Archive | November, 2009

The Green Wall- Excerpt

30 Nov

The Green Wall: The story of a brave prison guard’s fight against corruption inside the United States’ largest prison system

Re-printed with permission from the author of the book, DJ Vodicka-

As a result of the investigation, the Office of the Inspector General
confirmed several of the allegations concerning the Green Wall
group, including allegations covered in the earlier Office of
Investigative Services investigation. Specifically, the investigation
determined the following:

A group of correctional officers at Salinas Valley State Prison
formed an alliance in 1999 called the “Green Wall,” or “7/23”,
representing the seventh and twenty-third letters of the alphabet,
G and W.

Numerous incidents involving the Green Wall group took
place at Salinas Valley State Prison between 1999 and 2001,
including the vandalizing of institution property with “7/23”
and “G/W” markings and taping on a window of a paper
containing the Green Wall logo and the satanic symbol “666”.

The investigation confirmed that in May 2001 Investigative
Services officers brought a green knife with “7/23” engraved on
the handle into the facility as a promotion gift for an Investigative
Services Unit sergeant. The investigation determined that the
institution management did not properly control or investigate
the incidents.

According to Salinas Valley State Prison managers, the
warden maintained a relationship with several of the officers
assigned to the Investigative Services Unit Security Squad that
differed from his relationship with other members of the staff and
may have influenced his actions in relation to those officers. The
warden kept the Employee Relations offi cer and other managers
“out of the loop” regarding misconduct investigations and disciplinary issues involving certain members of the Investigative Services Unit Security Squad.

The evidence suggests that several members of the Investigative Services Unit belonged to the Green Wall group.

You can purchase this book on line at Amazon.com

Just A Guy: Out on Parole!!

29 Nov

I was so very happy to hear this news!! Good luck to you, Just A Guy!!

Prison report (outside the walls): The parolee’s dilemma

Editors note: Just A Guy has been writing from inside the California state prison system. He was released this week — great news — but the story is by no means over. Here’s his latest; you can read his some of his previous posts here and here.

It’s also a little easier for him to communicate now, so he can more quickly respond to your comments and questions.

By Just A Guy

I’m sitting here about 24 hours after my release from California State Prison, Solano wondering what the hell I am going to do — because I am staying in a hotel and unable to travel to my home.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful to be out — but beyond irritated at the measures The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has gone through to make it difficult for people to transition back into society. You see, I don’t live in this state, and though I started attempting to get my parole transferred out of state six months ago while in prison (as required) the request wasn’t done until two months ago, and Sacramento’s regional parole desk hasn’t even received it.

Now I’m hoping that I am given a travel pass to go out of state to see my little girls and be with my family for Thanksgiving, but that is, according to my P.O, a very tenuous proposition because his boss doesn’t like to give out travel passes…and since I just got out I’m not known…and it doesn’t seem to matter much that my house, my car, my business, and my entire support network are over a thousand miles away…you get the picture.
And I’m one of the lucky ones, because I have the resources to be able to live in a hotel for three months if necessary, to work from a hotel as well, to have a car delivered to me. WHAT ABOUT THOSE THAT DON’T HAVE THOSE RESOURCES?

(Not an hour after writing this I was fortunate enough to have my P.O call me and let me know that I have been approved to go to the state where my family resides as long as the supervising agent there is willing to accept me, which he is. I am grateful that my agent was able to go to bat for me and get this done, that I will be able to spend the holidays with my family, friends, and loved ones).

Again and again, the mediocrity of the R of CDCR stands to the fore — yet the citizens are in denial as to what the real problem is. How can a system such as this possibly sustain rehabilitation? It’s truly unconscionable to proclaim that they are helping. What is also unconscionable is a lot of these P.O.’s really want to help people stay out of prison and protect society — but their hands are being tied by tough-on-crime rhetoric and lack of funding.

Yeah, we committed the crimes, but the majority of these crimes were committed in the pursuit of drugs or alcohol or the rewards of selling the former. What good can possibly come of sending a person into society after many years with no substantive rehabilitative programs, and having him live in the bushes by the freeway, and not let him go home out of state because of CDCRs bureaucratic follies unrelated to the inmate’s attempts to get the paperwork done? Don’t you see how the system is set up for failure?

There are more than 600 more people in prison per 100,000 people in the USA vs. Netherlands (700 vs. 100) , but it’s the inmates that are the problem, right?

Yes, we (I) made some very poor choices, but I just did three years and two months for possession (a victimless crime). I was not allowed to go into the Substance Abuse Program because I had an out of state warrant for a marker I didn’t pay at a casino in Vegas (felony warrant), although I did pay it eventually. What about people who couldn’t pay? Do they need help any less? How does keeping someone from entering a drug abuse program because of old warrants help him prepare for a return to society? How does anything in this broken self-fulfilling prophecy of recidivism called CDCR help transition your soon-to-be neighbors back into the world?

