Brown paroles more lifers than did predecessors

Brown paroles more lifers than did predecessors

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, April 29, 2011

California's parole board doesn't find convicted murderers suitable for release very often. And when the board granted parole in recent years, the inmate usually found the governor waiting to bar the door.

But not Gov. Jerry Brown.

"I'm obviously going to interfere less with the parole board than my predecessors, because I'm bound to follow the law," Brown told The Chronicle. And the statistics from his first four months in office bear him out.

Brown has reviewed 130 decisions by the Board of Parole Hearings granting release to murderers sentenced to life with possible parole and has approved 106, or 81 percent, according to the governor's office. He has vetoed 22 paroles and sent two back to the board for new hearings.

In comparison, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved about 30 percent of lifers' paroles. Former Gov. Gray Davis - who declared early in his term that "if you take someone else's life, forget it" - vetoed 98 percent of murderers' parole cases he considered.

Shifting attitudes

Brown said that both Davis, who served as chief of staff in Brown's first term as governor in the 1970s, and Schwarzenegger failed to follow proper legal standards for reviewing paroles. But the governor also said his approach reflects shifts in sentencing practices, judicial rulings and public attitudes on crime.

"Now, you talk to people and they're worried about jobs," he said. "There's still public safety (as a concern), but there's different dominating issues."

For those who see crime as the overriding issue, Brown said, state records show that only a small fraction of the 900 life-sentenced prisoners paroled in the past 15 years have committed new crimes, compared with nearly 70 percent of other parolees.

The parole board, appointed by the governor and made up mostly of former law enforcement officers, sets release dates for inmates serving terms of up to life in prison, based on their crimes and the risk they pose to the public. A 1988 ballot measure gave the governor authority to veto lifers' paroles.

Board's rate climbs

Gov. Pete Wilson, the first to implement the law, rejected only 27 percent of the paroles he considered. But he dealt with only a handful of inmates, because the parole board granted release dates in fewer than 2 percent of the cases it heard during his tenure.

The board's approval rate has climbed slowly since then, reaching about 15 percent in each of the past two years.

The former police and probation officers on the board "are people very concerned about public safety" and not likely to release dangerous prisoners, said Brown, who has yet to appoint any members.

They're also entitled to deference, he said, because "the man or woman is in front of them (at the hearing). I just have paper."

Brown also said murderers are spending more time in prison than they used to. In 1988, he said, first-degree murderers were being paroled after less than 14 years, and second-degree murderers after only five years. The current averages are 30 years for first-degree murder and 24 years for second-degree, he said.

Older inmates

Some of the prisoners whose cases he reviews are now in their late 60s or 70s, he said, and "time makes a difference."

Brown, who ran twice for president while governor from 1975 to 1983, is also older now and no longer interested in higher office.

"At this stage of my life, I think I can apply a more objective standard than those who are perhaps looking for further political pastures to wander in," he said.

The ground rules also changed in 2008 when the state Supreme Court reinstated the parole board's decision to release Sandra Lawrence, who had spent 24 years in prison for killing her lover's wife.

Wilson, Davis and Schwarzenegger had all vetoed the board's decisions to parole Lawrence, relying mainly on the circumstances of her crime. But the Supreme Court said the governor had to show that Lawrence was still dangerous to justify blocking parole.

The grim details of a long-ago crime generally are not enough to outweigh good behavior in prison and an inmate's psychological reports, the court said.

'Rebuke' to governors

The ruling was "a rebuke to the executive branch," Brown said. "The Supreme Court felt that the law was not being applied properly."

Schwarzenegger continued to veto parole releases at about the same rate, usually concluding that the inmate "lacked insight" into his crimes and was likely to repeat them, a rationale that the Supreme Court had upheld. But lower courts have overturned dozens of his decisions, finding no evidence to support them.

Brown has used similar reasoning in some of his parole vetoes.

