s never been to Southern California, and doesn’t much desire to visit.

But he’s spent a lot of time during the past three decades trying to picture a place in Orange County. Not Disneyland, or the beach, or the luxurious stores at South Coast Plaza. But the otherwise unremarkable stretch of Interstate 5 near Mission Viejo, where, about 1 a.m. on May 14, 1983, two CHP officers spotted a brown 1979 Toyota weaving from the right lane onto the shoulder, and decided to pull it over. At the wheel, the officers discovered a slight, mustachioed 38-year-old computer programmer from Long Beach named Randy Steven Kraft, who had alcohol on his breath. He failed a sobriety test, so they arrested and handcuffed him.

In Kraft’s passenger seat was a man with a dark jacket draped over his lap, who appeared to be asleep. Kraft said he was a hitchhiker he’d picked up. When one of the officers opened the door and pulled away the jacket in an effort to rouse him, he was startled to see that the man’s pants were pulled down, and that he had marks on his wrists, as if he had been tied. The passenger wasn’t breathing, nor did he have a pulse. One of the arresting officers, Sgt. Michael Howard, found it eerie how Kraft calmly asked, “How’s my friend?” when Kraft obviously knew his passenger was dead.

The victim was a 25-year-old Marine corporal, stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro. Apparently, as investigators later pieced together, he was trying to get to a friend’s party after a softball game, and had decided to hitchhike. The driver who’d picked him up apparently offered him a beer, which the hitcher didn’t know was laced with sedative pills like those the officers found on the floor of Kraft’s car.

The passenger was Terry Gambrel, the final victim of one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history. Terry was Max Gambrel’s cousin.

Max has imagined that scene many times. Terry was the friendly, practically-a-big-brother relative who lived next door when Max was a boy. “I remember riding bikes with him and playing basketball and softball,” he says. “A lot of people gravitated to him. He was very likeable.”

Max was 15 when Terry died. His family sheltered him as best they could from the grisly details. It wasn’t until years later, when he started reading true-crime books, that he happened upon Dennis McDougal’s 1991 “Angel of Darkness,” and learned of the sickening things Kraft had done to the bodies of his other victims. He imagines what Kraft might have done to Terry with the buck knife officers found on the driver’s seat. “It’s fortunate he didn’t have a chance to mutilate my cousin,” Max says.

He still misses Terry. “We all miss him,” he says, even after all these years. And he still thinks about Kraft, who was convicted of 16 murders and linked to more than 65 others by investigators. For years, Max read books and articles about murder and watched “Criminal Minds” and other TV crime dramas, hoping to understand what would make someone kill so many people. Finally, he gave up. “I can’t fathom why he did it,” Max says. “There is no why.”

Instead, Max Gambrel wonders why, three decades after his cousin Terry’s murder, the man who was sentenced to death for killing him somehow is still alive.

Source: OrangeCoast WikiPedia: Randy S. Kraft Illustraion by Keith Negley

Walking death row at San Quentin State Prison

2013-05-05T17:36:00.002-07:00

San Quentin State Prison has four massive cell blocks, each identified by their cardinal direction: north, south, east, and west. Of the four, only one houses inmates sentenced to death. None of the cell blocks have been visited by a reporter since 2007.

KALW’s Nancy Mullane asked Matthew Cate, the secretary of the California Department of Corrections, for press access to death row. Eventually, Cate agreed to allow Mullane to go inside all three of San Quentin’s death rows. Last week we visited the adjustment center, where new death row inmates begin their sentence and where the most violent are kept indefinitely.

Today, we go to East Block, which houses 537 men facing execution in the state.

Into the East Block

Before entering East Block, public information officer Sam Robinson and I first have to pass through a walled sally port. Inside the entrance to the cellblock, there’s a large rotunda with high arched windows.

Robinson leads me through two ancient-looking steel doors toward a set of black gates. An officer unlocks the gate to the left and we head for the tiers of cells. As we approach the cells, we pass a table piled up with opened and unopened letters that have been sent to the inmates. Mail sent to prisoners is read and reviewed before it is delivered. A sign on the wall in bright red letters warns prisoners that feeding the birds will result in a CDC 115, or disciplinary write up. There are no birdmen on death row.

Robinson tells me all condemned inmates at San Quentin are evaluated and classified in one of two categories.

“Here on death row, we classify them as grade A and grade B,” he says. “Grade A are individuals who are programming and follow our rules, for the most part. Grade B are the individuals who are the opposite of that, who are non-programmers or gang affiliates or whatever the case may be.”