Again, it’s our responsibility to find our own recovery, our own path to staying out of prison, but don’t believe for one minute that we are given the help many of us need, many of us hope for, and many of us never get…because though it is our responsibility many have never been responsible for anything at all, then they are asked to be, they try and find the brick wall that is CDC(R).

I really appreciate the support of my readers over the time I’ve been writing from inside, but my thoughts and observations on the prison system won’t just end now that I’ve been released. I’ll continue to write about the parole process as it develops and to comment on prison issues — and you can look forward to a larger story on my experience in the pages of the Bay Guardian in the near future.

Source: SFBG

Washtenaw Jail Diary

27 Nov

Washtenaw Jail Diary: Chapter 4

By Former Inmate

November 25, 2009

Return to Sender stamp from Washtenaw County JailEditor’s Note: After the break begins the next installment of the Washtenaw Jail Diary, written by a former inmate in Washtenaw County’s jail facility on Hogback Road. The piece originated as a Twitter feed in early 2009, which the author subsequently abandoned and deleted. See previous Chronicle coverage “Twittering Time at the Washtenaw County Jail.

In now working with the author to publish the Washtenaw Jail Diary, The Ann Arbor Chronicle acknowledges that this is only one side of a multi-faceted tale.

We also would like to acknowledge that the author’s incarceration predates the administration of the current sheriff, Jerry Clayton.

This narrative, which we expect will run over a series of several installments, provides an insight into a tax-funded facility that most readers of The Chronicle will not experience first-hand in the same way as the author.

The language and topics introduced below reflect the environment of a jail. We have not sanitized it for Chronicle readers. It is not gratuitously graphic, but it is graphic just the same. It contains language and descriptions that some readers will find offensive.

[Full Story]

Despite sobs, 81-year-old woman denied parole again

27 Nov

Annie Krachun has been in prison for more than 36 years for drowning her mentally disabled brother with a garden hose.

CHOWCHILLA – An 81-year-old prison inmate sat in a wheelchair clutching tissue today as a parole board rejected her 16th bid for release from her prison commitment for murdering her mentally disabled brother in Garden Grove more than 37 years ago.

“I need to get out of here,” Annie Dorothy Krachun sobbed to a two-person parole board at a Central California prison before deliberations began.

Annie Krachun, who’s been in prison for 36 years after she was convicted of murdering her mentally disabled brother in 1972, dabbed her eyes as she faced a parole hearing at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, Ca.
JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

MORE PHOTOS

“I am sick and old,” she added. “Nobody wants to die in prison.

“I have been here long enough,” she added as she put her head down on a table and wept. “I have a lot of remorse about my brother’s death. If I could bring him back, I would…I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

But commissioners Jack Garner and Susan Cherry voted after 45 minutes of deliberations to deny Krachun parole for another seven years, finding among other things that she poses an unreasonable risk of danger to society.

They also cited the “cruel, heinous, atrocious and dispassionate” manner in which she killed her brother, Cicero Moye, 43, on Aug. 9, 1972 – and that she continues to minimize her role in the slaying – as reasons for rejecting parole.

They also said Krachun has had problematical relationships with others since she was incarcerated.

“This is not about your age or your health,” Garner told Krachun. “Frankly, you didn’t bring much to the table today.”

Witnesses testified at her 1973 trial in Orange County Superior Court that Krachun, who was then 45, tied her brother’s hands behind his back, beat him with a baseball bat or a broom, and then drowned him by ramming a garden hose down his throat.

Krachun had custody and care of Moye, who allegedly had the mental age of a 6-year-old, and there were reports that she had abused him over a long period before he was killed.

But on Wednesday, Krachun insisted that she never abused Moye, never hit him, never kicked him, and that neighbors who claimed she had were lying because they didn’t like her.

Orange County Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown opposed Karachi’s parole application by a video feed from the D.A.’s Office in Santa Ana to the Central Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.

“She’s been in prison for more than 30 years and she still has not come to terms with why she brutally murdered her brother,” Brown argued. “She has very little insight into her criminal behavior … I see no genuine remorse.”

Currently, there are only three women in the California Department of Corrections older than Krachun, out of more than 11,000, according to a CDC spokesperson. And she has been in prison longer than all but two women – including Manson family member Patricia Krenwinkel.

Krachun has also had more parole hearings than most female inmates.

Her next parole eligibility will be in 2016. She’ll be 88.

Source: OC Register

 

Paco blogs about the Green Wall….

25 Nov

From Paco’s CCPOA blogspot- I totally  admire Paco’s viewpoint on this serious issue-he told it like it is….read on!!

Reading the writing on the Green Wall…

In 1972, Ivory Soapbox model Marilyn Chambers performed the seminal role in “Behind the Green Door, exposing herself as anything but “99.44% pure.” 37 years later, the SPB looked behind the Green Wall to expose DORC’s impurity. That’s where the comparisons diverge: Ms. Chambers screwed everyone…DORC only screwed the pooch.

