SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California’s voter-approved standards for revoking parole violate parolees’ rights to legal representation and tips the scale toward sending them back to prison, a federal judge ruled.

San Diego Union Tribune

Thursday, January 26, 2012

SAN DIEGO — A recent surge in the population at county jails has prompted Sheriff Bill Gore to start shaving up to 10 percent off jail terms for some inmates to avoid overcrowding.

The number of men held in custody this month in San Diego County swelled to 96 percent of capacity. Most of the increase can be traced to a law Gov. Jerry Brown sought and the Legislature approved last year that allows some lower-level criminals to be sentenced to local jail instead of state prison.

Around Jan. 19, Gore authorized the release of about 260 inmates, most of whom were serving misdemeanor sentences or were nonviolent felons ordered to serve jail time as a condition of probation. The average number being released now is about 35 to 40 a day, he said.

“Most of them would have been released within a couple weeks,” Gore said Thursday. “We had the immediate need to create bed space.”

He said none of the inmates released early had been sentenced under the state law that took effect Oct. 1.

“This is not new,” Gore said of the 10 percent early-release credits, which grew out of a pair of lawsuits filed in the 1970s and 1980s aimed at improving conditions for San Diego County inmates.

He and previous sheriffs used that discretion for more than 20 years until early 2010, when the number of jail bookings started coming down, he said.

Since Brown proposed in April shifting responsibility for some state inmates to county jails, local officials have voiced concern about potential overcrowding and other possible dangers associated with the plan known as “realignment.”

It has been described by law enforcement officials as the biggest change to criminal justice in California in decades. It shifted responsibility for certain nonviolent and nonserious offenders from the state to the counties to help close a massive budget gap and ease prison overcrowding.

About 500 felony crimes have been identified for which offenders can be sentenced to county jail instead of prison. They include vehicular manslaughter, grand theft and sale of illegal drugs. Sex offenders who would have gone to state prison before realignment will continue to do so.

County Supervisor Greg Cox was one of the local officials who expressed trepidation about realignment when the Board of Supervisors approved the local implementation plan in September.

“I just have this sinking feeling that somewhere down the line somebody is going to be out that shouldn’t be out and do something that they shouldn’t do,” Cox said at the time.

In an email Thursday to U-T San Diego, he said, “I have full faith in Sheriff Gore and how he operates our County jails and trust his judgment on early release. Ultimately, the reason for early release is due to the state’s poor management of its budget and prison system, which has put more inmates into County jails.”

San Diego Police Chief Bill Lansdowne said Thursday he did not expect the early releases to significantly affect crime in the city, which continues to see historic lows in overall crime rates.

“I don’t think it will cause problems,” he said, although he acknowledged some offenders may “slip through the cracks.”

Judge David Danielsen, assistant presiding judge of the San Diego Superior Court, said he was not surprised to learn of the recent releases because it was inevitable overcrowding would occur under the state law.

But, Danielsen said, “It’s always best if the court’s orders for custody are fully honored.”

As of last week, San Diego County’s inmate population had grown to about 5,200. Total capacity, which is set by the courts, is capped at 5,600 — 4,600 men and 1,000 women.

“That’s why we felt we had to implement some of these early releases,” Gore said.

Only men have been released so far because that’s where the crowding is. The female inmate population is around 70 percent of capacity.

Because of realignment, the jails are housing hundreds of inmates who previously would have been sent to prison as well as parolees who violated the terms of their parole. Gore said parole violators are spending an average of 60 days in local custody, when the previous estimate was around 30 days.

The situation wasn’t helped by a succession of holiday weekends, when arrests for DUIs and other crimes are often higher and suspects have to wait an extra day to have their bail set by a judge.

It remains unclear how long the sheriff will continue to impose the 10 percent sentence reductions.

“If our population stabilizes, we’ll stop that,” Gore said.

Staff writer Kristina Davis contributed to this report.

(Sacramento, CA)
Wednesday, January 11, 2012

1/6/12

Riverside County’s jails are on the verge of reaching maximum capacity because of the influx of low-level inmates from state prisons, sheriff’s officials said Friday.

The county’s 3,906 jail beds are 99 percent occupied, and the resulting overflow of inmates will leave the Sheriff’s Department little choice but to start releasing some offenders before their sentences are served, Chief Deputy Jerry Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez noted that the county’s five jails now house 735 prisoners whose felony convictions met the criteria set by Assembly Bill 109.

The law states individuals convicted of crimes that fall into the non-violent, non-serious, non-sexually oriented category, and whose principal offense results in a sentence of three years or less, are to be incarcerated in county jails.

AB 109 led to a 20 percent jump over the last three months in the number of convicted felons being sentenced to time in county jail, sheriff’s officials said.