In one case, he said a man who beat and strangled his 81-year-old grandmother in 1988 had failed to take responsibility for his actions because he still claimed it was a mercy killing. Brown reached the same conclusion for a man who was convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1991 but told a psychologist he had inflicted only minor wounds.

But in most cases, the governor said, he examines the same record the board reviewed - the inmate's prison behavior, participation in job training and education programs, age, length of imprisonment and psychological assessment - and reaches the same conclusion.

Donald Specter, executive director of the Prison Law Office, which represents many inmates, said Brown's perspective is long overdue.

"The presumption should be that the parole board has more information, has seen the prisoner ... and the governor shouldn't reverse it unless he thought they made some serious mistake," Specter said.

Compared with his predecessors, he said, Brown has "a more enlightened approach."

Parole rates

California governors' rates of upholding parole board decisions to release murderers serving life sentences with the possibility of parole:

Pete Wilson (1991-99): 73 percent.

Gray Davis (1999-2003): 2 percent.

Arnold Schwarzenegger (2003-2011): 30 percent.

Jerry Brown (January 2011-present): 81 percent.

Source: Governor's office


E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/29/MNUA1J991B.DTL 

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Lawsuit says California prisons resort to excessive, race-based lockdowns

Lawsuit says California prisons resort to excessive, race-based lockdowns

Julie Small | KPCC

When a riot breaks out in a California prison as they often do, the wardens “lock down” the inmates. That gives prison staff a chance to quell the violence, investigate the cause and isolate the inmates involved. The law gives prison officials a lot of discretion to use lockdowns to secure facilities - but there are limits. A prisoner advocacy group says California routinely violates those limits with frequent and lengthy race-based lockdowns. Today attorneys at the Prison Law Office sued CDCR in federal court to stop race-based lockdowns.

California State Prison, Sacramento houses inmates who need medical or psychiatric care. But New Folsom, as it’s known, also holds inmates that other prisons can’t handle.

One time when trouble erupted at New Folsom, the prison put a group of “Southern Hispanics” on lockdown – for seven years. Prison officials insist the lockdown was intermittent. They say they eventually let the inmates use a small yard to exercise.

But Prison Law Office attorney Rebekah Evenson doubts that. She says a review of a year’s worth of California prison records shows that during lockdowns, most wardens confine inmates to their cells 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"Two prisoners stuck in a cell built for the size of one person – many instances," says Evenson. "Two people can’t even stand up in the cell at the same time, they’re so small – 24 hours a day. No outside air. No recreation. No ability to do any exercise."

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that preventing a prisoner from outdoor exercise for more than six weeks is “cruel and unusual punishment.” The Prison Law Office says in the last fiscal year, 161 lockdowns lasted more than six weeks. Seven lasted more than a year. But Evenson says a lockdown is illegal from day one if race was the sole criteria for choosing which inmates are locked down.

Corrections officials say wardens do use race to decide who’s locked down – and for good reason. "The difficulty is in California, 'race-based' and 'gang-based' are basically the same," says Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate.

Cate says gangs generally control prisoners of the same race. Walk through any prison yard, says Cate, and ask Hispanic inmates if they belong to a race-based gang.

"They may say, 'No,'" says Cate. "But if you say, 'What if the Hispanic inmates were attacked by the white inmates, would you jump in?' They’d say, 'Yes, I have to. Otherwise I’m going to be the subject of violence if I don’t.' It’s easy maybe on paper and litigation filing to say, 'Well, see? That’s race-based.' But on those yards, those men don’t know the difference between race and gangs."

"Well, that is precisely the gross stereotyping that is driving their misguided policy," says Evenson. Evenson recognizes there are race-based gangs in prison, "But not every Hispanic person is going to become a member of the gang."

The Prison Law Office wants Corrections to end race-based lockdowns. It wants prison officials to assess each inmate’s threat to prison security, no matter what race – and as soon as violence has cooled and the prison’s secure, lift restrictions for inmates who pose no threat to security. The Prison Law Office also wants Corrections to end lengthy lockdowns.

Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate says his department tracks prison lockdowns but has no plans to limit their frequency or length. He worries if he did that, someone could get hurt. "In many cases, we had wardens or a director struggle to figure out how do we get these men to not kill each other when they’re on that yard together."

But the union for prison guards in California worries that lengthy lockdowns increase threats to staff and inmates. Ryan Sherman with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association says inmates released from lockdown often lash out immediately.

"Usually with prolonged lockdowns," says Sherman, "you have increased frustration and anger built up amongst the inmate population. And it just triggers even more violence when they finally are released."

Sherman and the prison guards union say you can reduce lockdowns if you reduce violence in prisons. And they say the Department of Corrections can do that if it stops cramming inmates into prisons – and starts staffing prisons with more guards.

http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/04/27/lawsuit-says-california-prisons-resort-excessive-r/  

Illinois Ends the Death Penalty - a Wake-up Call for California

Illinois Ends the Death Penalty -
a Wake-up Call for California

By Natasha Minsker, California Progress Report

The end of Illinois’ death penalty comes at a time when more and more people express the view that the death penalty is ineffective, costly, and unjust. A slew of recent editorials and opinion pieces have highlighted the enormous problems with the death penalty in California in particular.  As these editorials and op eds show, it is time for California to cut this: the death penalty.

An editorial recently published in The San Jose Mercury, Pasadena Star News, Long Beach Telegram, and other papers, calls on Governor Brown to convert all death sentences to life imprisonment without any possibility of parole to the death penalty, to save the state $1 billion over the next five years. As these editorials point out, the money now wasted on the death penalty could be better spent to fund education and invest in public safety. Yet, at a time of financial crisis, the Governor and lawmakers are instead choosing to cut public safety, as well as healthcare and education, while remaining on track to spend $1 billion on the death penalty in five years.

“This,” the editorial says, “is fiscal insanity.”

Concerns about the number of innocent people sentenced to death also continue to grow. Many editorials praising Illinois for ending the death penalty, including one by the Register Guard of Oregon, noted that at least 20 people had been wrongly sentenced to death in that state alone.  A recent editorial in the LA Times observes that many other states, including California, have also mistakenly sentenced innocent men and women to death.  An editorial published in the Vallejo Times-Herald elaborates:

In just the five states that have abolished capital punishment in the last quarter century, 27 innocent lives were spared when it was learned they had been wrongly convicted. There's no way to determine how many were wrongly killed by the state.

More disturbing is that in the 34 states that still have the death penalty, more than 100 Death Row inmates have been freed. …

DNA, while an effective exoneration tool, is not helpful in many cases where such evidence plays no role. We don't know how many condemned inmates who proclaim their innocence actually are, but the system's inherent flaws indicate the strong possibility they exist. Any system that permits even one innocent man to die should be abolished.

California’s death penalty is also a hollow promise to victims. Because we don’t want to execute an innocent person, courts carefully review each death sentence, resulting in a long and cumbersome process that takes, on average, 25 years. As a result, the family members of murder victims are dragged through decades of painful court proceedings that, 99% of the time, do not end in an execution. Recently, the LA Times published an editorial written by retired Superior Court Judge Donald McCartin. McCartin, who presided over 10 murder cases in which he sentenced someone to die, said:

I am deeply angered by the fact that our system of laws has become so complex and convoluted that it makes mockery of decisions I once believed promised resolution for the family members of victims.

The only way to end the charade, McCartin concluded, is to end the death penalty:

It's time to stop playing the killing game. Let's use the hundreds of millions of dollars we'll save to protect some of those essential services now threatened with death. Let's stop asking people like me to lie to those victim's family members.

Aqeela Sherrills, whose son was murdered, and Judy Kerr, whose brother was murdered, echoed these sentiments in recent op eds. Noting that the state has cut funding for victims services, while maintaining spending on the death penalty, Kerr said:

There must be room for justice for victims in our budget. The death penalty is not where we will find it. Real justice comes from protecting each other and helping victims rebuild their lives after the devastating loss of a loved one. Instead of cutting funding for victims' services, cut this: the death penalty.