Guards suspected in beating reinstated
By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau

A state appeals board has ordered reinstatement of eight correctional officers who were fired from Salinas Valley State Prison in the wake of revelations about a rogue gang of guards known as the Green Wall.
The state Personnel Board ruled last week there was insufficient evidence to support allegations that the officers stood by or helped beat up an inmate during an unauthorized “extraction” from a caged exercise yard.

A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said her agency and the state Attorney General’s Office will consider appealing the decision.

“Our department is reviewing the facts of the case and reviewing the decision of the state Personnel Board,” said Michele Kane. “The CDCR has 30 days to file a petition for a rehearing and we are looking at all of our options.”

The allegations were leveled six years ago by the inmate, Rafael Serrano, and another guard, Martha Jaramillo, who said she witnessed the assault on the handcuffed Serrano. In a ruling Nov. 9, the board said the two gave contradictory testimony and neither was credible.

Ordered reinstated with back pay were guards James Benefield, Fernando Chavez, Christopher Corotan, Walter Faulkner, Derrick Mackinga and Kevin Rawhoof.

The board earlier this year ordered the reinstatements with back pay of officers Ronald Sphar and Robert Martin…(Full text at MontereyHerald.com)

Given the liberal stripe of the ever-political California State Personnel Board, it must have been painful for that body to reinstate alleged members of the so-called “Green Wall.” Yet, DORC gave the SPB no choice: shoddy investigations and suspect testimony cannot be easily overlooked…even when the subjects are “rogue guards.”

Personally, I don’t care what the “Green Wall” boys did or did not do: Paco would have fired them just for starting their little clique to begin with! After all, are they peace officers working in a dangerous environment or pubescent teens hanging out in the high school quad?

CLEARLY, any law enforcement officer who would join such a group lacks the maturity to wear a badge. So, assuming it can be proven any CO participated in the “Green Wall,” those employees should be subjected to a psychiatric fitness-for-duty evaluation. But I digress…

In any case, the SPB’s decision was NOT an exoneration of Green Wall members–It is a condemnation of DORC’s investigatory and prosecutorial incompetence. SecrAttorney Cate, ostensibly a competent barrister, would do well to get behind the Green Wall decisions and clean up his own house.

Source: PacoVilla’s CCPOA blogspot

Inspections of prison medical facilities reveal low adherence to key policies

24 Nov

Nov. 23, 2009 | Julie Small | KPCC

The state Inspector General’s Office will soon issue a report on the quality of prison medical care in California. It’ll include a summary of inspections at 11 state prisons. The report will help a federal judge determine when to return control of prison medical care to the state. KPCC’s Julie Small has looked over some of the preliminary scores.

A federal judge took over California prison medical care nearly five years ago in a case called Plata v. Schwarzenegger. The court determined an inmate a week died because the care was so poor.

ince then, a court-appointed federal receiver has tried to improve that care. Chief Assistant Inspector General Jerry Twomey monitors the progress.

“Part of this is not just a medical review for the sake of having a medical review,” Twomey says. “It’s a medical review to answer the question that the legal decision in Plata said, ‘Your medical care is deficient in very specific areas in very specific ways.’”

Twomey and his inspection team grade 150 areas of prison medical care – from how a prison treats inmates with asthma, hepatitis, or other chronic conditions to how well a prison’s medical staff is trained and supervised. The top score is 100 percent.

Of 11 prisons inspected so far, the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla scored the highest at 77.9-percent. The California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi scored the lowest at 64.3.

Jerry Twomey won’t put a value to those numbers. He says that’s the federal court’s job.

“Our role in this was not to say what’s an OK number. Our role was to tell people what the number is based on, the criteria we all agreed on to evaluate the medical care against. So what does a 56 mean? I’m not sure I can tell you. I can tell you 56 is not as good as 80 and better than 20, right?”

Attorney Steve Fama with the Prison Law Office is willing to interpret some of numbers. They’re found in the sub-scores that make up the aggregate score.

“Some of those scores – and it’s almost universal across all the prisons so far looked at – are horrible!” Fama exclaims.

Fama points to Pleasant Valley State Prison. For getting medication to chronically ill inmates, Pleasant Valley got a 4 percent score.

The prisons inspected so far scored less than 75 percent compliance in four priority areas: treatment of chronic illness; access to primary care; how well a prison assesses the health of newly-arrived inmates; and an inmate’s ability to see to a specialist. For that last one, all the prisons scored less than 75 percent.

The Inspector General’s Jerry Twomey says a low score in specialty raises the question of “are inmates, are patients, getting consults that they might need?”

Twomey says if an institution scores 42 percent, “then they’re not getting sent out as appropriately as they should be.”

Twomey’s talking about the 42 percent score on specialty care his inspectors gave to the Central Medical Facility in Vacaville.

The Central Medical Facility houses chronically ill, infirm, and elderly inmates. It got that 42 percent score for specialty care – but in other key aspects of inmate care, the Central Medical Facility got 80 percent scores.

On a recent tour, chief medical officer Dr. Joseph Bick showed off a gleaming clinic, a gym where inmates with disabilities can exercise, and a hospice for end of life care. Dr. Bick says for the medical care it controls, the prison scores well.

