Oct. 21 PENNSYLVANIA: The Wrong Man----An exonerated ex-prisoner talks about finding his way on the outside The scene has become a staple of the evening news: An innocent man walks out of prison and into the glare of television cameras, his family by his side. For Nicholas Yarris, that moment came shortly after 1 p.m. on January 16, 2004, when he was freed after spending more than 2 decades in solitary confinement on Pennsylvania's death row. After the news cameras disappeared, another struggle awaited him: the battle to create a new life for himself at age 42. The documentary After Innocence, which won a special jury prize at Sundance and opens at the Quad this week, chronicles his post-prison journey and that of 6 other wrongfully imprisoned men. >From his new home in England, Yarris spoke to the Voice about his 1st 630 days of freedom. How did you feel in those very first hours after leaving prison? The strongest sensation was the assault on my senses from having lived 23 years in a controlled environment - being inundated with temperature change, barometric change, noise. I liken it to all those times you see a music video in which the central character stands in complete passivity while the world rushes around him. How did you feel when your family touched you? The last contact visit that I was permitted while still on death row was in November of 1989. I did not touch another human being until December of 2003. I waited 14 years to be held by my family. When you're not touched for that long and someone puts their hands on you, this surge of warbling energy goes through you and makes you aware of being in contact with something you never realized was gone until it was taken for a very prolonged time. What kind of job did you get after leaving prison? Because I was not guilty, I was not entitled to any parole services. So I was not given any job training or job placement. I went to work scrubbing Budget shuttle buses at the Philadelphia airport for an ex-felon at $5 per bus. He was the only one that would hire me. So I worked beside a toothless heroin addict named Butch, and the 2 of us scrubbed these buses at $5 a bus in freezing-cold January weather. Did you get any money from the state of Pennsylvania after your exoneration? When I was released from prison, I got $5.37 of my own money and wastold goodbye. How did you feel the 1st time you saw After Innocence? I cried. I cried for Mrs. Dedge [the mother of another exonerated man], who was sitting next to me. I know that woman waited 22 years for her son, and there isn't anything different between her and my mother. I held her hand a lot, and I cried. Nearly 650,000 people leave prisons across the country every year. How do you think your homecoming experience differed from theirs? It's completely different. I'm one of only 14 human beings sentenced to death that have been exonerated by DNA testing. After I sought DNA testing in 1988, they deliberately tried to destroy the evidence that later on proved my innocence. It took me 15 years to get out. I am so different in so many different ways from the average person being released because the government tried to kill me. That's what propels me to speak all over the world. I heard that you recently married a woman you met while giving a speech in London about the death penalty. What are your days like now? I came out of prison after 23 years and realized I was a stranger in my own life, I was a stranger to the family who had lost me, and I was a stranger to everything around me. I gave up everything that was close to mein terms of my family - for a family with Karen. She came along and gave me a whole world that removed me from everything that was going to tear me apart. I remember they had me filling out documents in prison like, "What do you want us to do with the disposal of your remains?" Now I've got the gift of a child on the way. I've got one of the greatest lives you can imagine. I ride around on a motorcycle, I have pets, I have the love of a woman, and I've got a country that doesn't want to kill me. (source: Village Voice (For more information about Nicholas Yarris, visit his website, nickyarris.com ) ARKANSAS: Tuesday the office of governor Mike Huckabee announced an execution date for current death row inmate Eric Randall Nance. Nance, who was tried in Hot Spring County court and convicted of capital murder on March 31, 1994, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection Nov. 28. The murder victim, Julie Diane Heath, 18, of Malvern, was reported missing Oct. 13, 1993, following the discovery of her abandoned 1987 Iroc Camaro two days prior. Her body was found by a landowner in a clearcut near Highway 171 nearly a week later. According to affidavits submitted by the Arkansas State Police, Nance voluntarily committed himself to the Arkansas State Hospital soon after Heath's body was discovered. Hospital officials became suspicious of the patient and notified the authorities after he appeared to be distressed due to some incident in which he may have been involved', as the affidavit states. Shortly