Another One Bites The Dust….

Guard busted smuggling drugs into Ironwood
Pvvt.com

Palo Verde Valley Times

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

BLYTHE – Christopher Towns, 43, of Blythe, was arrested and booked Friday into Blythe Jail on one charge of conspiracy and two charges of bringing a controlled substance into a prison. Towns, a 16-year veteran of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, is a correctional officer at Ironwood State Prison. Towns was released on bail on March 26 and is currently on paid administrative leave from Ironwood until further notice.

Where’s the evidence?

There’s always a big tug of war between those who think that we should rehabilitate prisoners and those who think that nothing works–that if punishment doesn’t knock the sense into inmates they are more or less destined for a life of crime. In the gray area between those two sides, there’s a middle ground–those who believe in “evidence-based corrections.” Essentially, these folks say, love and understanding won’t necessarily get criminals to abide by the law, but some things can work if they’re done right. Things like education and vocational training. These “evidence-based” folks ask that resources go into evaluating programs to see which work.And they say, in the long-run, effective programs can cut down on the number of people going back to prison, resulting in a reduction in the amount of money we throw into our prison system. So as the state is looking to cut the prison population by some 40,000 inmates, this term “evidence-based” rehabilitation is coming up a lot.

For this current fiscal year the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation cut $250 million from rehabilitation programs in prisons. That means at places like San Quentin, there are few state-run programs left. Few drug rehab programs, few educational programs and few vocational training opportunities for prisoners, unless they’re provided by volunteers.

According to CDCR, these budget cuts are not a catastrophic gutting of the department’s mandate to rehabilitate inmates, but an opportunity to “streamline” programs and make CDCR programming more “evidence-based”–essentially clean up the state’s repertory of programs and throw out anything that can’t demonstrate that it cuts down on recidivism.

As Paul Golaszweski, the policy analyst at the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) in charge of keeping tabs on adult prison operations told me, CDCR’s rehabilitation programs have a spotty success record. “They’re not always implemented using the best practices,” Golaszweski said. “Nor have they always seen the best results.”

So cutting out the waste and rebuilding successful programs seems like a good idea, right?

Here’s the problem: Along with cuts to rehabilitation, CDCR was forced to slash its overall budget as well. And a lot of the cuts ended up coming from the departments that collect data, oversee programs and train prison workers in best practices for effective outcomes. According to reports that CDCR gave the LAO, Adult Programs funding went from $46 million down to $14 million. And the Fidelity Unit, which is tasked with providing “formative evaluations, program development, continuous quality improvement and technical assistance to ensure fidelity and quality” of CDCR programs went from $16 million to $10 million.

So how do you institute evidence-based programs without having people who collect evidence, analyze it and turn it into new methods?

“More slowly,” is the answer I got.

Despite staff cuts, CDCR has a position dedicated to addressing media requests regarding, well, cuts. Here’s what spokesperson Peggy Bengs told me:

“We’ve had to slow down somewhat. You know, our initial plan was more ambitious, but we are still pursuing the same concepts. We are still moving forward with evidence-based programming. We’re still moving forward with the new science-based assessment tools. We’re still moving forward with those programs that have been shown to reduce recidivism. We can’t move sometimes as quickly as we wanted to in the past, but we’re still targeting our resources on evidence-based programs.”

So for now, streamlining the CDCR look like evidence-based cuts more than evidence-based corrections.

Source: SF Gate

NEW HELL HOLE NEWS #22

March 15, 2010
Hey y’all,
I received a letter from a student in Florida that I wanted to share you with as well as my reply to him.
Hank
999143 Polunsky Unit
H W Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580