“When a patient asks for services in here – did we get a nurse over to evaluate them? Did we assign them an appropriate level of need? Did we get them in to see their provider? Did we document it in the medical record?”

Dr. Bick says the Central Medical Facility’s low scores were for care it can’t control, like specialty care. That’s when inmates need to see outside the prison. Dr. Bick says the reason it’s hard to line up those doctors is “Because as a clinician, I can identify a need to see a certain sub-specialist, but I don’t have the ability independently to initiate a contract with a provider who’s willing to see our patients at whatever rates the department is willing to pay them.”

The Department of Corrections sets the pay rate for outside doctors. But some doctors won’t take prison cases because the pay’s too low. That delays specialized care – and Dr. Bick’s prison medical report card takes a hit.

The Inspector General’s Jerry Twomey says the point of scoring medical care is to identify areas that need improvement. Twomey says it’s really up to the federal receiver and the Department of Corrections to act on those low scores.

“To then take that number and say what didn’t we do, why did we get non-compliance, no responses, and then what do we need to do going forward so that we are compliant with those areas?”

The Inspector General’s Office plans to inspect the rest of California’s prisons and issue a final report on the findings by next summer.

Source: SCPR.org

D.J. Vodicka to be interviewed 11/24 early am

23 Nov

KRXA 540 AM out of Monterey, California is going to interview DJ Vodicka tomorrow morning between 8:00 & 8:30 am Pacific time regarding his new book, The Green Wall. The call in number is 831-899-5732, website is krxa540.com

Please tune in!

You can order this book at Amazon.com

 

The Green Wall- alive & well at SVSP

22 Nov

Guards suspected in beating reinstated

By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau

Updated: 11/22/2009

A state appeals board has ordered reinstatement of eight correctional officers who were fired from Salinas Valley State Prison in the wake of revelations about a rogue gang of guards known as the Green Wall.The state Personnel Board ruled last week there was insufficient evidence to support allegations that the officers stood by or helped beat up an inmate during an unauthorized “extraction” from a caged exercise yard.

A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said her agency and the state Attorney General’s Office will consider appealing the decision.

“Our department is reviewing the facts of the case and reviewing the decision of the state Personnel Board,” said Michele Kane. “The CDCR has 30 days to file a petition for a rehearing and we are looking at all of our options.”

The allegations were leveled six years ago by the inmate, Rafael Serrano, and another guard, Martha Jaramillo, who said she witnessed the assault on the handcuffed Serrano. In a ruling Nov. 9, the board said the two gave contradictory testimony and neither was credible.

Ordered reinstated with back pay were guards James Benefield, Fernando Chavez, Christopher Corotan, Walter Faulkner, Derrick Mackinga and Kevin Rawhoof.

The board earlier this year ordered the reinstatements with back pay of officers Ronald Sphar and Robert Martin, ruling there was insufficient evidence that they turned off a guard-tower camera that would have recorded the alleged  assault.

Barry Bennett, the Fresno attorney who represented all eight plaintiffs, said the rulings vindicated his clients, who claimed they were made scapegoats in reaction to the Green Wall controversy.

According to testimony in depositions and at a state Senate hearing, the Green Wall was a criminal clique of guards that enforced a code of silence to cover up violence and other misconduct against inmates.

The group was exposed in 2001 by former correctional officer D.J. Vodicka, who was targeted for his role as a whistleblower and later testified before the senate committee.

In response to the controversy, the Department of Corrections instituted a “zero tolerance” policy for the code of silence and tried to weed out members of the Green Wall. Faulkner and Chavez were among those fired for alleged participation, but were later reinstated by the Personnel Board.

Bennett said the subsequent actions against his eight clients were taken up by the department to show it was serious about enforcing the new policy.

“I think because of the history of the Green Wall, the administration saw this (complaint by Serrano) and said, ‘Oh, we got them,’ and didn’t even bother to do a thorough investigation,” Bennett said. “There was a political feeling that ‘We don’t need to investigate this. What we need to do is get on it, and it will prove itself.’

“Our job was to show they (had) to do more than that,” he said.

The Personnel Board’s ruling rejected a proposed ruling by an administrative law judge, who listened to testimony from 39 witnesses during a hearing that lasted 29 days over a span of three years, ending in 2008.

That proposed ruling found that Serrano was attacked, and the officers covered up their actions, but concluded their discipline should be one- to two-year suspensions, not termination.

In its 12-page ruling, the board said there was insufficient evidence to support that finding. It noted that Serrano gave conflicting statements about what happened and didn’t report the alleged incident for a month, so there was no physical evidence.

Jaramillo, the board said, gave a different account of what happened and had “questionable” motives. She did not report witnessing the event until three months after it allegedly happened, and only then after she was told that two unrelated complaints she’d filed against Benefield had been denied. If her account of the attack was true, the board reasoned, she would have used it to strengthen her claims against Benefield. The ruling also noted that Jaramillo may have been seeking favor in her request for a transfer to a San Diego prison, which she has now received.

