July 11 CALIFORNIA: 'Another black eye for San Quentin'----Lawmaker adds warden's ouster to reasons for stopping new death row; ex-prison chief's backers criticize her removal Supporters of former San Quentin State Prison Warden Jill Brown reacted strongly yesterday to her ouster, saying she was "completely scapegoated" for prison health problems that were actually systemwide. Brown, 55, a Marin resident and San Quentin warden since November, was removed Thursday by officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation amid allegations she discouraged her medical staff from cooperating with attorneys in a major inmate health-care lawsuit. "I think she was completely scapegoated for problems in the realm of medical that she had no control over," said Jody Lewen, director of the Prison University Project, an education program at San Quentin. "I think she has more integrity than anyone else I've ever met in the department." But J.P. Tremblay, corrections department assistant secretary, said the case involved "issues of cooperation," not Brown's job performance nor competence. He declined to respond to charges of scapegoating. "We're not saying she was a bad employee or a bad manager," Tremblay said. "The expectation is that anytime you have a federal judge or agents of the courts involved there will be cooperation - that's the expectation." Brown, who could not be reached for comment, left her post immediately on Thursday and was not expected back to pick up her things until next week, said San Quentin Sgt. Eric Messick. She will be demoted to associate warden, most likely at a prison other than San Quentin, Tremblay said. "This took everybody by surprise here at San Quentin," Messick said yesterday. "It's a little bit somber around here today." Messick said Brown was a "wonderful person" and was "highly respected" by the staff for being even-handed and supportive. Jack Stokes, San Quentin's acting chief deputy warden since April, was named acting warden in Brown's place. Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San Rafael, said he had no issues with Brown and that "she has been nothing but gracious and welcoming" in his contact with her. At the same time, Nation called Brown's ouster "another black eye for San Quentin." The facility is already under fire by Nation and others over plans to build a new $220 million death row on 40 acres next to the existing prison on the bayfront near Larkspur Landing. "It certainly doesn't help their cause," Nation said. He plans to meet Monday with one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's staff members to discuss logistics for a upcoming briefing Nation and Marin Supervisor Steve Kinsey will deliver to the governor's cabinet on the issue. Nation and Kinsey are among Marin leaders opposed to the new death row, but corrections staff say the new facility is vital to relieve prison overcrowding and to beef up security at the 153-year-old deteriorating landmark. Marin County Counsel Patrick Faulkner said he will meet with corrections legal staff at the state Attorney General's office July 15 for a settlement conference on a lawsuit filed by the county against the state corrections department. The lawsuit seeks an injunction against building the new death row until the state does a study on alternative sites. "Every day, I become more convinced it's the wrong decision," said Nation, whose bill to allow condemned prisoners to be housed at other prisons outside of San Quentin passed the Assembly last month but died in a state Senate committee. "Every day, I become more convinced that I will fight it harder." Thursday's action against Brown came as U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson last week took control of the entire corrections department health-care system. That was four months after a team of national medical experts reported that conditions at San Quentin were so appallingly bad that it was dangerous to house new and sick inmates there. Brown's demotion stems from a confrontation earlier this year where 2 attorneys from the Prison Law Office, which represents inmates in a class-action lawsuit, were visiting San Quentin. San Quentin health-care manager Dr. Robert Chapnick asked to speak privately with attorney Alison Hardy, but Brown "sent a clear message" not to cooperate, according to Keith Wattley, the other Prison Law Office attorney. The Prison Law Office filed a complaint, which was corroborated in an inspector general's report sent to corrections staff June 29. Lewen said the health-care problems at San Quentin - such as lack of accountability, overcrowding and inadequate pay to attract top medical staff - were "systemic, not so much attributable to an individual." She said Brown was "compassionate," responsive and an "extremely decent person." "I think they are minimizing the extent of the problems, and instead sacrificing individuals," Lewen said. Brown was acting warden for 6 