Robinson says that all inmates on east block are grade A. As he talks, we make our way around the end of the block to see what looks like endless rows of cells. There are fifty-seven on each tier and the double sided block is five tiers high, making a total of more than 500 cells. Looking down the first tier, a half dozen wheelchairs are parked on the polished cement walkway, waiting.

“East Block structurally mirrors the majority of our housing units at San Quentin,” he explains, “They’re all five stories high and the dimensions of the cells are four and a half feet by ten feet, eight inches.”

That means each cell is 48 square feet and seven feet, seven inches tall – about the size of a walk-in closet. From inside their individual cells, the inmates can look out through a row of black bars, a sheet of perforated metal, a railing and forty feet of open space to a wall of windows that fill the cavernous space with natural light and air.

“Here in East Block, these guys are confined to their cells for the most part of the day with the exception of the five hours a day they are allowed for recreation yard activities,” Robinson says.

“Five hundred people have recreation access five hours a day?” I ask.

He told me they did.

“Showers?” I ask.

“They shower every other day,” he says – and not in a community shower but a single shower.

“For the most part, your neighbor may not be compatible with you,” he tells me. “The guys we house next to each other could be, in theory, mortal enemies and so we may not be able to put them in the same space together and so their showers are individualized showers also.”

While I’m standing listening to Robinson, I watch as white sheets of paper fly up in the air from a first floor cell to one on the second defying gravity. These messages passed from one inmate to another are called ‘kites,’ and they’re considered contraband by prison authorities.

“See there goes another one! It’s really like kites, see there it goes!” I point.

“There it goes,” Robinson says.

We walk down toward the cells. Pushed up against some of the cell doors are shoulder high, A-frame metal structures with telephones attached.

Robinson tells me, “Because these guys can’t exit their cells freely, we actually have a phone apparatus on wheels as we say and we push it in front of the individual cell, we leave his food port open and he is allowed to extend his hand out, grab the receiver and place a call.”

I ask Robinson if I can interview the inmates in their cells. He says I can interview any inmate willing to talk to me…

Below are the three interviews that Mullane conducted in the East Block region of San Quentin.

Walter Cook. In 1994, a jury convicted him of three counts of murder and sentenced him to death.

NANCY MULLANE: So you have a phone in front of your cell. Why?

WALTER COOK: To make legal calls. Talk to family. Friends.

MULLANE: How often do you have access to the phone?

COOK: We get the phone every other day. Once in the morning and once at night.

MULLANE: And how long have you been here?

COOK: Twenty years.

MULLANE: Twenty years? In this cell?

COOK: Not in this cell. Different cells.

MULLANE: But all here at Quentin?

COOK: Yep.

MULLANE: So you were sentenced in... what would that be?

COOK: Ninety-two.

MULLANE: That’s a long time. What’s it like?

COOK: Well, I can tell you this. We don’t get no free cable, like, or we get all these extravagant meals. We get regular meals like everybody else in the mainline. Nothing special. We get everything everybody else gets. And you know we pay more in here for TV than they do on the street. A 13-inch TV for us cost like $250.

[Cook offers to lift his TV to show me. I try to take a photograph through the little holes in the sheet of metal covering his cell.]

Credit Nancy Mullane

San Quentin State Prison inmate Walter Cook is sentenced to the death penalty.

MULLANE: So let’s see, where’s the best hole. The holes are all the same. Ok. Right there.

[There isn’t enough light in his cell to take a photograph.]

MULLANE: Do you have any more light in there? That’s it?

[He flips the switch on the fluorescent wall light to high.]

MULLANE: Okay, hold it down so I can see your face.

COOK: Two hundred and fifty dollars and it’s not even name brand.

MULLANE: What name brand would you have wanted?

COOK: Sony or something if I'm going to pay $250.

MULLANE: Do you have family?

COOK: Yep.

MULLANE: Do you have children?

COOK: Yeah.

MULLANE: How many?

COOK: Two

MULLANE: How old are they?

COOK: Twenty and twenty-one.

MULLANE: So do they come visit you?

COOK: Yep

MULLANE: How often?

COOK: Probably like once every other week.

MULLANE: So you actually have contact?

COOK: Yep.

MULLANE: Is that important to you?

COOK: Yeah. You got to have contact with your family. If you don’t have contact with your family, you don’t have nothing. You got to have something to keep your sanity. We’re not like people portray us on the movies as crazy, deranged people. I get the impression from TV, you know, everybody is a child molester, rapist. Seem like that’s the stereotype for everybody here – that’s what they are. Even people that’s innocent. If you’re here, you got to be guilty, that’s not true.