before the murder, Nance had been released from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary after serving 11 years of a 20 year prison sentence for rape and sodomy. On Aug. 31 of this year, a last minute appeal was made on Nance's behalf to allow the further examination of DNA evidence collected from Nance's truck. Judge Phillip Shirron denied the petition for testing, stating that since "[both sides'] theories were fully developed and defended in the trial...and that the jury's obligation was to find if he raped her, such a DNA test would not prove his innocence [of either crime]." Shirron also mentioned that the testing methods were fully available at the time, yet were not utilized. Hot Spring County Chief Deputy Lee Motes, who was employed by the sheriff's department at the time of the Nance investigation, says that he believes that Nance's November execution will provide the victim's family with an ending to the ordeal. "The wheels of justice might turn slowly, but they're steady," Motes commented on Wednesday afternoon. "I hope that this gives [Heath's] family some kind of closure - it's always hard for anyone to find, though, when they've had a family member taken from them prematurely." (source: Malvern Daily Record) CALIFORNIA: 9th Circuit Panel Fumes Over Forced Medication The federal government drove Abisai Rivera-Guerrero to the brink of sanity -- and 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt doesn't like it one bit. In a unanimous opinion Wednesday, Reinhardt became the latest in a line of federal judges to express acute discomfort with the government forcing anti-psychotic medications on mentally ill patients to make them competent for trial. "The administration of involuntary medication ordinarily constitutes a serious and substantial violation of a defendant's liberty interest," Reinhardt wrote for a unanimous 3-judge panel. While the 9th Circuit was ostensibly considering the narrow question of whether U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones Jr. improperly denied the defendant a continuance, Reinhardt took the opportunity to offer some pointed criticisms of the government's desire to forcibly medicate someone into competence. "I'm not quite sure if one should read it as a slap on the hand for the district court, as a ringing endorsement of due process or both," said Diane Amann, a professor at UC-Davis' King Hall School of Law and a former federal public defender. But Rory Little, a former federal prosecutor and a professor at Hastings College of the Law, saw little ambiguity there. "That's the use of dicta to make law. That's what Reinhardt is so good at," he said. "I know he believes he's doing the right thing, and maybe he is doing the right thing." Since the opinion is based on the narrow continuance issue, Little added, there's little possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court would accept it. "Judge Reinhardt is sort of well known for writing more broadly when he knows he has the opportunity, especially in cases that are cert proof," he said. On the surface, the case of Rivera-Guerrero -- a mentally ill Mexican national -- gives one pause because he has been held for more than two years on charges of illegally re-entering the United States, a crime that generally results in a light sentence. Ever since the court determined Rivera-Guerrero to be incompetent to stand trial shortly after his arrest in 2003, the government has been pushing hard to medicate him. After a hearing last year in which government doctors proposed a medication regimen with a list of side-effects -- nausea, diabetes, an irreversible facial tick syndrome, to name a few -- that arguably rival psychosis in terms of sheer discomfort, Rivera-Guerrero's lawyer requested a continuance before presenting rebutting testimony. She said that the government had not provided her with the list of medications before the hearing, and she therefore could not present her own expert. But a magistrate judge refused to allow the continuance, as did Jones, of the Southern District of California, who got the case on remand after an initial 9th Circuit appeal. Reinhardt found that to be particularly galling since it "resulted in the defendant's inability to present any evidence that might rebut the government's medical assertions." He cited a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Sell v. U.S., 539 U.S. 166, that says medication may only be administered if it is in "the patient's best medical interest in light of his medical condition." Because the government began medicating Rivera-Guerrero after the continuance was denied, Reinhardt ruled Wednesday that the district court must get a new report on the defendant's medical status and, depending on his medical status, prosecute, release or attempt to commit him. Ninth Circuit Judge Richard Clifton and Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Weiner -- sitting by designation from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania -- joined Reinhardt in the opinion. Amann and Barry Portman, a San Francisco