http://www.hankskinner.org

hwskinner@yahoo.com
h.w.skinner@gmail.com
February 17th, 2010
Inmate Henry Skinner (TDCJ 999143)
C/O TDCJ Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351
Dear Mr. Skinner,
My name is Kevin S. I am a student at the University of West Florida. This semester I am taking a
course on capital punishment. Our class project is to write letters to persons on death row in order to
understand what life on death row is like for them.
I sent you an earlier version of this letter but in the event you did not receive it, I am resending. I hope
you will help me understand what life on death row is like. Before I proceed, I would like to reassure
you that I am not a journalist nor am I affiliated with the media in any way. I also want you to know
that I am not involved with the state’s prosecution and that I do not work for the Texas criminal justice
system. I am merely a college student who is trying to learn more about life on death row than what is
written in a textbook. As you can see, your insights are invaluable to my research for this project, so I
would really appreciate it if you would take the time to share some aspects of your life with me.
I want you to know that we only have from January through March to collect the information we need
for our projects. As a result, I would like to correspond with you on a regular basis so that I can learn as
much from you as possible during this time.
That being said, I hope you will respond to the following list of questions. I have included a selfaddressed
envelope so that you may send your answers back to me. If you don’t mind, I will write to
you again once I have received the letter. Initially we were told we could send stamped self-addressed
2
envelopes. We now know that the policy has changed so our self-addressed envelope is not stamped. I
hope that will not deter you from writing me.
- What should we, as a class, know and understand about the death penalty from your point of
view?
- What kind of sentence would you propose for those convicted of major crimes like homicide?
- Does the waiting and the lengthy appeal process bother you or do you see it to your advantage?
- Some people have said that the appeal process itself constitutes “cruel and unusual”
punishment. Would you agree?
- What changes have you seen on death row since you’ve been there?
- How do you feel right now – what is it like to live on death row status?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Kevin.
Here is my reply:
March 11, 2010
Kevin,
I had an execution date February 24th, which is why I didn’t answer your first letter. After a lot of
diligent and tedious work, we got that date modified to March 24th. So I’ve got a little breathing room,
but not much. So I’ve got little time and less patience, but I’ll make time to tell you a few things. First
of all, prisoners do not like to be addressed as “inmate”. In bucolic/colloquialism terms of prison
parlance, “inmate” ranks just one click above “snitch” or “chester”. Snitches tell it to the man, chesters
rape kids. An inmate is one who was rescued from under a bridge and glad to have 3 hot meals and a
cot. Most of ‘em got some form of Stockholm syndrome.
A convict is someone who has a little honor, integrity and backbone, knows how to do is time, minds
his own biz, will help another convict if asked, won’t snitch and is stand-up i.e. peckerwood. That term
denotes a hard dick. That’s a good thing to be, in here. I call myself Sthanakvas!
In short, my address should be written exactly as I have it, above. Thanks in advance for the respect
you’ll show by doing it that way.
It would take me many months, if not years, to explain what the public as a class, much less a student
class, should know about the death penalty. In Texas, it is fraught with bias, prejudice, coerced
confessions, coerced witnesses, all manner of prosecutorial misconduct, police misconduct and all
kinds of other cheating, subterfuge and other corrupt bullshit.
In Texas, D.A.’s are elected and they get re-elected by promising the public to get tough on crime and
keep the streets safe for Grandmas and children. When some big murder case breaks, the D.A. sees it as
a perfect opportunity to cement his legend and make it appear to the public that he is making good on
his promises, etc. Once he decides to go for the death penalty against a defendant, the landscape
3
change. Lie, cheat, steal or sell his mama to the Arabs. He’ll do anything to win a conviction and
secure a death sentence.
Fabricating evidence, threatening or enticing witnesses to lie, offering leniency to jailhouse snitches if
they give them the testimony the state needs to convict – usually they just make it up or, the D.A. will
give them a prepared script as was done in my case.
My case has been all over the news of late. Don’t you watch the news or check it out on the Internet?
http://www.texastribune.org – “Case Open”
http://www.hankskinner.org – Read my Hell Hole News, in the death row news section, particularly #13, #15
& #20. I am innocent. I was framed.
Channel 10 News website out of Amarillo, TX. Reporter Ben Briscoe just interviewed me.
http://www.medillinnocenceproject.org – they have an extensive presentation about my case.
My website http://www.hankskinner.org has all the documentation about my innocence and briefs, evidence,
DNA reports, affidavits, etc, etc.
I am a writ writer. In the world, I worked as a paralegal for the pre-eminent criminal defense attorney
in the Texas Panhandle, James Marion “Rowdy” Bowers. He was hung in his garage by the D.A. who
prosecuted me. That D.A’s successor was arrested in the courtroom at docket call two years ago with
an ounce each of coke, meth and ecstasy plus two automatic illegal weapons. Then, subsequent
searches of his home and office by the D.E.A. turned up 36 more illegal weapons, child porn, snuff
films, all manner of drug paraphernalia, marijuana and other stuff. The D.E.A. had a hidden camera in
the bedroom of an apartment he’d originally rented for an assistant D.A. but when that assistant quit
and the D.A.’s wife threw him out for continually using meth, he moved into this apartment and used it
for assignations with his secretary and her daughter. He was caught on camera sitting up nude in the
middle of the bed injecting his penis with a combo of meth and levitra. When it stood up he said “look
at that! I’m gonna patent this shit!”. I could go on and on.
Enclosed is a Huffington post article by retired Federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin about my case. CNN &
48 Hours maybe doing exposés about my case soon. I’m on YouTube, on Al Jazeera English News in
an hour long exposé.
To answer your second question, I propose no sentence for homicides. That’s not my job. It is up to the
public, the legislature and the courts to determine penalty ranges for capital crimes.
Waiting is part of the process. I think it’s a damn shame I’ve lost 15 years in the prime of my life for a
crime I didn’t commit, but them’s the breaks. Sometimes shit happens. Sometimes it happens to you.
No, the appeals process itself does not constitute cruel or unusual punishment but the conditions one is
forced to endure during that time can easily violate the 8th amendment. As for myself, I’ve actually
been tortured – “sweated” in a “hot box” cell until I lost consciousness and was so dehydrated I had salt
crusted all over my body and it took a medical team 45 minutes to revive me after I had a heatstroke –
were it not for the intervention of a revolutionary prisoner who was a Black Panther, I’d have died for
sure. I’ve been beaten bloody by a rogue Sgt and his goons, had my neck crushed, cheekbone broken,
4
etc. in “cell extractions”. “Excessive use of force”, EUOF, is the legal term for it. The Sergeant was
fired. My attorneys are about to file an 8th amendment suit/claim on these very issues and much more.
The changes I’ve seen since I got here. It’s just gotten worse and worse, overly restrictive. We have no
privileges anymore, can’t have our crafts to pass the time, etc, etc. Incessant and destructive
shakedowns – it’s like a Gestapo POW camp, it thrives on terrorizing prisoners. Mostly due to a bunch
of punitive minded anal retentive asshole Republicans and their constituency, who think it is their duty
to mistreat and abuse any lesser class: prisoners, poor, Blacks, Hispanics, anyone who’s disadvantaged
and fair game.
How do you feel right now? Got my B.P. checked this morning, it’s 169/97. Let someone tell you,
“you’ll die on this date” and see what it does for you. The stress is off the charts. It’s really impossible
to explain to someone like you because you simply have no life experiences by which to compare it
with. So, having no references for it, you really cannot even begin to truly comprehend it. I’ve watched
as men I knew to be innocent were summarily slaughtered by the State without a thought or care. In the
15 years I’ve been here, Texas has killed over 350 men and three women. With every one they kill,
they’re one more closer to me. Virtually every friend I had here has been killed. Regardless of what
they did or didn’t do out there, in here, they’re just people.
All the crap you hear about “super predators”, “sociopaths”, “psychopaths” is mostly hype. Life
happens. Sometimes it goes horribly wrong. I’ve known one or two who was seriously mentally
deranged but for the most part it’s just ordinary Joes caught up in extraordinary circumstances,
sometimes of their own making, sometimes not.
Since I’ve come to death row in 1995 conditions have gone to hell in a hand basket. Ever more
restrictive and constitutionally violative. The courts’ attitude toward prisoners in general and death row
in particular is purely hate filled, retributive, antagonistic.
As to how I feel right now, Jackyl’s “I stand alone today” and “when will it rain” about sums it up.
Today they are killing one of my last few friends here. Joshua Maxwell. I just said goodbye to him. I
have a date in 13 days. 03.24.10.
Best regards
Hank