MULLANE: Are you?

COOK: No. I’m not guilty.

MULLANE: You’re not guilty?

COOK: I’m not guilty.

MULLANE: You’re innocent.

COOK: Yeah.

MULLANE: You didn’t do it.

COOK: No.

MULLANE: Are you sure?

COOK: I’m positive.

MULLANE: Ok. So you have a good attorney?

COOK: Yeah.

MULLANE: And you’ve been in here twenty years, so how far has your appeal gotten?

COOK: Its still in state court. That’s another thing that’s a misperception – that we’re delaying the process when it’s the courts delaying the process. They give the Attorney General all these extensions and extensions. When you want to move your case forward, it’s not on us. They want to tell the public they’re dragging their case, it’s not us. It’s the courts and the attorneys general that’s dragging it along.

MULLANE: I see. So how has it changed the time that you’re doing a death sentence from when you were sentenced to now?

COOK: There’s more programs, education, like, and mental health programs for the people who really do need it. And it’s more cleaner in here than it used to be when they had birds flying around and big old rats and stuff.

[Mullane asks Cook about proposition 34, the statewide initiative that would convert death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.]

COOK: Really it doesn’t matter to me one way or another because my whole purpose is to get all the way out of here, but some people that would give us life without – I don’t have nothing against that – but that’s not what I’m striving for. But for people – that’s their only shot – I feel that they should get that. That’s what all they can get.

MULLANE: So, if you were voting, how would you vote?

COOK: I wouldn’t vote for any death penalty because I wouldn’t put this on my worst enemy or anybody because you have a whole lot of people, every single day, they turn around and find this person is innocent, through DNA and such. So if you can’t really say whether this person did it or not you going to kill the person. You can’t come back from that.

MULLANE: So you would change it to life without even though you would lose some of your…

COOK: I don’t see playing God and having anybody get killed. You gotta understand they didn’t kill nobody – they just racking up more and more money and they canceling schools, medical programs for the handicapped people, death penalty not doing nobody no good. I look at it like this: if you close the schools, you’re going have people commit crimes cause they’re not going to have no education. It’s defeating the whole purpose.

MULLANE: But at the same time, if they do change to life without parole, if the voters pass that initiative, then some of that money that’s paying for your appeal would be given to the schools, that’s theoretical, but you would support that?

COOK: Yeah.

MULLANE: Even if it means you would lose?

COOK: Kids need education. I mean, I don’t want to see nobody here.

MULLANE: Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.

COOK: All right. No problem.

As we walk away from Cook’s cell, I ask Robinson how he’s going to vote on Proposition 34.

Robinson telss me: “Unfortunately, I’m not able to be freely open with you and tell you how I’m going to vote. As a department we don’t take a stand either way on the initiative as it is.”

We continue on and stop at Demetrius Howard’s cell. A jury convicted Howard for the 1992 murder and attempted murder of a woman in San Bernardino and sentenced him to death

Inside his cell, Howard has covered the fluorescent light with colored paper, giving the dark space a warm glow. He’s also turned the surface of his bed into a desk and today, it’s covered with some pencil sketches he’s working on. Something emanating from the cell smells sweet.

Demetrius Howard.

NANCY MULLANE: Wow, you have nice incense. Is that incense?

DEMETRIUS HOWARD: No, it’s just oils.

MULLANE: That’s nice.

HOWARD: You know, you can’t let yourself lose your sense of your spiritualness and staying clean and staying fresh and keeping your spirit vibrant.

MULLANE: And that’s how you do it?

HOWARD: That’s part of it.

MULLANE: Essential oils.

HOWARD: Yeah.

MULLANE: How do you get them?

HOWARD: We’re allowed to order them. They allow us to order them through the different religious programs they have set up, so it’s something to keep you still connected to the world because you in an environment where you closed in and senses all kind of a variety of senses, so it’s good to keep a balance.

MULLANE: How long have you been here?

HOWARD: I’ve been here 17 years.

MULLANE: Have you always been in East Block?

HOWARD: No, I’ve been back and forth to the Adjustment Center over the years. But I’ve been in east block primarily. The majority of my time.

MULLANE: So how does the Adjustment Center compare to East Block?

HOWARD: It compares very different. More freedoms over here, you know like phone calls, contact with your family, being able to have a variety of hobby programs, being able to hobby shop, you know, draw. Just being able to go out to the yard daily, having contact visits with your attorneys, family. It’s a big difference to your mind, your spirit.