In addition, the board concluded, numerous employees and inmates who reportedly witnessed or were told about the event denied any knowledge. Incident logs from the time recorded nothing unusual and the accused officers took the stand under oath and swore the assault never happened.

“The board supports the CDCR’s effort to eliminate the ‘Code of Silence’ from California’s prison system. The board has sustained discipline in many such cases in the past,” the ruling concludes. “However, in this case, the CDCR failed to prove beyond a preponderance of the evidence that the cage extraction occurred as alleged.”

Vodicka predicted the department will appeal the decision, if for no other reason than the high cost of back pay for the officers. Edward Caden, the former warden of Salinas Valley State Prison who initiated the investigation and who later testified regarding the Green Wall, was appalled at the board’s decision. He said the case was mismanaged by the CDCR, which assigned at least three different attorneys to handle the case during its pendency. Caden said he and the FBI also tried to get the U.S. Attorney’s Office to prosecute the case, to no avail.

“This is just an absolute travesty. This sends a clear message” to both honest and dishonest correctional officers, said Caden, now a Sacramento-area attorney. “If you commit a crime under the color of authority and stick together and keep your mouths shut, no one can do anything.”

Whistleblower recounts origins of ‘Green Wall’ at Salinas Valley State Prison

Whistleblower recounts origins of ‘Green Wall’

By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau

Updated: 11/22/2009

 

D.J. Vodicka, left, and his attorney, Lanny Tron, who helped expose the… (SPECIAL TO THE HERALD)

On Thanksgiving Day 1998, prisoners at Salinas Valley State Prison rioted, injuring 18 correctional officers, 14 of whom were hospitalized. It marked the birth of the Green Wall.Guards who survived the riot began wearing enameled turkey pins to mark their solidarity. They named themselves after the color of their uniforms and began using the ganglike tag “7/23,” for the seventh and 23rd letters of the alphabet, G and W. They attacked inmates and planted evidence on them. And they avoided discipline and prosecution by enforcing their “code of silence.”

Eleven years after the Thanksgiving Day Riot, D.J. Vodicka, the former guard who blew the whistle on the gang of rogue officers, has published a book about the experience that left him in hiding.

“The Green Wall: A Prison Guard’s Struggle to Expose the Code of Silence in the Largest Prison System in the United States” is a self-published tome that tracks Vodicka’s life, from his 1988 dream-fulfilling graduation from the correctional officer’s academy in Gault through some of California’s most dangerous prisons. His career ended in 2002 when he was forced to leave the system in fear for his life after exposing the Green Wall.

The book begins with Vodicka walking in to testify before a state Senate committee investigating California’s prisons in 2004. It then flashes back with pride to his work on the force that opened Corcoran State Prison, the state’s first Segregated Housing Unit designed to house the “worst of

the worst” inmates. Vodicka would go on to initiate three more of the state’s highest-security prisons, including Pelican Bay and Salinas Valley state prisons.

A veteran by the time he reached Salinas Valley, Vodicka became the lead officer in the Investigative Services Unit, the team responsible for investigating crimes committed in the prison. As such, it was his responsibility to photograph the scene once the Thanksgiving Day Riot was quelled.

In his book, Vodicka says he snapped photos of makeshift weapons found beneath prone inmates as well as injuries to their faces, documentation that did not sit well with his fellow guards. He was marked as someone not to be trusted and was thus unaware as the Green Wall grew in membership.

In March 2001, Vodicka was videotaping three “cell extractions” — guards removing uncooperative inmates from their housing. Each officer had to identify himself and his role in the extraction. Vodicka writes that the videotape captured one of the guards flashing a W with three fingers. Kept underground since 1998, the Green Wall had surfaced.

The book goes on to detail the investigation of the group — or lack thereof under warden Anthony Lamarque — and actions by prison management that exposed Vodicka as a whistleblower.

According to a forward in the book by retired warden Edward Caden, who succeeded Lamarque at the prison, the Office of Internal Affairs investigated the Green Wall and concluded it didn’t exist. And when the Independent Office of the Inspector General concluded the gang was real and some of its members were criminals, the prison warden ignored the report.

Meanwhile, Vodicka was targeted as a snitch. The book details threats on his life, including one in front of his 8-year-old son, and occasions when fellow officers set him up for inmate attacks. He quit the job, filed a lawsuit and began to wear a bulletproof vest.

Eventually Vodicka, his attorney Lanny Tron, and Caden ended up testifying before the Senate committee, which concluded the system was incapable of policing itself. Caden wrote a “corrective action plan” which adopted a “zero tolerance policy” against the code of silence.

The book concludes with transcripts of depositions by some of the prison’s highest-ranking authorities who were forced to testify to their complicity in covering up or ignoring the Green Wall as part of Vodicka’s lawsuit. The last of those depositions is by Lamarque, who went on sick leave after the Senate hearing and remained on leave until his retirement.

In deposition, he described the Green Wall as similar to a “college frat group,” and then fled when confronted during a break by a Herald reporter and photographer.