months before moving to the top post after her predecessor, Jeanne Woodford, was picked by Schwarzenegger to run the state corrections department. Brown joined the corrections department in 1977 and held prior positions at San Quentin, Soledad State Prison and Deuel Vocational Institution, or DVI, in Tracy. (source: Marin Independent Journal) **************** Investigator digs deep into minds of killers----KEEPING CLIENTS OFF DEATH ROW Margy Erickson's work has taken her into the jungles of Puerto Rico and the slums of California's cities. But it's the jungles and slums of the mind that interest her, the tangled growth in the child that has devastating consequences in the adult. She's an investigator for defense attorneys, and her clients are, almost without exception, killers. Her job is to humanize them for a jury trying to decide whether to execute them. Interviewing everybody she can find who knew, taught, lived near or is related to the defendant and examining every written record she can obtain -- school, military, medical, prison, work -- she compiles a ``social history'' of the man or woman the state may decide to put to death. Her work haunts her: "If I don't find that one person, that one anecdote, I could fail my client," she said. "My client could get the death penalty. There's 12 jurors, and one of the stories may reach one of them, and it's so hard -- everybody's doubtful of us, of the defendant." Juries don't always buy those stories; a few of Erickson's clients are on death row, and one was executed. Reasonable minds may differ on the definition of "success" in what she does. In her first big case, the trial of "Trailside Killer" David Carpenter in 1984, the jury took five days before deciding on the death sentence. "It could've gone against us in an hour or 2 if Margy hadn't done such a good job," said Larry Biggam, the lead defense attorney. Not just criminals Most of her clients committed the acts of which they were accused, she admits. But she argues that they're "damaged" -- in childhood by family members and by a system that Erickson believes has it all backward, spending millions on criminal investigations and trials rather than art and music, early childhood education and counseling. Abuse -- physical, emotional, often sexual -- is the common thread among the murderers she's investigated, she said. Carpenter's family used to lock him in a closet for hours. Former Santa Cruz tannery worker Angel Rivera's father would tie him to a tree in the jungle at night. Sacramento landlady Dorothea Puente was molested by her brother. "I see victims everywhere in my cases." In California, where death-penalty cases are divided into a guilt phase and a penalty phase, Erickson or someone like her often is hired at the beginning of a case to prepare for the penalty phase, so that "even if we don't know the outcome, we're ready." In the case of Carpenter, a San Francisco man who was suspected of at least 10 slayings on Northern California hiking trails and convicted of seven of them in two separate trials, Biggam recalls her interviewing "everyone from birth to the present -- which included schoolteachers who remembered seeing injuries on David," as well as his buddies from a South San Francisco bowling alley. It takes time, money, persistence and fearlessness. "I can't guarantee that my husband won't shoot you," the sister of Dorothea Puente told her, "but if you can find me, I'll talk to you." She found her. Puente killed her elderly tenants for their Social Security checks; she is serving a life sentence. Rivera shot 3 of his tenants to death in the driveway 13 years ago; he recently agreed to a life sentence to avoid a death penalty trial. Carpenter, now 75, has been on death row at San Quentin since 1984. Getting inside Then there's Murray Lodge, an Erickson client with a bulldog tattooed on his chest who is serving a life sentence for 2 drug-related murders near San Jose; another man convicted in that case, Glen Nickerson, was freed two years ago after Lodge admitted having framed him. Lodge was tried three times before being convicted and sentenced in 1994. He spent more than 10 years in Santa Clara County jail, where he was legendary, Erickson said, for attacking other inmates -- something he did about 35 times, as she recalls. He went through three sets of attorneys. He had to be shackled hand, foot and waist before he could even be interviewed. No problem for Erickson. "You know," she told Lodge's last attorney, Gerald Schwartzbach, "he's a really nice guy." She found out Lodge had once won a vocal contest at the Saddle Rack, a country-Western nightclub. Schwartzbach persuaded the judge to let him sing a medley of Elvis hits during the penalty phase of his trial. "It just humanized him completely" for the jury, Erickson said. A 49-year-old Santa Cruz mother of 3, Erickson said she never feels threatened doing her job. "I'm there to help people and somehow