MULLANE: So how are you feeling about the initiative that’s up before the voters in November the one that would change death sentences to life without parole?

HOWARD: Me? I’m constantly fighting for my freedom. You know my innocence.

MULLANE: You feel you’re innocent?

HOWARD: I know I’m innocent. It’s not something I feel. It’s factual.

[Howard says the appeals process is slow, tedious, and strenuous, but he remains confident that eventually he will be found innocent. And if Proposition 34 passes he says the following will happen.]

HOWARD: I don’t feel it’s to a lot of individuals benefit, because then they’ll be out without attorneys and being able to address their issues of being wrongly convicted. So it will be devastating in a lot of ways.

MULLANE: To go to life without.

HOWARD: Yeah. Because many of us have been here over decades – and that in itself is already a life sentence. It’s already a life ,ust being here for many years. So to go to another situation of a life sentence.

MULLANE: But you would have more freedoms. You’d be out on main yard, walking the yard, see the trees, the sky and the moon.

HOWARD: Yeah, but you still incarcerated. For me, to computer it in my mind for my certain situations, that’s like not even acceptable. My goals and objectives are beyond these walls, period. But I’m curious and interested to see what’s going to happen about the voters because I know that the death penalty is political.

[Losing his right to a state funded appeal won’t be the only adjustment Howard and other condemned inmates will face if the initiative passes. Instead of having a cell to themselves, they will have to share.]

HOWARD: That will be a big adjustment having a cellie!

MULLANE: But they say you adjust to what you have to adjust to.

HOWARD: With anything in life, you have to adapt to circumstances that you’re placed in whether by choice, or by force.

Justin Helzer. Seven years ago he was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of five people, including the daughter of guitarist Elvin Bishop. A pink sign is attached to the gate of the last cell. It identifies the inmate as visually impaired. His name is Justin Helzer.

MULLANE: Hello

HELZER: I have a lot of medical problems.

MULLANE: I’m just doing a story on conditions on death row. What do you think about conditions on death row?

HELZER: Well, just speaking from a medical standpoint, it’s hard to see the doctor. For instance, I only see a doctor once every two or three months. Unless it’s a visible problem then the nurse will schedule an appointment prior to my scheduled rotation.

MULLANE: How long have you been here?

HELZER: I’ve been here since 2005, but I was arrested since 2000, so I was fighting my case in county jail for five years.

MULLANE: Are you guilty?

HELZER: Yes. I killed people.

MULLANE: You did kill people?

HELZER: Yes, I killed two people. The point is, I’m not – I wrote a letter of apology to the family members of the deceased. I apologized. It was so misdirected. I’m so sorry. It’s like a past life. I’m so not that person anymore. So, I don’t have a problem admitting what I did. I’ve taken responsibility for it. I’m not proud of it. To say it was a mistake is a huge understatement. I can’t express how sorry I am. It was so unnecessary, but I don’t want to talk about my case, I don’t want to talk about my case.

MULLANE: So you are vision impaired?

HELZER: I’m totally blind. What it was was it was a suicide attempt. I stuck two five inch pens into my brain through my eye sockets. It didn’t kill me.

MULLANE: When did you do that?

HELZER: About a year and a half ago. And so it left me blind and partially paralyzed.

MULLANE: But before that you were fine?

HELZER: I had perfect vision, yes. I was tired of death row. It was a failed suicide attempt. And so I was left with paralysis, partial paralysis and complete blindness which they call vision impaired. So that’s me.

MULLANE: How do you feel now that you’ve done that and now you’re living?

HELZER: Terrible. I’m not interested in committing suicide anymore. That was a year and a half ago. I embrace my situation. I’m more okay with the way things are now. I’ve learned to accept the way things are now. But the conditions on death row are such that it can lead one to attempt to commit suicide or to attempt to do whatever. They’re not good here.

MULLANE: How does it compare not having sight to having sight on death row?

HELZER: Well, sight was much better.

[Unlike other cells, Helzer’s cell is void of personal effects. While we talk, he sits on the edge of his bunk and turns his face toward the cell door. Mullane asks him for his thoughts on Proposition 34, which could change his death sentence to life in prison without parole.]