http://www.hankskinner.org/

Tune in to: “The Green Wall Author”, DJ Vodicka

Whistleblower D.J. Vodicka believes that former co-workers and fellow prison-guard-union members would like to see him dead. PHOTO BY STEPHEN JAMES

DJ Vodicka will be a Special Guest on American Freedom Report with Brent Johnson on Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 9:30 PM Pacific Time, Speaking about his Book, “The Green Wall” and his journey through the whole ordeal.

lets support DJ by tuning in…you may listen on line….

http://www.americafreedomreport. com/

Donald J. Vodicka (D.J.) is a former Correctional Officer who spent seventeen years working in five of the most dangerous prisons in the California Department of Corrections – the largest prison system in the nation.

During his career in the California Department of Corrections he was routinely selected for specialized training and appointed to special duties such as Investigative Officer. His career is punctuated by awards of merit and commendations. In 2001, the career that DJ loved so much was cut short when he exposed a rogue gang of prison guards who had become known as the Green Wall. After coming forward
with the truth about the Green Wall’s illegal activities, DJ found himself increasingly abandoned by coworkers, his union, and his supervisors. Faced with death threats DJ was forced into hiding.

DJ holds a degree in Criminal Justice and has extensive correctional training in such areas as homicide investigation, narcotic investigation, interrogation and gangs. DJ served in the United States Army assigned to a Special Forces unit and received an Honorable Discharge in 1987 before joining the
California Department of Corrections.

READ THE STORY!
http://www.greenwal l2001.com/ read.html

CDCr’s Finest: Ex-prison guard pleads guilty; he brought in pot, gun, cell phones

By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com

A former correctional officer has pleaded guilty to bringing marijuana and a gun into California State Prison, Sacramento, and to conspiracy to distribute cell phones to inmates.