Illinois rightly concluded that the death penalty cannot be fixed but must be replaced with life without the possibility of parole, and redirected the money that had been wasted on the death penalty to victims’ services and law enforcement.  Ask Governor Brown to do the same: cut the death penalty today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Natasha Minsker is death penalty policy director for the ACLU of Northern California.

Fletcher Legislation to Protect Against Sexually Violent Predators Passes First Committee Hurdle

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Apr 12, 2011 04:08 PM PST

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The Assembly Public Safety Committee voted today to move forward Assembly Bill 1022 (AB 1022), legislation that gives county governments authority to notify residents by email alert, changes in residency by registered sexual offenders. This legislation will enhance community awareness of violent predators, improve community safety and help keep children safe. 

Authored by Fletcher and sponsored by the County of San Diego, AB 1022 would allow county governments to create web-based subscription services by which residents can receive email alerts about changes in residency for more than 2,800 sex offenders currently registered in San Diego County. AB 1022 would provide improved access to sex offender information including an offender’s name, a photo, offense(s), and address – all directly to a person’s email inbox.

“Sexually violent predators obviously pose a significant threat to the safety of our communities. Information plays a key role in crime prevention and reducing risk,” stated Fletcher. “This legislation will go a long way toward ensuring that San Diegans are informed about those that live in and around their neighborhoods.”

Currently, providing registered sex offender information to the public is at the discretion of local law enforcement agencies. Only information that is deemed necessary for public safety is provided, meaning that pertinent information could be withheld from residents. Local agency notification of lower level sex offender residency changes is not currently legal.

AB 1022 now moves to the Appropriations Committee and then to the Assembly Floor. AB 1022 requires a majority vote by both the Assembly and the Senate. If passed, residents could subscribe for email alerts through the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department website as soon as 2012.

“By giving people better access to information, AB 1022 could be a preemptive measure to tragedy,” said Fletcher. “We can’t stop every crime from happening, but we can definitely try.”

Amber Alert cancelled: 17 yr old Mayra Martinez found safe

Cancel Amber Alert: 17 yr old Mayra Martinez found safe in Bell. Susp. Rafael Ibarra is in custody
Update: Amber Alert cancelled: 17 yr old Mayra Martinez found safe in the city of Bell very late last night. Suspect Rafael Ibarra is in custody.

Thank you for your concern and for helping to look for her.

The original news release is below.


Captain Mike Parker
Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau - Newsroom
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

El Monte Man Charged with Creating Phony Army Unit

El Monte Man Charged with Creating Phony Army Unit
NEWS RELEASE
Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office

A Chinese national has been arrested on charges he started a phony Army special forces unit and recruited more than 100 Chinese nationals into the unit by providing them with false documents and uniforms for a fee, the District Attorney’s office announced.

Yupeng Deng, aka David Deng, was arrested this morning by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies on a felony complaint for arrest warrant filed Monday by the District Attorney’s office, said Deputy District Attorney Richard Ceballos. The 51-year-old El Monte resident is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday at Pomona Superior Court, Department N. He is being held on $500,000 bail.

Deng allegedly gave himself the title of "Supreme Commander" of an unauthorized military unit, the U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve unit ("MSFR"). Deng allegedly created the phony unit in October 2008 and recruited other Chinese nationals, telling them that belonging to the bogus unit was a path to U.S. citizenship.

He allegedly charged each recruit initiation fees ranging from $300 to $450 with renewal fees set at $120 each year. Recruits allegedly could increase their rank in the "MSFR" by making cash donations to the defendant, Ceballos said.

Deng allegedly provided each recruit with phony U.S. Army uniforms, fake documents and fraudulent military ID cards.