HELZER: I look forward to it. I think it’s the next step of a society that wakes up and realizes this is so unnecessary. It’s all politics. And right now the people are buying into the political story. Oh, death row – tough on crime. It’s not a deterrent. The death penalty is not a deterrent. Because I’ll tell you why. One, when people do commit crimes, they are not thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I might get the death penalty if I do this.’ They’re in the moment. They want what they want. They have short-sighted… They don’t foresee the consequences of their actions because they’re impulsive. They do whatever they do. Whatever crime it is. They’re not thinking about the ramifications. The notion that the death penalty is somehow a deterrent is a false premise. It’s what people want to be true. Not true.

MULLANE: What if people say they want the death penalty because they just want people punished.

HELZER: Let me tell you…[laughter] you can punish people plenty by giving them Life without the possibility of parole. Besides, there are people here on death row 30, 40 years and they haven’t gotten killed and they have so many more appeals left to them. So no one’s getting killed. No one’s getting executed.

MULLANE: How do you see the rest of your life?

HELZER: I don’t know. I just take one day at a time. One day at a time.

Turning away from Helzer’s cell, I follow Robinson back down the tier, through the security gate and out the big steel doors. Passing guards and guns, it’s a relief to be outside the cell block walking in the warm sunshine. It’s a feeling the condemned men I’ve just left behind will probably never have.

This story originally aired on October 29, 2012.

The East Block is now home to 517 inmates on death row, with 734 total death row inmates in the state of California.

On Sunday, April 14, Justin Helzer hanged himself in his cell. The attorney who had defended him released a statement that he was sorry to hear of Helzer's death, but not surprised to learn that his profound mental illness had manifested itself one last time.

KALW

RONALDO MEDRANO AYALA v. KEVIN CHAPPELL

2013-05-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

On May 3, 2013, Ayala filed an appeal in the Ninth Circuit over the denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court

RONALDO MEDRANO AYALA v. KEVIN CHAPPELL
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/casdce/3:2001cv00741/40583/464/0.pdf?ts=1364550011

CTF’s latest graduation adds to long successful run

2013-05-05T17:19:00.002-07:00

By Lt. Roland Ramon, Administrative Assistant/PIO

The Correctional Training Facility (CTF) in Soledad recently held a graduation for the inmates housed in Facility C.

Many family, friends, and staff attended this graduation in support of the students who have achieved various degrees and certificates.

CTF Warden (A) Marion E. Spearman

The student achievements for 2012 are as follows:

• 15 Vocational certifications from Office Services and Related Technologies (OSRT)

• 69 General Educational Development (GED); 33 of these graduates were present, 36 having paroled, transferred, or re-entered society.

CTF Associate Warden William Wilson

• 16 college graduates, including nine Associate of Arts (AA) and five Associate of Science degrees from Coastline Community College, two Bachelor of Arts degrees from California Coast University, one Bachelor of Arts degree from CSU Sacramento, and one Bachelor of Science degree from the University of London (some graduates earned multiple degrees).

The ceremony featured speeches from Warden (A) Marion E. Spearman, Associate Warden William Wilson, Principal Gerald Atchley and students from each program. A reception and visiting followed the ceremony.

The Graduation was guided by Warden (A) Spearman and was successful due to his leadership and ability to bring the community together, said Vice Principal Kevin Kessler .

Currently, there are 163 students enrolled in Coastline and Lassen Community Colleges, 30 students attending Palo Verde Community College who have previously earned AA degrees working on Alcohol and Other Drug Studies Certifications.

There are nine students working on Bachelor of Arts or Master’s Degrees from Adams State University, California State University Dominguez Hills, Colorado State University, Pueblo, California Coast University, Global University, and Vision International College and University.

Since 2010 there have been 72 college graduates.

CTF is now a Reentry Hub and will continue to provide inmate students with educational and vocational skills to prepare them for life outside of prison.

Death penalty changes rejected

2013-05-05T17:15:00.001-07:00

Prosecutor-backed legislation to shorten death penalty appeals in California, and bring back the gas chamber, has been rejected by a state Senate committee.

The bill, sponsored by the California District Attorneys Association, was defeated by the Public Safety Committee on Tuesday on a party-line 5-2 vote.

Backers of SB779, including its author, state Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Alpine (San Diego County), said the bill would speed up executions in California, which have been blocked by court orders since 2006. It was introduced following the narrow defeat in November of a ballot measure to repeal the state's death penalty law.

The bill would have limited most condemned prisoners to one round of appeals in the state court system and another in federal court. Other provisions would have eliminated public review of regulations on execution procedures, barred disclosure of the suppliers of drugs used in executions and authorized a new method of gas chamber executions.