Domingo Gardea Garcia, 40, entered the plea Wednesday in Sacramento Superior Court. He will be sentenced April 26 by Judge Gary E. Ransom.

Under the terms of his plea, Garcia will not be sentenced to state prison and will get no more than a year in county jail.

Garcia, left, was placed on administrative leave following his arrest in November. A nine-year veteran, he resigned on Jan. 26, after he had been served with dismissal papers a week earlier.

In his plea, the officer admitted to furnishing marijuana to an inmate and to bringing a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun along with 50 rounds of ammo and two knives onto the prison grounds in Folsom.

Garcia pleaded guilty in the conspiracy count to receiving $1,500 from an inmate to bring in a cell phone for another convict. He also received $1,300 from a woman through a Western Union money transfer, possessed 19 pieces of inmate correspondence that included pay and owe sheets, and he had nine cell phones at his residence, according to the criminal complaint’s outline of the cell phone conspiracy.

Deputy District Attorney Steve Secrest said Garcia told investigators he got involved in the illegal activity to make ends meet after his pay was cut through the state furlough program.

It was an inmate who told authorities about the officer’s involvement in the ring, Secrest said. According to the prosecutor, an inmate identified as Ken Hanks got caught with a cell phone and marijuana, then came forward with the information about Garcia.

The officer could not be reached for comment and his attorney, Assistant Public Defender Addie Louise Young, declined to comment.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton said Garcia’s misconduct is rare.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” she said. “We have more than 60,000 employees in the department and nearly all of them do a very good job at what they do. However, the department has zero tolerance of staff misconduct, and all allegations of staff misconduct are investigated. We take this very seriously.”

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/crime/archives/2010/03/ex-prison-guard.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=7587238#Comments_Container#ixzz0jhChVPo4

California Prisons: The mass release that wasn’t

By Rina Palta on Monday, Mar 29

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevekocino/4138471061/

Last year, a panel of federal judges ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDRC) to reduce overcrowding in state prisons.  The state has about 170,000 inmates, which is almost double its capacity.  So, California had a few options: build more prisons, transfer inmates out of state, or contract with private prisons.

But in the midst of a massive budget crisis, the state decided to do something many didn’t expect, something that prison reform advocates have been wanting for years.

California decided to implement changes that actually reduce the number of people in prison. You may have heard this program referred to as “early release,” but CDCR spokesman Gordon Hinkle says that’s not quite right:

GORDON HINKLE: That is something that’s kind of a misnomer out there. There’s no blanket release of prisoners or even an actual headcount of prisoners who are being released early whatsoever.

Instead of releasing inmates, CDCR is cutting back on the number coming in. But are they doing it the best way? KALW’s Rina Palta reports.

RINA PALTA: Every morning around 8 o’clock, a van pulls up to the San Rafael Bus Depot with a delivery: ex-prisoners, fresh from San Quentin State Prison. This particular morning, the van is jam-packed. There’s even an inmate in the trunk.

Everyone lines up in front of the van to receive $200.

Chad Stevens is getting out after 8 1/2 months and says he’s thrilled.

STEVENS: Absolutely. Wouldn’t you be?

Stevens is headed home to San Francisco.

STEVENS: And I have a job lined up. Basically stay out of trouble.

But his first task is to check in with parole within 24 hours. Parole officers help released inmates transition back into normal life. The officer also checks to make sure the parolee doesn’t fall into bad behavior like drug use or hang out with the wrong people.

STEVENS: Basically, to me a parole officer is like a baby-sitter. You do what they tell you to do and you’re ok. Otherwise, you’re headed back to prison.

That’s the problem with California’s parole system: 66% of parolees return to prison within three years of getting out. Over half of them don’t go back to prison for new crimes, but on technical parole violations that range from failing to report for a parole appointment, to going into a neighborhood they’re not supposed to be in.

As flawed as the parole system is, almost every person coming out of prison has had to deal with it. Until now.

GORDON HINKLE: The hard thing is going back and determining who’s eligible.

That’s CDCR Spokesman Gordon Hinkle. In response to prison overcrowding, Governor Schwarzenegger created what’s called a “non-revocable parolee.” These parolees don’t have to check in with an officer, and won’t be sent back to prison on technical violations. But Hinkle explains that not every inmate is a candidate.

GORDON HINKLE: They can’t be a sex offender, they can’t be a serious or violent predator, they can’t be a gang member.

Hinkle says the state expects that 20-30% of felons leaving prison will be put on non-revocable, unsupervised parole.