The governor and various lawmakers pushed AB 109 as part of his “realignment” strategy, which involved shifting more state responsibilities onto counties. Supporters argued it would lead to greater efficiencies, but opponents countered that already burdened local resources would be stretched to the limit.

Gutierrez said a federal court order requires that every inmate in a local jail has a bed.

To avoid overcrowding, sheriff’s officials will have to exercise alternative measures, “such as electronic ankle bracelet monitoring, return parole violators to the supervision of parole, and early release of some lover-level inmates.”

The state has allocated the county $24 million in the current fiscal year to cover costs stemming from the new law.

But most public safety officials don’t believe that will be enough, and doubts linger as to whether adequate funding will be made available in the future given the state’s unending budgetary red ink.

Sacramento Bee 911

January 10, 2012

By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times

9:16 PM PST, January 8, 2012

As California begins shifting supervision of thousands of newly released state prisoners to local probation agencies, ex-convicts are arriving with incomplete medical records and more serious mental illnesses than anticipated. And mental health officials are scrambling to provide appropriate — and often costly — treatment.

“At the start, every day … there was a crisis,” said Dr. Marvin Southard, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. “There was somebody we didn’t know what to do with.”

In some cases, he said, released inmates have had to be immediately transferred to hospitals or residential centers for psychiatric care.

A new state law designed to reduce prison crowding and cut costs requires that certain nonviolent convicts serve their time in county lockups rather than state prisons. It also makes counties — rather than the state parole agency — responsible for supervising such inmates after their release.

The transition, called “realignment” by Gov. Jerry Brown, has raised well-publicized concerns among law enforcement officers across the state, as they try to accommodate more inmates in already crowded local jails. But realignment also presents less-visible challenges for local probation and mental health officials dealing with an influx of patients with drug and alcohol addictions, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

Mental illness and drug addiction are common in California prisons, where more than half of inmates report a recent mental health problem and two-thirds report having a drug abuse problem, according to a Rand Corp. study. Many don’t receive the treatment they need while incarcerated and may skip care once released, said the study’s author, Lois Davis.

“If you have individuals struggling with depression and anxiety … they are going to have a much harder time linking to services,” she said. “It limits their ability to find a job and reunite with their family, and they will be at greater risk for recidivism.”

Roughly 3,300 people have been released to Los Angeles County so far. The probation department is expecting about 6,000 more. County mental health officials estimated that about 30% will require mental health services and about 60% will have drug addictions.

Continuing treatment after inmates are freed is essential to preventing them from relapsing, having mental breakdowns, ending up in hospitals or landing back behind bars, officials said.

“We took it very seriously from the start,” said Reaver Bingham, deputy director of the Los Angeles County Probation Department. “We knew that if we didn’t address those risk factors, people would revert to what they know, and that is committing criminal activity.”

Realignment, which began Oct. 1, has been bumpy. Many released inmates came without comprehensive medical records. It was up to the patients to pass along information about their diagnoses and medications to probation and mental health staffers. When county workers requested mental health records from the state, they often were told to get the information from individual prisons.

Communication has improved, but getting complete medical and mental health records remains difficult, officials said. One complication: Prisoners can block the transfer of records.

“A lot of it depends on the inmates’ attitude at the point of the release — do they want to be treated more or to be left alone?” said Don Kingdon, deputy director of the California Mental Health Directors Assn.

Kingdon stressed the importance of counties having complete information on prisoners before they are released to local supervision. “That can create a problem in the community if they release prisoners and they have mental health needs and you didn’t know,” he said.

California prison officials “made a whole lot of effort to make the [transition] be as smooth as possible,” said Denny Sallade, deputy director of the state’s Division of Correctional Health Care Services. But inmates may be in one mental state when they leave the prison and another when they arrive in the community, often because they stop taking their medication along the way, she noted.

The inmates also may turn down help once they arrive. In Los Angeles County, about 30% of the released state inmates seen by mental health staff refused to either meet with clinicians or be referred for treatment.

Bingham, of the probation department, said the state has tried to address problems. “If we can be successful in Los Angeles County, we can be successful in the rest of the state,” he said.

But county officials are warning there may not be enough resources to accommodate former inmates in need of supervision. The state allocated $18 million to Los Angeles County to pay for mental health and substance abuse treatment and other social services. But the money isn’t guaranteed to continue past June.

“Supervisor Mike Antonovich is very concerned about the inadequacy of realignment funding to effectively rehabilitate this population, which includes costly mental health services, housing and supervision,” said his justice deputy, Anna Pembedjian. “It all boils down to resources.”

Los Angeles, like most counties around the state, is already stretched thin after years of budget cuts and may not be equipped to close gaps in health and social services for the newly released inmates, said Davis, of Rand. To help defray some costs, counties across the state are working to enroll the eligible released prisoners in public programs such as Medi-Cal.