California's last execution by cyanide gas was in 1993. A federal judge ruled a year later that the gas chamber at San Quentin caused excruciating pain and violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Lethal injections at the prison were halted in 2006 when another federal judge ruled that the executions, carried out by poorly trained staff in a dimly lit chamber, posed an undue risk of a prolonged and agonizing death. The court-imposed moratorium is likely to remain in place at least through 2013 as the state tries to validate new regulations and cope with a shortage of execution drugs.

Under SB779, a gas execution would have been carried out by filling the chamber with a nontoxic gas, such as nitrogen or helium, displacing the oxygen and suffocating the prisoner. The condemned inmate could choose between gas and lethal injection, but the bill specified that the execution would be conducted by gas if injections were not legally available.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, called the proposed execution method a "painless and more dignified alternative." Opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said the procedure had not been used anywhere in the world and there was no evidence it would be either humane or effective.
SFGate

Keeping a murderer alive for execution?

2013-05-05T17:13:00.003-07:00

SANTA ANA (AP) – A man charged with raping and killing a woman 30 years ago in Garden Grove is being kept alive in Orange County with dialysis treatments until officials can win permission to execute him.

Richard Raymond Ramirez, 53, who has liver and kidney disease, is taken from the county jail to a hospital for the life-saving treatment twice a week.

Federal law and court rulings require the jail to provide proper medical treatment for all inmates, county Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino said.

Meanwhile, prosecutors are preparing for his trial and intend to seek the death penalty.

“This is the ultimate irony of the death penalty,’’ his public defender, Mick Hill, told a reporter last week. “They are keeping my client alive so they can kill him. It’s a complete waste.’’

Ramirez already was a convicted rapist when he was charged with the 1983 rape and stabbing of 22-year-old Kimberly Gonsale in an alley behind a Garden Grove bar.

He spent most of the past 30 years on death row at San Quentin prison, but in 2008 a federal judge overturned his conviction and death penalty on grounds of juror misconduct.

Attorneys are in the midst of jury selection for a new trial and are looking at more than 850 prospective panelists. The trial could begin next month and run through mid-June.

The district attorney’s office is seeking the death penalty.

“This murder and his life of crime, regardless of the passage of time or his current medical condition, deserve the ultimate punishment,’’ Deputy District Attorney Larry Yellin said. “I guarantee you that the devastating impact of Kim’s murder has not diminished one bit among those who loved her.’’

GGjournal.com

Salinas Valley prison inmate convicted of battering correctional officer

2013-05-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

The Califorian — Brian Davis, 35, a Salinas Valley State Prison inmate, has been convicted of felony battery on a correctional officer for squirting a liquid from a shampoo bottle into the officer’s eyes, the Monterey County district attorney’s office said today.

The crime occurred Aug. 24, 2009, as the officer tried to conduct a routine cell search, prosecutors said. The squirted liquid caused the officer to become disoriented as he tried to get the stinging liquid out of his eyes, prosecutors said. The officer’s partner came to his aid to end the attack, they said.

Judge Mark E. Hood sentenced Davis to a term of six years in state prison for the attack.

At the time of the attack, Davis was serving a minimum term of 35 years for using a firearm to murder his live-in girlfriend on September 12, 1997. This new conviction will be taken into consideration when Davis applies for parole, prosecutors said.

Two charged in shooting of California State Correctional Officer

2013-05-03T23:28:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Two men were arrested in a shooting that critically wounded a state correctional officer at a gas station on the outskirts of Riverside.

The 52-year-old guard suffered at least one gunshot wound late Thursday and was taken to a hospital, Colton police said. Corrections officials said he was wearing a prison uniform jumpsuit with a civilian shirt.

The guard described the two men and their vehicle to police, and police officers in Riverside found the suspects several hours later.

Christopher Marquez, 24, and Anthony Gomez, 31, both of Riverside, were arrested early Friday after one tried to run from officers. They were booked into the San Bernardino County jail on charges of attempted homicide and conspiracy. Colton police said the men have gang ties.

Police declined to say whether the guard was targeted because of his job.

Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard said the 26-year veteran was in critical condition Friday. Officers' hearts are heavy, Beard said, "after learning two people tried to murder one of our correctional officers."