HINKLE: Then we do expect to see the populations in our prisons, the overcrowding, go down. That number that we’ve projected is about 6,500 individuals in the first year.

But not everyone’s so sure that taking newly released inmates off of parole supervision will keep them out of prison.

Seventh Step is a halfway house in Hayward. On a sunny day, Brian Condan is watching daytime television. Condan says there’s one major reason he’s at Seventh Step.

BRIAN CONDAN: No place to live, and no address to give to my parole agent. So they sent me here.

Condan served 8 months in San Quentin for 2nd degree burglary in 2006 and has been on parole ever since. He just got out of Santa Rita jail after getting caught on a parole violation.

CONDAN: Absconding. It was because I would get out and start using drugs. I didn’t feel like doing my parole. Didn’t feel like getting help yet.

Everyone here is a parolee, brought here by their parole agent. As is everyone on the waitlist, 30 people long. Like many community-based programs, Seventh Step gets money from the state to treat parolees, but that doesn’t include this new group of non-revocable parolees.

MICHAEL SMITH: Just to let someone out in society and say, oh, you’re off parole, with nothing is just, that’s bad.

Michael Smith got out of prison a year ago. Smith completed the Seventh Step program in September and now works here, answering phones and filling out paperwork. A drug dealer with no disciplinary problems and no history of violence, he probably would have qualified for non-revocable parole if he were let out now. But he’s glad he didn’t.

SMITH: You’ve got years and years of stuff to deal with. So I’m all for letting people off of parole early, but without treatment or resources for them to get housing or the counseling they need for their drug problems, or employment, then I don’t think it’s a good idea.

CDCR spokespeople say that many of the inmates let out on non-revocable parole will have received rehabilitation and vocational training while in prison. But those working inside the state prisons tell a different story.

ALLYSON WEST: There have always been waiting lists. There have always been more prisoners who need programs and want programs than are available to them.

Allyson West has run a non-profit program in San Quentin for ten years. She says that after the state cut $250 million from rehabilitation programs, the waiting lists for programs have gotten longer and the chances that offenders will get help is minimal.

WEST: And then the vocational programs — San Quentin had sheet metal, machine shop, janitorial, sign painting, print shop. There were at least six or seven of them. And we’re down to two. So there were waitlists to get into those programs and now most of them are gone. So even real life job training that they would have has is taken away from them. Not to mention the opportunity to earn the weeks off in credit.

West is talking about another new prison initiative. Inmates can now earn weeks off from their sentences if they complete certain programs or work in prison factories. This is in addition to parole reforms. This is what most know as the ‘early release program.’ Even though CDCR doesn’t expect many early releases to come of it—less than a thousand over the next two years–it’s gotten a lot of media attention. That worries Allyson West.

WEST: When they see crime rates go up and they see an increase in incarceration rates, they’re going to blame early release, without looking at the great loss in programs which were insufficient to begin with, grossly insufficient.

That said, West expects the parole reforms to bring the prison population down slowly over the next couple of years. But what will happen in the long run? At the moment, CDCR seems serious about cutting down the number of people entering prison. But cutting rehabilitation services and reforming parole were both born out of the financial crisis. What happens when the money comes back?

WEST: Which way is the rehabilitation and punishment pendulum going to be swinging at that point? And what are you going to do with a name, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in the intervening time now that you’ve cut all these programs?

West says that there are senior managers in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation who desperately want to keep the ‘R’ in CDCR’s name. They also know that without rehabilitation, even parole reform won’t necessarily keep these inmates from ending up back behind bars.

Source: CrossCurrents

The Public Needs to Know….

Since Hank Skinner’s stay last week, I have been inundated with requests to assist in getting many injustices out to everyone.  Today’s post features three people who may have been wrongfully convicted.

And Justice For All….really? …..

First is Ryan Ferguson

http://www.justiceforryanferguson.com/index.html

Free Ryan Ferguson — Information you probably have not heard
This site provides documents, reports, timelines and other facts that were not presented during the trial of Ryan ferguson.
www.freeryanferguson.com

One Murder, Two Victims: The Wrongful Conviction of Ryan Ferguson
In a case rife with DNA and other physical evidence, not one shred of evidence linked 17-year-old Ryan Ferguson to the murder.
www.crimemagazine.com/07/ryan_ferguson,0722-7.htm

Key Witness Recants in Ryan Ferguson Case – Columbia Missourian
www.columbiamissourian.com/…/erickson-says-he-acted-alone-heitholt-slaying/

Accomplice says Ryan Ferguson not guilty of muder
New court documents show Charles Erickson now believes he acted alone in the 2001 killing of Kent Heitholt.
www.connectmidmissouri.com/news/story.aspx?id=413427