Judge Michael Fields ordered Deputy Attorney General Mary Cain-Simon to return Lamarque to complete his deposition, but she said the ex-warden had gone to France. Lamarque remained overseas until Vodicka settled the suit for $500,000 and a disability retirement. Vodicka said the state workers’ compensation insurance fund has refused to pay the disability settlement in a lump sum. To date, taxpayers have paid close to $350,000 in psychological and medical bills.

In his book, Vodicka also details the history and influences of the state’s prison gangs and provides interesting insight into how the “war on crime” built a prison system so overcrowded that corrections officials have abandoned any pretense of rehabilitation. Guards, he says, are so overwhelmed they are forced to separate races and factions and let the gangs rule themselves.

“The Green Wall” comes at a time when the state is appealing a federal court order to reduce its prison population due to unconstitutional overcrowding. U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson, who placed California’s prisons into federal receivership, wrote a letter to Vodicka at the conclusion of his civil case. It is included in the book.

“The court’s remedial plans would not have been possible if it were not for correctional employees, like yourself, who have the courage to stand up against the Code of Silence,” Henderson wrote. “I want to emphasize to you personally that I have the utmost respect for the position that you took, and sympathy concerning the many adverse consequences that resulted.”

Vodicka, who has left the state, said publication of the book provided him closure. His only regret is that his parents did not live to see it in print. His father died in 2005; his mother six months later, in 2006. The book is dedicated to them.

Source: Monterey Herald

TX – New Hell Hole News #19 by Hank Skinner

21 Nov

EXECUTION DATE SET FOR FEBRUARY 24TH, 2010

Hey y’all.  Before I get into my usual rant I need to clarify some
stuff about Todd.  In New Hell Hole News #17 I accused Stacy
Kuykendahl of lying about Todd along with her brother.  Apparently
only her brother did the lying to the Justice of the Peace.  A week
before Todd’s murder, as related in Steven Hill’s Chicago Tribune
story October 19th and David Grann’s New Yorker article October 16th
“What Stacy said.”  So, I apologize to Stacy.  My own commentary on
it was based on what was stated in the Corsicana Daily Sun by Janet
somebody – obviously that paper lacks a lot when it comes to
integrity—If you doubt that, read district attorney nee Judge John
Jackson’s “Guest Commentary” about how Todd is guilty.  Not a single
thing that man points to is evidence of murder. A while back I said
that the same witch hunter used to murder Todd is being employed to
try to kill me.  It is. No doubt.  But there, I was talking about the
crazy psychologist who testified at Todd’s trial that, because he had
rock-n-roll band posters displayed on his walls it meant he was a
‘”devil worshipper.”  Now I have learned that “Judge” John Jackson,
in a Nightline News t.v. interview has falsely alleged that the burn
patterns on the floor of Todd’s house were in the shape of a
pentagram — come on! You gotta be kidding me. That’s 100% a total
fabrication.  A lie.  This man is a Texas state district judge!  Stay
out of Corsicana, Texas, folks!  Especially if you wear concert t-
shirts and have long hair or listen to rock-n-roll music; you might
be the next “devil worshipper” they kill!

Incidentally, the district attorney in my case, Lynn Switzer, is a
member of the Order of the Eastern Star, which is an ancillary,
“adoptive” form of masonry open only to master masons and the women
of master masons — i.e. wife, daughter, mother, aunt, etc.  Their
emblem or standard is an inverted pentagram bearing an assortment of
arcane symbols and the letters at the five points of the star F. A.
T. A. L.  This is the woman who will decide whether I live or die. I
don’t see anyone calling her a “devil worshipper” – except me, once,
jokingly to one of my attorneys.  It went right over his head, poor
fellow.  I’m not bothered by it.  I come from a long line of
Scottish Rite Freemasonry.  My family were some of the very first to
settle this country, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains in
the far southwestern corner of Virginia. Scot (Gael) and German on my
dad’s side of the family, Irish on my mother’s side – Skinner, Lynch,
Barrow, Warner and Lovelace.

In my case, a woman I used to know well, said that when I get mad my
eyes glow red, my canines were sharp, she came home one day to find
me supine with my arms crossed over my chest like a corpse, in a
trance, levitating two feet off the bed in midair.  She also
testified that I was endowed and a contortionist, I could fellate
myself.  My response to that was simply, “if that is true, what’d I
need you (her) for?” She’d said other things over the years;  I lay
curses that are effective – yeah, I laid one on her pudendum, she
still ain’t got over it.  Ha/ha. Flowers I don’t like wilt at my
passing.  I control the minds of animals and made her dog commit
suicide by running out of an alley under the wheels of a passing car.
I know.  That’s terrible.  Christopher Lee could take lessons from
me, I tell you.  The dog was a Beagle.  It was chasing a jackrabbit.
No, I’m not kidding you.