people just know that. I've never been assaulted." The daughter of a priest who later became a psychologist, she grew up in the rectory of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Upland. She was in the American studies program at the University of California-Santa Cruz when she interned in the late 1970s with Biggam and his partner, Jerry Christensen, who held (and still hold) the public defender contract with Santa Cruz County. She turned pro with the Carpenter case, when she says Biggam talked her out of going to law school and into becoming an investigator. Erickson believes "everybody is born a good person -- I really do." But is there nobody she thinks is deserving of execution? "One of the things you have to consider -- and I have -- is how would I feel if one of my children were killed by someone who was so damaged. I don't know how I would react," Erickson said. "But from what I've seen over the years, families who are victimized, the ones who are wanting revenge, who want the death penalty -- sometimes that becomes the focus of their lives. And it's a very negative focus." (source: Mercury News) MINNESOTA: All states should have the death penalty Whenever someone brings up the death penalty, you're bound to get a response from people who either strongly support it or those who strongly oppose it. Such was the case when we posed the question of whether the suspect (Alphonso Rodriguez, Jr.) should get the death penalty for allegedly killing Dru Sjodin. While Minnesota, nor North Dakota, has the death penalty, Rodriguez is facing federal charges and thus the reason he is eligible for the death penalty. As you recall, Sjodin was the college girl who was abducted after leaving her place of employment at the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks. Her body was found several months later near Crookston. Shortly thereafter, Rodriguez was taken into custody and charged with her murder. I realize Rodriguez is innocent until proven guilty, but this case along with the one involving, Joseph Edward Duncan III, who is being charged for allegedly killing three people in Idaho, should really make our judicial system look at how we treat sex offenders. There's no way that Evans should have been released from prison for his past acts. The same should apply for Rodriguez whose own family member said he should never have been released from prison. I'm no expert, but these criminals, who have repeat offenses for sexually related crimes, should at the very least be locked up life. Rehabilitation just isn't working for these criminals whose prey is often helpless children. If these criminals add murder to their sick crimes, then the death penalty should be the only recourse. As for Evans, who abducted a young girl and her brother from the same crime scene in Idaho and then allegedly repeatedly raped the girl and boy (who still has not been found), he should be given the death penalty as quickly as justice can run its course. Again, I realize that not everyone favors the death penalty and that's their prerogative, but those who oppose the death penalty need to start thinking about the victims. Those people who oppose the death penalty say it's cruel to kill someone by lethal injection or by electrocution. But what about the victims? How about the hell they are put through? Imagine the horror that Sjodin felt when she was abducted and then ultimately killed? I also think back to a murder trial I covered during my first stint with the newspaper in the early 1990s. The victim died a horrible death and the person responsible for the death should have faced the same fate. Or what about how Laci Peterson felt when her own husband killed her and their unborn son, Connor? I only hope that Laci and Connor were dead before Scott Peterson dumped their bodies into the Pacific Ocean. But the thing with Scott Peterson is that even though he was given the death penalty, he most likely wont really face death for many years as the average time spent on death row is over 13 years. In California, the average can sometimes exceed well over 20 years before a convicted killer is put to death. Can you imagine that? 20 some years after they are given the death penalty they are finally punished for their crimes. You hear it over and over again, but victims rights are almost never given priority when sentences are handed down. That needs to change and perhaps its time we look at a federal law mandating that all states in our country have the death penalty. Sound a little harsh? I dont think so. Why should someone be able to serve a life sentence for killing someone in a state that doesnt have the death penalty? I hate to throw taxpayers into the mix, but look at how much money is being spent every year to house convicted murderers for ruthless crimes they commit? Its time all states take a stance and say murder will not be tolerated. (source: Opinion, Brian K. Anderson, The Daily Tribune)