Ryan Ferguson asks appellate court for new trial – Columbia Missourian
Ryan Ferguson has taken the appeal of his 2005 murder conviction to the next judicial level.
www.columbiamissourian.com/…/ryan-ferguson-asks-appellate-court-new-trial/

Top trial attorney Kathleen Zellner getting results for Ferguson
Ryan Ferguson’s father contacted attorney Kathleen Zellner, who will have a movie made about her, to be his son’s lawyer in November 2009.
www.columbiamissourian.com/…/kathleen-zellner-ryan-ferguson/

[PDF] In the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District
Now comes Appellant, Ryan Ferguson, by through his attorneys, Kathleen T. Zellner & Associates and Samuel Henderson, and Samuel Henderson, and in support of…
www.kbia.org/news/images/extension.pdf

Statement from Attorney Kathleen Zellner:

Ryan is the twelfth person my law firm has represented who is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. The other eleven men are now free as Ryan will be soon.

Last week, I visited the Boone County Courthouse. I could not help but notice an inscription on the wall as I entered the building:

“O’Justice, when expelled from other habitations make this thy dwelling place”

Justice did not dwell in the Boone County Courthouse during the Ryan Ferguson trial. As with many wrongful convictions, those who are most culpable for the perversions of justice hide in the shadows preferring to have their underlings speak for them. The saying is true that, “a good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat justice by evil means.”

Ryan Ferguson will walk out of prison a free man. He will never be able to replace the 2,136 days taken from him. The real murderer of Kent Heitholt has spent every one of those days as a free man, enjoying a life he does not deserve.

Those who put Ryan in prison will find, “there is no flag large enough to cover the shame (of convicting) an innocent man.”

Kathleen Zellner
3/8/2010

Please visit Ryan’s website and share his story with others.

_______________________________________________________

Next is Dave Johnson, known as Deuter

How I Got Here

Though my name is Dave Johnson my friends know me as Deuter, my nickname and art pen name. I hope in time, to include you as my friend. I currently reside in a Minnesota prison and my son is acting as administrator; I have no access to the internet.

I am here because I defended myself, while being attacked by a Saint Paul mobster, a drug dealing, money laundering loan shark, who threatened my family, and came at me with a weapon. Ramsey County charged me with attempted murder, would not allow my side of the story into the courtroom and naturally, I was convicted and given a 20 year sentence. Though through-out over 40 years of my life, I had never been in any legal trouble of any kind before.

This blog is intended to regain control of the story, from the corrupt Ramsey County Court that stole me from my wife, and son. Please read the truth, then visit my blog updates -

http://freedeuter.wordpress.com/about-me/

Please visit Deuter’s blog and share his story with others.

__________________________________________________________________

Darlie Routier

What most would call a high profile case, and also in Texas

JUNE 1996

Darlie and Darin Routier’s two oldest sons, Devon, 6, and Damon, 5, are fatally stabbed in the downstairs living room of their home on Eagle Drive in Rowlett. Ms. Routier, 26, is wounded in the neck and upper torso. She tells police that a man wearing dark clothes and a baseball cap committed the crime. Mr. Routier tells police that he and the couple’s 8-month-old son, Drake, slept through the attack in an upstairs bedroom.

Just or Not, Cost of Death Penalty Is a Killer for State Budgets

By Ed Barnes

- FOXNews.com

Capital murder trials and death row boondoggles are wreaking havoc on budgets across the country as many states are now rethinking the death penalty, which is enormously costly and rarely imposed even after successful prosecutions.

Every time a killer is sentenced to die, a school closes.

That is the broad assessment of a growing number of studies taking a cold, hard look at how much the death penalty costs in the 35 states that still have it.

Forget justice, morality, the possibility of killing an innocent man or any of the traditional arguments that have been part of the public debate over the death penalty. The new one is this:

The cost of killing killers is killing us.

“There have been studies of costs of the death penalty before, but we have never seen the same reaction that we are seeing now,” says Richard C. Dieter of the non-partisan Death Penalty Information Center. “Perhaps it is because governments are looking for ways to cut costs, and this is easier than school closings or layoffs, but it sure has hit a nerve.”

In the last year, four states — Kansas, Colorado, Montana and Connecticut — have wrestled with the emotional and politically charged issue. In each state there was a major shift toward rejection of the death penalty and narrow defeats for legislation that would have abolished it. In Connecticut, both houses actually voted in favor of a bill that would have banned executions, but the governor vetoed it.

Unlike past debates over executions, the current battles are fueled largely by the costs the death penalty imposes on states. The numbers, according to the studies, are staggering.