federal public defender, said the remand addressed an important issue: Mentally ill criminal defendants often end up waiting for years while lawyers fight over whether they can be tried. This can amount to de facto incarceration, Portman said, even though government mental institutions "are supposed to be the resort of last resort." But there are no easy solutions, he said. Amann agreed, adding that she is particularly uncomfortable with medicating someone just for a trial. "There's something unsavory, if you will. To put someone in jeopardy, further jeopardy for the liberty," she said, "you're just sort of trying to get them OK for the short period of time with no promise that you'll continue treatment." Little said that Reinhardt's opinion should make prosecutors more cautious about that problem. "This case will be used, without a doubt, as a case to provide guidance in involuntary medication cases," he said, "even though it's not a case based on that law." The case is U.S. v. Rivera-Guerrero, 05 C.D.O.S. 9125. (source: The Recorder) OHIO: Speaker discusses 1993 prison riots Author Staughton Lynd presented his thoughts on the 1993 Lucasville Prison riots and their Youngstown connection. Lynd's speech on Tuesday offered insight into the Ohio prison system, its prisoners and the human spirit. Lynd, a scholar, activist and attorney for more than 50 years, recently released "Lucasville," which delves into the controversial issue of inequality in the American prison system. The 1993 uprising at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville left nine prisoners and one hostage dead after 11 days. The 5 men were convicted and sentenced to the death penalty for the murder of Officer Robert Vallandingham, a guard they took hostage during the uprising. They were known as the "Lucasville Five", and are argued by Lynd to be innocent with compelling evidence he gathered in his book. "Lucasville" also dealt with larger issues like cooperation. The Lucasville Five consisted of members of Muslim faith, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Ganger Disciples and other groups often at war with one another. Lynd stressed that members of those groups working together was a feat within itself. He also showed pictures of the prison after the riots, noting graffiti on the walls that was never shown by media sources. Images included the words "black and white together," "convict unity," and "convict race," on prison walls. Youngstown's Connection Lynd was quick to point out that the riots have a number of quick connections to Youngstown. "You might be saying 'What does this story have to do with you?'" Lynd said to the audience. "This story is really about you." Lynd contends the Ohio State Penitentiary, a super-maximum security prison built in Youngstown in 1998, was built as a response to the Lucasville riots. "It was a message to the world from prison administrators," said Lynd. "They were saying 'no one escapes, no one dictates what goes on besides us.'" The facility houses about 230 inmates, including 30 death row inmates relocated there from Mansfield Correctional Institute this week. The supermax can hold more than 500 prisoners, but has never operated at full capacity. Inhumane Treatment? Youngstown's supermax doesn't have a traditional recreation yard and inmates were locked up for 23 hours of the day. When they would leave, they were always shackled and were strip-searched every time they left and entered their cells. Those treatments lead Lynd to head a class action suit against the prison system claiming that treatment is harsh, unfair, and is based on reaction the Lucasville riots and not actual security needs. In 2002, U.S. District Judge James S. Gwin agreed with Lynd, commenting on the prison during his ruling. "This prison has 504 cells, but it was built for only 5 people [the Lucasville Five]," said Gwin. An important debate in that case was the moving of death row prisoners to Youngstown from Mansfield. The inmates had moved from Mansfield to Lucasville in 1995. Lynd says prison administrators testified prisoners were moved from facility to facility, not for security reasons as they law says they should be. Lynd claims prison administrators say that death row inmates are very relaxed and cooperative compared to other inmates. Lynd says that these inmates and prison officials often create a bond which makes it hard for prison officers to send inmates to be executed. This bond is the reason for the transfer of prisoners to Mansfield and then to Youngstown, Lynd claims. Lynd insists that the relationship between prisoners and security are major failures in the prison system. "Officials don't see prisoners for who they are, they don't see them as humans. The only thing they see is a workforce created by housing the prisoners," said Lynd. Lynd closed by saying his ideas aren't necessarily always right, but he hopes they continue to inspire thought. "I put these ideas on the table," Lynd said. "Hopefully, they get you to think about opening your mind to creative thought on the subject." (source: The Jambar)