The recruits were also instructed to report to the defendant's office in Temple City, decorated to look like an official U.S. military recruiting center, to undergo military training and indoctrination. These recruits even marched in a parade in Monterey Park and took a tour of the USS Midway museum in San Diego all while dressed in uniform.

Special Agents with the FBI and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service jointly investigated the case and presented it to the D.A.’s office.

Deng is charged in case No. KA093862 with 13 counts of theft by false pretenses, manufacturing deceptive government documents and counterfeit of an official government seal.

If convicted as charged, he faces up to eight years, four months in state prison.

In a separate case, Deng was charged on April 6 with one count of possession of child pornography stemming from a search warrant executed at his home. Authorities investigating the document case allegedly discovered child pornography on his home computer.

He is scheduled to be arraigned in that case -- KA093837 – on April 18 in Pomona Superior Court, Department N. If convicted in that case, he faces up to three years state prison.

NEWS RELEASE
Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office

Contacts: Joe Scott, Director of Communications
Sandi Gibbons, Public Information Officer
Jane Robison, News Secretary
Shiara Dávila, Assistant PIO
(213) 974-3525
http://da.co.la.ca.us/mr/041211a.htm

Forwarded by:
Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau - Newsroom
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
(323) 267-4800
www.lasd.org

CHILD ABDUCTION ALERT AMBER ALERT:Mayra Martinez,17 yr

CHILD ABDUCTION ALERT


AMBER ALERT:Mayra Martinez,17 yr. old fem, taken by force in South L.A.(1999 Ford Expedition, Green, Lic# 5GBJ226

SUSPECT FORCED VICTIM INTO HIS VEHICLE AND FLED THE SCENE.

THE SUSPECT HAD THREATENED TO KILL THE VICTIM AND HIMSELF IN THE PAST CRIME: 207 PC KIDNAPPING

Monday, 04/11/11, 3:35 PM

VICTIM:

MAYRA MARTINEZ, Female Hispanic, 08/11/93 (17 years old) 5'2, 113, WEARING BROWN, YELLOW AND BLUE DRESS AND HOOP EARRINGS

LOCATION: ALAMEDA STREET / FIRESTONE BLVD, LOS ANGELES (Century Sheriff’s Station, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)

SUSPECT(S): IBARRA, RAFAEL MH 09/21/82 BRO,BRO,5'6”,160 WEARING LONG SLEEVE RED SHRT, AND A RED HAT

WEAPON: FORCE

SUSPECT VEHICLE: 1999 FORD EXPEDITION GREEN IN COLOR LIC# 5GBJ226

CONTACT DETECTIVE NOBLES LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT CENTURY STATION AT 323 568-4800

Left, right join to say: Cut prisons, not schools

Left, right join to say: Cut prisons, not schools

Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Friday, April 8, 2011

(04-08) 04:00 PDT Washington - -- With cash-strapped California hosting the nation's largest prison population, an unusual left-right coalition said Thursday it wants to slash state spending on prisons rather than cut school budgets.

At a news conference in Washington, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous joined anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, California correctional officers union chief Mike Jiminez, Silicon Valley venture capitalists and others to argue that prison spending costs taxpayers a fortune, damages the state's economic future and does little to improve public safety.

The U.S. prison population stands at 2.3 million, with African Americans making up about a quarter of that. America's incarceration rates are higher than South Africa's were at the peak of apartheid, according to an NAACP study.

170,000 prisoners

As part of the campaign, the NAACP is putting up billboards in Los Angeles and Houston, which say: "Welcome to America, home to 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's prisoners."

California's prison population, now at 170,000, grew 500 percent from 1982 to 2000. State prison spending grew 25 times faster than state spending on higher education over that period, according to the NAACP study.

California spends about $50,000 to house one inmate for one year. The state has the nation's highest recidivism rate, with about 70 percent of those released committing another crime.

"Thirty years ago, 10 percent of the state's general fund was devoted to higher education and 3 percent went to prisons," said Mitch Kapor, a San Francisco venture capitalist working with the Level Playing Field Institute, a program that provides educational help to minority students in poor schools who show promise in science and math.