Overall, according to Dieter, the studies have uniformly and conservatively shown that a death-penalty trial costs $1 million more than one in which prosecutors seek life without parole. That expense is being reexamined in the current budget crisis, with some state legislators advocating a moratorium on death-penalty trials until the economy improves.

An Urban Institute study of Maryland’s experience with the death penalty found that a single death-penalty trial cost $1.9 million more than a non-death-penalty trial. Since 1978, the cost to taxpayers for the five executions the state carried out was $37.2 million dollars — each.

Since 1983, taxpayers in New Jersey have paid $253 million more for death penalty trials than they would have paid for trials not seeking execution — but the Garden State has yet to execute a single convict. Of the 197 capital cases tried in New Jersey, there have been 60 death sentences, the report said, and 50 of the those convictions were overturned. There currently are 10 men on the state’s death row.

A recent Duke University study of North Carolina’s death penalty costs found that the state could save $11 million a year by substituting life in prison for the death penalty. An earlier Duke study found that the state spent $2.1 million more on a death penalty case than on one seeking a life sentence.

The Tennessee Comptroller of the Currency recently estimated that death penalty trials cost an average of 48 percent more than trials in which prosecutors sought life sentences.

It was much the same story in Kansas. A state-sponsored study found that death penalty cases cost 70 percent more than murder trials that didn’t seek the death penalty.

A Florida study found the state could cut its costs by $51 million simply by eliminating the death penalty.

But no state matches the dilemma of California, where almost 700 inmates are sitting on death row and, according to Natasha Minsker, author of a new report by the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, few will ever actually be put to death. In fact, she says, the odds against being executed are so great, murder suspects in California actually seek the death penalty because it is the only way to get a single room in the state’s prison system.

“Only 1 percent of people sentenced to death in California in the last 30 years have been executed,” Minsker said. “The death penalty in California is purely a symbolic sentence.”

Her study found that the cash-strapped state could immediately save $1 billion by eliminating the death penalty and imposing sentences of life without parole. The alternative, if the cash-strapped state keeps the death penalty: spend $400 million to build a new death-row prison to house the growing number of prisoners.

Minsker said just keeping prisoners on death row costs $90,000 more per prisoner per year than regular confinement, because the inmates are housed in single rooms and the prisons are staffed with extra guards. That money alone would cut $63 million from the state budget. But other savings would ripple through every step of the criminal justice system as well, from court costs to subsidized spending for defense attorney and investigation expenses.

Will the economic slump and every state’s need to cut budgets have an impact? Death penalty opponents say the recession has given their effort a new, non-political reason for abolition that resonates on both sides of the debate. But Professor Paul Cassell, the Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Utah and a death penalty expert, says that major changes are not likely to occur soon.

“You can make the argument that it is cheaper not to have the death penalty” he said, but that is not what the death penalty is about.

The death penalty “provides a sense of justice to the system, is a just punishment for murder and has a deterrent effect on crime,” he said. “Besides, the amount of money saved is not that big compared to what the entire justice system spends.”

“Moreover,” he said, “polls show that 70 to 80 percent of people support the death penalty. And that isn’t going to change.”

http://alphainventions.com

DNA: a civil right?

This post is an absolute ‘must’ share….

Mar 26th, 2010

The Houston Chronicle has an interesting article related to the Skinner case. It discusses that the United States Supreme Court (USSC) will have to consider whether inmates’ requests for DNA testing can be considered as civil rights claims — a question that has split the nation’s top federal courts.

The USSC on Thursday stayed Skinner’s execution to consider taking up his lawyers’ writ of certiorari seeking review of a lower court’s rejection of Skinner’s civil rights request for DNA testing. Skinner’s lead attorney, Rob Owen of the University of Texas’ Capital Punishment Center, called on the court to resolve the question, noting that, at present, five circuit courts allow civil rights claims, two do not, and five others are undecided. The Court has not yet scheduled its consideration of his pending appeal (Skinner v. Switzer, 09-9000; his stay application was 09A743).

The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit U.S. District Court denied Skinner’s request for DNA testing of bloody knives, material found beneath his victim’s fingernails, rape kit samples, and other items found at the crime scene in the Panhandle town of Pampa. Skinner, 47, was condemned for the Dec. 31, 1993, murders of his girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two adult sons.

Skinner is seeking to raise an issue that the Justices had agreed to review last Term in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne (08-6).  The Court decided the Osborne case on June 18, 2009, but left unresolved that specific issue.  The question is whether a state inmate seeking access to and testing of DNA evidence may pursue that claim under civil rights law (Section 1983), rather than in a federal habeas challenge.  Skinner’s lawyers contend that he has tried unsuccessfully to use Texas state procedures for DNA testing, so his only remaining chance to get it is through a civil rights claim.