"The Colton Police Department is investigating this tragic incident and we are thankful they immediately transported the officer to the hospital," Beard said.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/05/03/3285094/2-charged-in-shooting-of-calif.html#storylink=cpy

Evaluation of a Prisoner Condom Access Pilot Program Conducted in One California State Prison Facility

2013-05-02T13:37:00.002-07:00

VII. RECOMMENDATIONS

File Picture

• Initiate and incrementally expand a program to provide CDCR inmates access to condoms while continuing to monitor the safety and acceptability of the program.
• Consider additional pilot studies in settings that may pose a serious health or safety risk, e.g., higher security facility or housing for inmates with mental health problems.
• Mount dispensers in discreet locations to provide confidential access and increase accessibility by minimizing inoperability due to vandalism. Dispensers with solid steel construction and protected locks are available that are more tamper resistant than those used in the pilot study.
• Consider making condoms available confidentially upon request during a medical or mental health visit, in addition to dispensing machines.
• Provide information to staff and inmates describing findings from the current study demonstrating that safety and security were not impacted by the distribution of condoms.
• Include inmate peer educators, inmate Men’s and Women’s Advisory Counsels, medical, public health, and custody staff in local (institutional) condom program planning and implementation

VI. CONCLUSIONS

• We found no evidence that the availability of condoms created an increased risk of breaches of safety or security or resulted in injury to staff or inmates in a general population prison facility setting.
• The findings may not be generalizable to other settings, e.g., higher security or in a setting dedicated to inmates with mental health problems. Additional pilot studies similar to this one may be warranted in these settings..
• Providing condoms from dispensing machines similar to those used in the pilot program is feasible and of relatively low cost to implement and maintain.
• We cannot demonstrate a reduction in disease transmission during the pilot study. However, since several studies have provided evidence that when condoms are made available to inmates they are used for protection during sex, and that sexual activity did not increase, it is likely that providing condoms to CDCR inmates would prevent transmission of HIV and STDs.
• Estimates of the in-prison HIV and STD transmission rates are not available. However, given the relatively low cost of providing condoms relative to the cost of treating HIV, and that very few HIV infections would need to be prevented to cover the costs of the program, it is likely that providing condoms could reduce CDCR medical costs.

Click here to read the full study

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/std/Documents/SBD%20Pilot_Final%20Report_122210-CDPH-CCHCS_September2011.pdf

Kern Valley State Prison staff parents take kids to work for the day

2013-04-25T23:12:00.003-07:00

Appeals court hears state's bid to reinstate lethal injection protocol

2013-04-17T12:09:00.002-07:00

A lawyer for the state asked an appeals court in San Francisco Tuesday to reinstate California's three-drug lethal-injection procedure for executing death row inmates.

Deputy California Attorney General Michael Quinn argued that the revised lethal-injection plan, completed in 2010, complied with a state administrative law governing the development of new regulations.

Public comments on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's draft of the protocol in 2009 "dealt with every conceivable issue related to the death penalty," Quinn told a three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeal.

"There was no confusion about what the draft regulation was about. The public was fully informed and able to comment," Quinn maintained.

The state is appealing a 2011 decision in which Marin County Superior Court Faye D'Opal struck down the revised protocol on the ground that the CDCR violated the state's Administrative Procedure Act.

The law requires agencies to show that new regulations are necessary and to provide a meaningful opportunity for public comment.

D'Opal ruled that among other errors, the department failed to justify why its three-drug plan was better and more effective than an alternative of using just one drug, a barbiturate.

Steven Mayer, a lawyer for condemned inmate Mitchell Sims, argued Tuesday, "At the end of the day, when you get to the heart of the case -- which is the three-drug protocol -- it is totally unclear why the three drugs were adopted."

The appeals court took the case under submission after hearing less than an hour of arguments and now has three months to issue a written ruling.

The procedural challenge, made in a lawsuit filed by Sims, is one of two ongoing cases that have resulted in blocking executions in California since early 2006.

The other case is a federal lawsuit, filed by death row inmate Michael Morales and later joined by other Sims and other prisoners.

The federal case, pending before U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco, alleges that three-drug procedure violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The inmates claim the third drug, potassium chloride, may cause excruciating pain that could be masked by the paralytic second drug.

Seeborg has said he will wait to review the federal constitutionality of the protocol until after the state courts have determined that a valid plan is in place under California law.

The state appeals court's eventual decision can be appealed to the California Supreme Court.

At Tuesday's hearing, Justice Anthony Kline appeared to be dubious of Quinn's arguments.

"The amount of conceded mistakes here is unusual," Kline said, referring to errors the CDCR acknowledged it had made in outlining its reasons for the protocol.

"The department has conceded they failed to comply (with the state law) in numerous particulars," Kline said.

The department has maintained that any errors were harmless and that the main responsibility for determining whether regulations are clear and necessary lies with the state Office of Administrative Law rather than with the courts.