The state this year spent $9.2 billion on prisons and $11.6 billion on universities and community colleges. Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed cutting higher education to $9.8 billion while holding prison spending steady.

Soaring prison costs have piqued interest among conservatives as well as the NAACP, particularly initiatives such as state Attorney General Kamala Harris' "smart on crime" program, which reserves prison for violent offenders while steering lesser offenders to vocational education and drug counseling.

Bipartisan thinking

On Thursday, Harris was in the city of Tulare to announce a multiagency task force to investigate and arrest violent gang members.

"Conservatives should not give a blank check to the prison system," said Pat Nolan, a former Republican leader in the California Assembly, who now works with a Bible-based criminal justice reform group, Prison Fellowship Ministries. "Are we getting more public safety for each new dollar we spend?"

Nolan said there should be better means of dealing with nonviolent felons than "sending them to a very expensive prison where they are put in with violent people, because the skills they learn to survive inside a violent prison make them more dangerous when they get out."

Mike Jiminez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, described California prisons as "human warehouses" where "there's nothing productive going on. On our best days, we manage to keep everybody safe, but we're not able to rehabilitate or correct behavior by any means. The system's just too massive."

Jiminez questioned whether it is cost-effective "to lock somebody up for $50,000 a year who stole $500 worth of tools out of my truck on the street. That seems to be insane to me."

He said it would be better to determine the risk to public safety a felon poses and whether there are underlying problems such as drug addiction, mental illness or unemployability that could be addressed differently.


E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/08/MNVK1IS92I.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 11 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Laptops and Other Electronics May Be Seized on Entry to US

Ned Smith, BusinessNewsDaily Senior Writer,
LiveScience.com Ned Smith, Businessnewsdaily Senior Writer,
livescience.com – Thu Apr 7, 5:20 pm ET

If you can’t let a day go by without accessing your personal data and files, you’d better think twice about crossing the border back into the U.S. with your computer.  That’s because digital devices such as a laptop computer can be seized at the border without a warrant and sent to a secondary site for forensic inspection.
That ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week is the second in less than a year that allows the U.S. government to conduct offsite searches of digital devices seized at the border without a warrant, Network World reported.
This could have big implications for business travelers, in particular, who are increasingly mobile and frequently carry laptops and other digital devices containing sensitive personal and company information across our borders. If your data reveals traces of criminality or illegal kinkiness when examined, your troubles will go way beyond temporary data denial.
The Ninth Circuit Court ruling came in a case involving a man whose laptop was seized at the Mexican border when he re-entered the country at Lukeville, Ariz.  Because he was a registered sex offender, custom officials confiscated his laptop computer for inspection.
Though an initial scan of the data revealed nothing incriminating, the agents sent the computer 170 miles away to a digital forensics lab in Tucson because so many of the files were password protected. That search detected images depicting child pornography and the man was subsequently arrested and indicted.
He filed a motion asking that the evidence be suppressed because it was the result of an unreasonable search in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.
Several lower courts agreed that the extended search of his laptop was unreasonable because the government didn’t have any reasonable suspicions that incriminating material would be found.
The government appealed, contending that border search doctrine allowed such actions, according to Network World.
In upholding the government’s argument, the Ninth Circuit Court noted that several other courts including the U.S. Supreme Court have recognized that by definition all border searches are reasonable because they occur at the border. The transportation of his computer was justified because the forensic tools needed to adequately search the computer were not available at Lukeville, a small, unincorporated community with a population of 35.
Writing for the majority, Judge Richard Tallman said, “The border search doctrine is not so rigid as to require the United States to equip every entry point — no matter how desolate or infrequently traveled — with inspectors and sophisticated forensics equipment.”
Reach BusinessNewsDaily senior writer Ned Smith at nsmith@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @nedbsmith.
This story was provided by BusinessNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110407/sc_livescience/laptopsandotherelectronicsmaybeseizedonentrytous