US Supreme Court

Adam Gershowitz of the University of Houston Law Center said it is “very likely” the court will take up the case. “The issue has been brewing for a long time,” he said. “There’s been a lot of controversy between the circuits. … You need five votes to grant a stay and only four votes to take up a review.”

Prisoners who want the courts to order DNA testing can submit the requests in the form of habeas corpus filings or as Section 1983 civil rights claims. But, said Gershowitz, making habeas corpus claims for DNA testing at the federal level rarely is successful. That’s especially true when petitioners attempt to introduce new issues that the defendant’s lawyer failed to raise at trial. Those are considered forfeited. Federal courts, he said, don’t want to step in at the last minute and reverse a case, especially if the state court hadn’t had an opportunity to look at all the issues,” Gershowitz said. “They consider it the petitioner’s fault for not bringing up the issues earlier.”

Continue Reading at Defrosting Cold Cases……

Cruel and Unusual Health Care

And so with Today’s Thought, “Think how many more ‘Hank Skinner’s’ there are languishing in America’s Criminal Justice System…..”,  we move on….

— Free the Scott Sisters!

How Mississippi prisoner Jamie Scott’s life sentence could turn into a death sentence.

— By James Ridgeway and Jean Casella

On February 25, a small crowd gathered outside the state capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, to push for the release of sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott, who are serving two consecutive life sentences apiece for a 1993 armed robbery in which no one was injured and the take was about $11. Supporters of the Scott sisters have long tried to draw attention to their case as an extreme example of the distorted justice and draconian sentencing laws that have overloaded prisons, crippled state budgets, and torn families apart across the United States. But in recent months, their cause has taken on a new urgency, because Jamie Scott’s unwarranted life sentence may soon become a death sentence.

Jamie, 38, is suffering from kidney failure. In order to stave off further complications, she needs either a kidney transplant or regular sessions of dialysis, a procedure in which blood is drained from the patient through a cleansing filter and then returned to the body. But at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility (CMCF) in Pearl, where Jamie and Gladys are incarcerated, medical services are provided by a private contractor called Wexford, which has been the target of lawsuits and legislative investigations in several states over inadequate treatment of the inmates in its care. According to Jamie’s family, in the eight weeks since her condition became life-threatening, she has endured faulty or missed dialysis sessions, infections, and other complications. She has received no indication that prison doctors are considering a kidney transplant as an option, though her sister is a willing donor.

Jamie’s family and legal advisors believe the poor health care she is receiving in prison places her life at risk. The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) has a provision for what it calls “conditional medical release”—but Jamie is not a candidate, department spokesperson Suzanne Garbo Singletary said in an email, because “MDOC policy provides that an inmate must have a condition that is ‘incapacitating, totally disabling and/or terminal in nature’ in order to qualify.” So Jamie appears to be caught in a deadly catch-22. In order to be released from prison, she must convince the MDOC that her illness is terminal or “totally disabling”—and it seems the authorities won’t be persuaded of that unless she dies in prison.

Since Jamie became critically ill, her supporters have also appealed to Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to consider early compassionate release. They have received no response—and the prospects don’t look good: Barbour has a record of being extremely stingy when it comes to issuing pardons. He is also currently engaged in a budget battle with his state legislature to prevent cuts to Mississippi’s prison spending, and the early releases such cuts would demand. According to a local television station that reported on the rally at the capitol, a spokesperson for Barbour said that “Jamie Scott was tried, convicted and incarcerated, and she is receiving her care with the Department of Corrections.”

A Sick System

In telephone interviews, the Scott sisters’ mother, Evelyn Rasco, described the treatment Jamie has received at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility (CMCF), based on her own observations and information provided by her two daughters. Jamie, who has diabetes and bouts of high blood pressure, said that prison medical staff told her in 1997 that she had high protein levels in her urine, indicating possible kidney problems.

Until recently, however, she received minimal treatment beyond the insulin prescribed for her diabetes. Jamie’s physical and mental health suffered last fall when she spent 23 days in solitary confinement (for being found in an “unauthorized area” in the prison gym) and was cut off from her routine of work, classes, church, and occasional visits with her sister. Then, in mid-January, Jamie became seriously ill when both her kidneys began shutting down. She was sent to the prison infirmary and, after a week’s delay, was taken to hospital. There, doctors inserted a shunt in Jamie’s neck to allow her to receive dialysis through a catheter, and she was promptly returned to prison.

Continue Reading…

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella

work together to bring us “Solitary Watch“  a very informative, crucial blog…..