By now I think you’ve probably read in New Hell Hole News #16 what
was done to me on October 13th, 2009?  Incidentally, that was the
702nd anniversary of the real Friday the 13th, 1307, the day Prince
Philip the Fair crossed out the templars, had them arrested,
tortured, murdered, etc.  What happened to me, we’ll call it a
symbolic re-enactment, eh? Ha/ha.

It’s well known here that I have an avid interest in all things
templaric—I trace my ancestors to participants in the first crusade
and before it, by some 200 years. So they came to F-pod and
“arrested” me Ha/ha, brought me up here to A-pod and put me in
Lester’s lil’ camera’d up torture chamber for ol’ Tabler, in a filthy
cell, no property, no nothin’ there I sat.

They got all kinds of neat lil’ “mind f**k by Mattel” torture going
on up here – lights on 24/7, cameras whee!  Gate slammin’, “security
checks every 30 minutes so you never sleep more ‘n 30 minutes at a
time — in contemporary circles of torture they call that “sleep
deprivation.”  Of course it’s illegal but “that don’t matter,
Skinner, you’re gonna be dead soon.”  They won’t let me rec unless I
go outside, in the kitten box, by myself.  So I cannot go to the
dayroom at all, can’t talk to the guys in the other dayrooms (we
still have no contact physically but we could shout back and forth to
conversate).

I was put on food loaf for a case that never was written or, if it
was, never served and for which I never went to court.  When I
finally got my property it was in such a state of destruction and
disarray it took me over 30 hours to arrange it back into some
semblance of useful order.  As always, some of it was illegally
confiscated and destroyed.

You think this action, on this date, was a coincidence, maybe?  I
don’t.  On the anniversary of the murders in Todd’s case and on the
daughters’ birthdays he was always terrorized in the same way.  Todd
was executed on February 17th, 2004; the state has decreed that I
will die on February 24th, 2010; 2,197 days after Todd.  72 months, 7
days, 313 weeks.  For anyone familiar with the occult I’m sure you
can readily see the significance of that, eh?  Right.  All I can say
is, I am not guilty of this crime, there is “ample” evidence to prove
it, if the state of Texas would quit withholding and suppressing it;
I hope to get a stay.  We’ll see.

About the move, the cameras, the “arrest” off of F-pod and all the
abuse otherwise – what’d I do, you ask?  Cussed out a guard for
abusing one of my acquaintances – according to him, I jacked the
beanhole aka “refusing to allow closure of the food slot by placing
[my] arm in it” —that‘s the case that was never written.  The
guard’s tale is, he just let me keep the slot for 2 hours until I got
tired and went to bed, eh.  No supervisor was ever called, no use of
force ever recorded, etc.  Hey, you believe that, don’t you?  Right.

What was the real deal, you wonder?  Oh, I think they were
anticipating this date and looking for some excuse to hoosegow me.
Like Foghorn Leghorn says:  “I say, I say.  I say look heah, son!  In
chicken parlance, ya been boondoggled, boy!  I say, you been
hornswaggled, son!” Som’ like that, yeah.  Oh well.

Lil’ Lester Pester, with his lil’ campaign of hate.  He tried to put
if off on some’else, then get Warden Simmons to make his bond.  I
ain’t buyin’ that hog.  See, I personally overheard him tellin’
another rank “y’all look at Skinner any way you can,” that’s a
euphemism for “screw him over, I’m ordering it and backing it.”  Same
as “shake him down good” “take all his stuff and tear it all to hell,
ok.”  Ha/ha.

I few columns back I made reference to a “ho-ho.”  Someone said it
meant the singular version of the one word, repeated twice.  Well,
that too.  But come on y’all!  A “ho-ho” is a twinkie!  Just ask
Dolly Madison!

The code of criminal procedure says that death sentenced prisoners
cannot be subjected to cruel or unusual punishments outside the
context of their sentences. All  of the punishments I’m being
subjected to are outside of policy, not pursuant to any valid
disciplinary conviction, could not be imposed even pursuant to a
valid disciplinary conviction, are not within the range of special
conditions allowed by classification and are not documented
anywhere!  And all of it has been  imposed upon me without any due
process whatsoever.  That’s their only answer? “It doesn’t matter,
you’ll be dead, soon.”

Back to Todd for a minute.  Todd did believe his wife was responsible
for the fire that killed his children because somebody had to let his
2 year old daughter out of the child safety gate across the doorway
of her room and he didn’t do it.  That means somebody was in the room
while Todd was asleep.  Now, at the time until shortly before his
death we thought accelerants were involved.  Todd, unfortunately,
never got to see Dr. Beyler’s report.

Since Mr. Willis’ release I learned a lot about fire science.  After
reading about “flashover” I realized Todd had to be telling me the
truth about what happened in the house and immediately after he came
out and was blown off the porch.  The neighbor said he was in the
grass on his knees and wasn’t trying to go back in the house. That’s
because he’d been holding his breath until he got out and the
“whump!” of compression that knocked him off the porch had knocked
the breath out of him and stunned him.  He had his diaphragm
collapsed and was struggling to breathe, probably.  When he opened
that door air rushed in and the fire struggling to burn, suddenly
oxygenated, instantly achieved flashover and the compression blew him
off the porch.  So what appeared to the neighbor much later in memory
as Todd’s inaction was in reality his being dazed and confused,
stunned, trying to get his breath.

