May 11 CALIFORNIA: Bill would create death row options San Quentin State Prison's death row inmates could be housed outside Marin at one of the other nine maximum security facilities across the state under a bill introduced by Assemblyman Joe Nation. Nation, D-San Rafael, said Assembly Bill 1715 "unties the hands of bureaucracy" in a fight against the state's plan to build a new $220 million death row facility on 40 acres next to the aging prison near Larkspur Landing. "One of the responses we've received from the state Department of Corrections is that they have no alternative," Nation said. "If we provide the alternative of other Level IV (maximum security) prisons, that takes away that argument." The success of the bill, which passed out of the Assembly's public safety committee last week by a 4-2 vote, comes as Nation and state Sen. Jeff Denham announced they have set May 20 for a tour of San Quentin. Denham, R-Merced, last month introduced legislation to close the prison by December 2010. "The senator doesn't believe that a $220 million renovation of a 153-year-old prison, that is one of the most unsafe for correctional officers in the country, should continue," said Nick Rappley, Denham's press secretary. "He's interested in making sure the state uses its resources properly." The state Department of Corrections has said it will break ground this fall for the new death row, despite the urgings of Nation and other local leaders that alternatives be considered. Corrections officials have maintained they are unable to challenge current state penal code, which calls for condemned prisoners to be housed and executed at San Quentin. Corrections staff say they must build the new prison facility because security at the current death row is so lax it is life-threatening for prison guards and inmates. Nation's bill would change the code to permit housing death row inmates outside Marin, but would maintain San Quentin's death chamber as the site for executions. "This bill does not mandate that prisoners be transferred," Nation said. "It just gives the state that option." Nation said the bill, scheduled to come before the Assembly's Appropriations Committee later this month, has no direct cost impact. "This is a way of elevating the issue further up the ladder to the governor's office," Nation said. He and Marin Supervisor Steve Kinsey are planning to brief Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's cabinet on the issue. Last week, former state corrections executive Mike Pickett received the final data on San Quentin's death row that he needed to finish his work as a county consultant on the matter, Nation said. Part of the briefing will include a proposal, developed by Pickett, to house condemned inmates at other state prisons while they are in various appeals processes - some lasting for decades. Once all their appeals are exhausted and they are scheduled for execution, they would be transferred back to San Quentin. The 10 "Level IV" maximum security facilities in the state are: San Quentin; California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi; California State Prison Sacramento (Folsom II); Mule Creek State Prison in Ione; California State Prison Corcoran; Pelican Bay in Crescent City; Calipatria State Prison; High Desert State Prison in Susanville; Salinas Valley State Prison; and California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility. Schwarzenegger toured Folsom State Prison yesterday in conjunction with signing legislation to change the name of the state Youth Adult Correctional Agency to Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The name change was part of the governor's prison reform package, announced earlier this year. (source: Marin Independent Journal) *************************** Judge threatens Calif. prison health care takeover Outraged at what he called the poor quality of medical services for California's prisoners, a federal judge threatened on Tuesday to take over the prison health care system of the most populous U.S. state. "The prison medical delivery system is in such a blatant state of crisis that in recent days defendants have publicly conceded their inability to find and implement on their own solutions that will meet constitutional standards," U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson wrote. "The state's failure has created a vacuum of leadership, and utter disarray in the management, supervision, and delivery of care in the Department of Corrections' medical system." The judge's order gives Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration until July 11 to show why he should not appoint a court receiver to take over the prison health care system, which has responsibility for about 163,000 adult inmates. The finding in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California follows a 2001 lawsuit that claimed the state was not meeting constitutional minimums in treating sick prisoners. That case resulted in a 2002 settlement, but since then, Henderson wrote, "the most notable characteristic of this case has been defendants' failure to achieve any substantial progress in bringing the medical care system even close to minimal constitutional standards." 'HORRIFYING' PRISON TOUR Last month, experts reviewing San Quentin, California's oldest and most famous prison, found conditions so poor that they may have contributed to inmate deaths. Henderson was blunt in describing the court's visit to San Quentin on Feb. 10. "The result of the tour was horrifying," he wrote. "Even the most simple and basic elements of a minimally adequate medical system were obviously lacking." Henderson's threat was made public just hours after Schwarzenegger visited Folsom State Prison to sign legislation to overhaul the management of California's prisons. A spokesman for the state's Youth and Adult Correctional Agency said those changes should help cut through a slow-moving, decentralized bureaucracy. "We're hopeful that the reorganization will give us the authority and the management structure to address the issues of interest to the court," said agency spokesman J.P. Tremblay. "We have a system where in effect you have 32 different health care systems and clinics," he said. "One of things we want to do is get a centralized management system in place." Vernell Crittendon, a spokesman for San Quentin, said he agreed with some of Henderson's criticisms, but the incoming flood of criminals contributed to the difficulties. "We receive nearly 2,000 new people every 30 days ... and those 2,000 all must go through that facility which really wasn't designed to receive that level of activity," he said. Judge Henderson was unsympathetic to California's struggle to improve matters. "It does not take a budget change proposal, a strategic plan, or the hiring of new personnel to keep a medical room sanitary," he wrote. "The court does not believe that the Constitution can reasonably be construed to require the court to sit idly by while people are needlessly dying. Rather, the court believes it has the discretion -- indeed, the duty -- to take immediate action in a manner coextensive with the degree of ongoing and persistent harm." (source: Reuters) KENTUCKY: Death penalty sought in Clark ---- Man allegedly killed son, wife and fetus Clark County Prosecutor Steve Stewart has decided to seek the death penalty against Zachariah Melcher, the man charged with killing his pregnant wife, the couple's 11-month-old son and their unborn child last month. Stewart filed the death-penalty notice yesterday. Melcher, who previously told Clark Circuit Court Judge Daniel Donahue that he wanted to act as his own attorney, did an about-face at yesterday's initial hearing on the death-penalty notice. Melcher, 27, announced that he would accept the appointment of two public defenders. Christian Melcher, 23, who was eight months' pregnant, was strangled, and the couple's son, Jaiden, was suffocated with a plastic bag in the family's apartment at 628 E. Maple St. in Jeffersonville on April 16, Jeffersonville police said. Their bodies were found 6 days later in a plastic storage container in the apartment's laundry room. Jeffrey Stonebraker, whom Donahue had previously appointed as standby counsel to advise Melcher, will now lead the defense and will be assisted by Christopher Sturgeon. Stonebraker said it's too early to say whether Melcher would stick with the not-guilty plea Donahue had entered for him. Melcher, 27, confessed the killings to city police detectives after his arrest on April 22 and asked for the death penalty, according to a transcript of the interview. "If it was legal, you should probably take me to Mike Young's house or her mom and let him do it," Melcher said, according to the transcript. Michael Young is Christian Melcher's father. Stewart cited several aggravating factors that he said justify the death penalty. Among them are the multiple victims, the fact that Christian Melcher was pregnant, and the fact that Melcher was on probation from a 1997 burglary conviction. Stonebraker said there are mitigating circumstances with which he can counter, but added, "It's too early to get into that." (source: The Courier-Journal)
