by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I've written a lot about the California prison crisis in the past, and the last 11 posts I've done about it in the last four months have yielded a mere 25 comments.  It's clear to me that there's a lot of apathy around the issue, combined with twinges of helplessness and the paralyzing recognition that there are no easy answers.  It's the ultimate "out of sight, out of mind" situation, and as a result, we end up warehousing prisoners, "stacking them up like cordwood" and conveniently forgetting about what goes on behind bars.

Well, you no longer have to take my word for it.  You can watch Ted Koppel's riveting two-hour documentary for the Discovery Channel, "Breaking Point," an exploration of life inside Solano State Prison in Vacaville, CA.  And while you're at it, you can make 121 copies and send one to every member of the California Legislature and the Governor, so they can witness the fruits of their failed leadership. over...

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Analysis in letter sent to Governor and legislators may presage evidence before The Judge Federal Panel next Monday

[Editor's note: Robert Sillen, appointed as the receiver of the California Prison medical care system by Federal Court Judge Thelton Henderson has send the following letter to the Governor, legislators, and others about deaths in the prisons in 2006. We expect more reports and documents to be forthcoming in advance of the September 24, 2007 court hearing before a three judge panel in the Federal Courts that is contemplating early release and other remedies for a system already determined to not meet constitutional standards.]
Letter from the Receiver
19 September 2007

When U.S. District Court Judge Thelton E. Henderson found that the state’s prison medical care violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, he knew that meant virtually every aspect of the system was broken. That was in 2002. For years after, court experts continued to provide compelling evidence of the degraded conditions, patient suffering and death and state intransigence that blocked necessary reform.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Analysis in letter sent to Governor and legislators may presage evidence before The Judge Federal Panel next Monday

[Editor's note: Robert Sillen, appointed as the receiver of the California Prison medical care system by Federal Court Judge Thelton Henderson has send the following letter to the Governor, legislators, and others about deaths in the prisons in 2006. We expect more reports and documents to be forthcoming in advance of the September 24, 2007 court hearing before a three judge panel in the Federal Courts that is contemplating early release and other remedies for a system already determined to not meet constitutional standards.]

Letter from the Receiver
19 September 2007

When U.S. District Court Judge Thelton E. Henderson found that the state’s prison medical care violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, he knew that meant virtually every aspect of the system was broken. That was in 2002. For years after, court experts continued to provide compelling evidence of the degraded conditions, patient suffering and death and state intransigence that blocked necessary reform.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By John F. Terzano
President
The Justice Project

David Allen Jones spent 12 agonizing years in a California prison for a crime he did not commit. Then DNA exonerated him.

Mr. Jones was convicted of three murders he falsely confessed to after being interrogated by a team of detectives and taken to each of the crime scenes. During the intense interrogation, Jones was prodded by detectives and corrected when he gave statements that contradicted the evidence.

Jones was a mentally retarded, part-time janitor with an IQ in the low 60’s. There was no physical evidence or witnesses linking Jones to any of the killings and he was convicted almost entirely as a result of his false confession.

Unfortunately, Mr. Jones story is not unique. False confessions have played a role in wrongful convictions in California, and in approximately 20% of wrongful convictions nationwide.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

Robert Sillen, appointed Receiver of the California prison medical care system by Federal Court Judge Thelton Henderson, spoke to the Sacramento Press Club yesterday. Here is what he said without notes, looking at the audience in the eye.

He is a man on a mission, wanting to tell all what he is doing and why. He faults the political system for not being able to take care of this problem, but lays the blame at the governors and legislatures of the last 30 years. He says unnecessary deaths have occurred. He describes his role and how he perceives it, predicts that some state officials will eventually be held in contempt because of the number of court orders that have not been obyed, and indicates AB 900 has made his job more difficult, not easier. The bracketed items are my editor's notes.

"I am one of those kinds of people who think that everybody ought to know what's going in the prison system, whether they want to or not.

Historically, too many people in California have not wanted to know what's going on in the prison system and that's from every governor for the last 30 years right on down through the legislators and the general public, the unions that are involved, etc., etc.