Todd told me the only thing in his mind that was questionable was
whether it was an accident or intentional on Stacy’s part.  That was
because he thought accelerants were involved. Take away the
accelerants and yeah, it was probably accidental.  On his way out of
that house Todd saw something he thought was connected to his wife.
I don’t know what it was, but I think it had to do with the baby’s
blanket.  I do know that at his last visit with her he tried to
convince her to tell the truth but she absolutely refused – I know
that because I tried to help him think of ways to convince her.  I
don’t know what her secret is; only she knows that.  I do believe she
called her family together after the visit and told them something
and, whatever it was, it was sufficient to cause her brother to go
lie to the justice of peace.

I believe Stacy had told Todd she was going to leave him or, he was
kicking her out.  He’d told her she wasn’t taking his kids with her
and when she told him otherwise he said “over my dead body.”  I can’t
remember every detail of what he told me but I think he either
strongly suspected her of infidelity or, had actually caught her at
it.  In any event, that was the catalyst of their upcoming split.

I’ve read the Corsicana fire chief’s report of 09.29.09 to the Texas
Forensic Science Commission;  Fire Chief Donald McMullens adds
nothing to the equation of any substance at all.  He only quibbles
with wording or other rather meaningless points of contention all
through his report.  The only thing I found notable in all his drivel
was his statement that “fire burns up not down.” I’m not a fire
expert of any sort but even I know that fire rises because of
oxygenation and heat carrying it upward but, fire burns in any
direction, following its fuel source.  If fire only burned up and a
fire started in the attic, it’d only burn the top off the house and
go out, eh? Right.  I guarantee you, in any house fire started in an
attic and left unattended, that house will burn to the ground.  So
one thing we know, Fire Marshall Vasquez and Assistant Chief Fogg’s
mystical-psychic-soothsaying fire science is alive and well in
Corsicana, Texas.

Once again McMullen, like “Judge” Jackson, calls Todd guilty because
he failed to go back in the house or there’s some discrepancy about
how he got out of the house.  That’s no evidence of murder.

Here’s the real kicker:  Governor Rick slick hair (Perry) calls Todd
a “monster”  (“He who fights monsters must be ever vigilant to not
become that very thing he loathes.” –F. W. Nietsche) and, Perry says
there was “clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence of
Willingham’s (alleged) guilt; that he murdered his children.”  Ok.
articulate for us, Governor Perry, exactly what that “clear and
compelling, overwhelming evidence” consists of, please sir?  Describe
it for us?  You won’t get any answer.  Instead, Perry hides the
records and refuses to turn them over.  You murdered an innocent man,
Governor.  On February 24th, 2010 you’re about to murder another.  Do
you even care?

Oh, there’s another thing I gotta tell y’all.  “Judge” Jackson in his
“Guest Commentary” actually provides evidence of Todd’s innocence.
In numerous police manuals and true crime books you read of
detectives expounding on it again and again:  In spousal murders,
child murders etc. where the suspect is a family member, if they
decide to confront the suspected family member they always have extra
pigs on hand because if that family member is innocent they usually
act out in rage and become indignant when accused.  Exactly as Todd
acted out every time they suggested his guilt or, offered him a deal
to plead out.  He told me many times that it was bad enough he’d lost
his kids and failed to save them but when they started blaming him it
was just too much.  He snapped.  That’s too bad District Attorney/
Judge Jackson didn’t have enough training or sense to see it.

These kinds of people make me nauseous.  All my life, in one form or
another, I’ve been confronted with them.  The sheriff in my case,
Randy Stubblefield, was the same way.  I wish to God, and have wished
it 10,000 other times over the years, that I could somehow produce a
video of what my eyes saw that night until after my trial.  Lots of
cons say “I’m innocent!  I was framed!” I actually was framed.  I was
framed by people who thought they’d failed before and were now making
up for it, doing the right thing.  If only they could truly see what
their actions have wrought.

My best to you all,

Hank

999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX  77351-8580

http://www.hankskinner.org

h.w.skinner@gmail.com
hwskinner@yahoo.com

The Curb Coalition Presents: Release? 12/3 Oakland, CA

21 Nov


The The CURB Coalition Presents:

Release? A Conversation with Michael Bein, a Lead Counsel in the
CA Prisoner Release Plans

Come get your questions about if, when and how the CA Prisoner Release Plans will be implemented

Thursday December 3rd from 6 – 8 PM
3rd Floor Conference Room at 1904 Franklin in Oakland (one block from 19th St. BART)
childcare and snacks provided


This is an opportunity to ask questions directly about how this lawsuit will impact our loved ones and our work.  We hope that we can come to some collective clarity about what the current legal situation is — as well as what to expect in the future — so that we can build better plans to bring people home from California prisons.

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