The other two judges on the panel, Justices James Lambden and James Richman, said little during the hearing.

The state now has 734 inmates on death row, with cases in various stages of appeal. More than a dozen appear to have lost all appeals other than the two challenges to the lethal-injection protocol.

KTVU

Notorious killer Justin Helzer hangs himself on death row

2013-04-15T23:21:00.002-07:00

Condemned Bay Area killer Justin Helzer, who blinded himself in a suicide attempt two years ago, was found lifeless and hanging in his cell on Sunday night, prison officials have confirmed.

State prison officials said Helzer had been on their highest mental health watch since his attempt two years ago. In that attempt, Helzer blinded himself by jamming ball point pens into both eyes.

When he was returned to San Quentin’s Death Row, prison officials moved his brother, Glenn, into the cell next to him.

On Sunday night, during a cell check after a shift change, Justin Helzer was found hanging in his cell.

Glenn Helzer admitted in early March 2004 to killing 22-year-old Selina Bishop, the daughter of blues guitarist Elvin Bishop; Bishop's mother Jennifer Villarin, 45, of Novato; Villarin's friend, James Gamble, 54; and elderly Concord couple Ivan and Annette Stineman.

Prosecutors said the murders were part of an extortion scheme Glenn Helzer devised as a way to raise money for a self-awareness group he hoped would spread peace, love and joy and quicken Christ's return to earth.

Glenn Helzer had been the Stinemans' stockbroker.

According to witness statements made in court, Glenn Helzer had been dating Bishop with the sole intention of convincing her to open a bank account so he would have a place to hide the money he extorted from the Stinemans.

From the beginning of their relationship, Glenn Helzer planned to kill Bishop, who knew nothing about the murder-extortion plan, according to statements made in court. In August 2000, dive teams found the dismembered remains of the Stinemans and Bishop inside several gym bags floating in the Sacramento Delta.

Villarin and Gamble were found shot to death inside Bishop's Woodacre apartment.

Bishop's mother was shot and killed because she had seen Glenn Helzer's face and Gamble was killed because he happened to be with Villarin the night Glenn Helzer shot her, according to court testimony.

Glenn Helzer's two accomplices were his brother Justin and former roommate Dawn Godman. The two went along with the elder brother's scheme because they believed he was a prophet of God, according to Godman's testimony.

Justin Helzer received three death sentences and two sentences of life without the possibility of parole for his role in the murders.

Godman pleaded guilty to the murders and agreed to testify against the brothers in exchange for immunity from the death penalty. She was sentenced in 2003 to 37 years and seven months in prison.
KTVU

European Prisoner Uses Dynamite in Prison Break

2013-04-15T15:16:00.001-07:00

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Children of Thunder: The Helzer Brothers

2013-04-15T15:09:00.004-07:00

Justin Helzer

One by one, the black duffel bags bubbled to the surface of the Mokelumne River in August 2000. The scenic river, winding through deep granite canyons and thick pine forests, is a popular site for Northern Californians seeking relief from the baking summer heat.

A man on a Jet-ski spotted the first bag that washed up on the riverbank. Curious, he rode over, unzipped it, and found a human torso inside. A few hours later, a marina employee found another duffel bag floating under a dock a half mile away. This one contained a head. A marine biologist discovered a third during a survey of an island in the river. Nine bags were eventually recovered, some by dive teams.

Glenn Helzer

They contained the co-mingled body parts of three people�- an elderly couple, and an unrelated young woman. It took the Sacramento County coroner more than a week to sort through the parts and piece the victims back together.

The grisly discovery was the culmination of a murderous rampage by a trio of former Mormons who killed five people as part of a twisted scheme to start a group that would spread "joy, peace and love."

Glenn Helzer, 30, his brother Justin, 28, and Justin's girlfriend, Dawn Godman, 26, were arrested the same day the first of the bags were discovered. It would take four more years for juries to sort through the tangled details of the case and sentence the last of the trio for crimes they'd committed.

POFF II

2013-04-14T08:57:00.002-07:00

CCPOA’s POFF II bill, SB 277 (Beall), moved out of the Appropriations
Committee with a 5-0 vote this past week.
With any luck, the POFF II situation will be resolved in the upcoming legislative session.

(Scroll down a bit in the SacBee article, the POFF is mentioned about 1/2 way down)

http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2013/04/union-backed-bills-target-managers-pay-special-retirement-fund.html

We'll keep you posted as new information is available.

Neil Pollard
CCPOA-SQ Vice President & Chief Job Steward