Counties are at the very early stages of understanding how to make realignment work, especially for those former inmates with mental illness, Davis said. “It is going to be a challenging time for the next couple years,” she said.

FOX40 News

2:26 PM PST, December 23, 2011

SACRAMENTO COUNTY

A Sacramento man convicted of having sex with a Chihuahua will have to register on the sex offender registry.

Robert Edward De Shields was sentenced to ten years in prison and lifetime sex offender registration.

De Shields, who is confined to a wheelchair, was renting a living space from a South Sacramento family who had an 8-month-old Chihuahua mix.

A family member came home in March to find De Shields holding the dog, who looked scared. The next day, the dog went missing and was later found with De Shields in the garage, this time in pain and shock.

A veterinary check determined the dog had severe injuries to its rectum and internal organs.

De Shields was convicted last month of strangulation and sexual assault on a Chihuahua. He was taking meth at the time of the attack.

Robert De Shields was convicted in November of sexual assault of a dog belonging to a family he was living with.

According to the DA’s Office, De Shields has not been out of custody for more than five months in the last 19 to 20 years.

The sentence of lifetime registration on the sex offender list may seem odd in an animal cruelty case, however the District Attorney says it means De Shields’ sentence will now be served at a state prison. Without the imposition of the sex offender registry, he would have served the ten year sentence at a county jail because of California’s recent realignment plan.

SF Chronicle

Friday, December 30, 2011

California courts have been too quick to second-guess decisions by the parole board and the governor that deny release to convicted murderers and other life prisoners, the state Supreme Court said Thursday.

The court was responding to a series of lower-court decisions that followed its last major ruling on parole review standards, in August 2008. In that ruling, the state’s high court said both the Board of Parole Hearings and the governor, who has veto power over the board’s decisions, could deny release of a parole-eligible prisoner only if the evidence showed the prisoner was still dangerous, and could not rely solely on the facts of the earlier crime.

Judges and appellate courts have relied on that ruling to overturn dozens of parole denials, finding no evidence that a prisoner was currently dangerous and questioning conclusions by the board and the governor that the inmate lacked “insight” into his or her past criminal conduct.

But in Thursday’s decision, in a case from San Diego County, the justices said courts must accept the board’s findings on lack of insight, or any other basis suggesting the prisoner is still dangerous, if there is any evidence in the record to support it.

“The executive decision of the board or the governor is upheld unless it is arbitrary or procedurally flawed,” said Justice Carol Corrigan in an opinion signed by four of her colleagues. “The court is not empowered to reweigh the evidence. … The scope of judicial review is limited.”

The ruling clarifies standards for hundreds of suits filed each year by life prisoners challenging parole denials. In one such case, a state appeals court ordered a new parole hearing Dec. 21 for a San Francisco man who fatally stabbed a pregnant woman in 1984, saying the parole board had not presented any evidence that he was still dangerous.

The ruling will make courts “very reluctant to overturn the governor or the board, even more reluctant than they are now,” said Michael Beckman, lawyer for a prisoner in Thursday’s case. Beckman contended it would allow the board, which approves parole in only a small fraction of the cases, “to continue breaking the law” that says parole should normally be granted.

Beckman’s client, Richard Shaputis, was 50 when he fatally shot his wife, Erma, at their El Cajon home in January 1987. He claimed it was an accident, but the court said he had beaten her many times in the past and had abused his former wife and molested one of his daughters. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 17 years to life.

Shaputis, now 75, has a spotless record in prison, has taken part in rehabilitation programs, is in ill health and was judged by private psychologists to pose a low risk of violence. The parole board denied his parole in 2009.

A state appeals court overruled the board. Thursday’s ruling blocked Shaputis’ parole.

The ruling can be viewed at links.sfgate.com/ZLFT.

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

One Dead in Oroville Apartment Shooting (now 2 dead)
Published: 12/22 12:01 am
Updated: 12/22 5:17 pm

Oroville Police are searching for Derrik Blanton, who they say shot and killed one man and injured at least two others following a home invasion in Oroville.

It happened just before 8pm Wednesday night at an apartment complex on Mitchell Avenue. Authorities say Blanton went to the apartment, where he apparently knew the residents. An altercation erupted, and then Blanton fired six to ten shots.

A 48-year-old man was shot and killed. A woman was shot in the leg, and 58-year-old Charles Oberholtzer was shot in the chest and underwent surgery at Enloe Medical Center Wednesday night.

There may have been another woman, a fourth victim, who ran away but officers have not located her yet.

If you have any information on Derrik Blanton’s whereabouts, call Oroville Police.

http://www.khsltv.com/content/localnews/story/One-Dead-in-Oroville-Apartment-Shooting-Police/LWF6C77WdUCuxpg_hzSCwg.cspx