From: CAPNews <CAPNews@capsf.org>
Dear Colleagues:
We are writing to follow up on our earlier email, and to provide you with
the latest information CAP has about the Condemned Inmate Transfer Pilot
Program (CITPP). CAP will dedicate a page on our website to CITPP
developments. We will update the website information on a rolling
basis.
To gather the information we have provided below, we met with lawyers
from the prisoner's rights bar, we spoke with the San Quentin litigation
coordinator, and with attorneys at the CDCR in Sacramento, all in an
effort to understand as much as we can about this program.
We have attached 1. The CITPP memo, and 2. The CDCR's FAQ
for your reference. We have also attached 3. A sample Letter for
you to modify as appropriate and send to your client. The letter is
purely informational and does not attempt to give advice about what to
do. Please modify it as you see fit or write your own letter. Last, we
also attached 4. A map showing the facilities' locations.
Please take the information below in the spirit we offer it it is
our best current understanding of the CITPP. It is here to aid you
navigate a fast-moving situation. We cannot promise that what you find
below is the complete or only answer; it is simply what we have been told
and what we are relying on for now. Many questions and many uncertainties
remain.
1. What about legal visiting and other prison policies and practices
legal teams rely upon?
On a purely practical front, CAP has been in contact with the
litigation coordinator at San Quentin (Eryn Cervantes) who has formed a
list-serve with the litigation coordinators at all of the CITPP
facilities (please see the CITPP memo for the list). At Ms. Cervantes'
invitation, we submitted a list of practices that we have come to rely
upon at San Quentin, viz., scheduling a legal visit, bringing experts and
their computer or other equipment into the prison, availability of
contact legal visiting, ordering trust account statements, getting
documents notarized, ordering medical and central files, sending in
confidential legal mail and legal supplies, and a number of other
processes. Our hope is that this will serve to bring some uniformity and
predictability across the institutions. This is a work in progress.
The location of and travel distance to many of these prisons poses an
entirely separate issue for counsel, experts, and others. This is
specific to you and your client. We believe it is a discussion for you to
have with your client(s) and is not addressed in this email.
2. What happens after the two year pilot program? Will my client be
transferred back to current condemned units at San Quentin State Prison
or CCWF?
According to Joshua Jugum of the Regulation & Policy Branch of
the CDCR when a pilot program is implemented, the intent is for it to
become law. Historically, the majority of pilot programs do become law.
If the pilot program is considered successful, it is anticipated that at
some point over the next two years, a regulation will be promulgated to
make the CITPP permanent.¯Even if the pilot program is deemed a failure,
there is no guarantee that prisoners who transferred under the program
will return to San Quentin or to the condemned unit at CCWF. Since
Proposition 66 was enacted, death-sentenced prisoners may be housed
anywhere in the CDCR (classification, security level, etc. permitting).
Could people moved under the pilot program come back to death row at San
Quentin after two years? Joshua Jugum suggested that the prisoners and
their attorneys should not count on that.
3. If my client does not volunteer for CITPP at the next Unit
Classification Committee (UCC) hearing, will my client be able to
volunteer at a later date?
Condemned prisoners do not need to volunteer for the CITPP at their first
classification meeting following the program rollout. They may volunteer
at any subsequent committee meeting during the two years in which the
pilot program remains in effect. (CAP's source for this piece of
information was CCII Steve Jimenez at CDCR in Sacramento. We have
received anecdotal confirmation that this is what prisoners are being
told at San Quentin.)
Please note: Although waiting is possible, it may or may not be
the right thing for your client. One client went to committee the week
following the distribution of the CITPP memo. He told us it was a good
thing that he asked early on. There are a limited number of Level III
yard slots, and the committee anticipated those would go first. (More
about this below in 9.)
4. Safety
Safety remains a concern. This is a discussion for you to have with
your client, and you might wish to consult with other knowledgeable
people in the prisoners' rights bar about the current safety levels on
the CITPP yards.
In the view of the prisoner advocates with whom we consulted, CDCR does
not have good systems in place to protect prisoners who are convicted of
sex offenses, to take one example of an at-risk population. While the
CDCR had created the Sensitive Needs Yards (SNY) in order to create safer
yards for prisoners convicted of certain offense (e.g., sex offenses,
crimes against children), and certain classes of prisoners (e.g., gang
drop-outs or informants), the SNYs developed problems almost immediately.
The program and its yards became unsafe. The CDCR has attempted to
implement another program, the Non-Designated facilities, or yards.
However, we were told these are still dangerous places for sex offenders.
Violence, including lethal violence, remains a real risk.
We find it difficult to speak across the board on this subject. It is
such an important issue and clients differ widely in their abilities to
navigate potential difficulty. Your client may wish to transfer, and may
already be familiar with life in a Level III or Level IV CDCR facility
with a sex-offender, snitch or similar label. That client may well be
able to make his way. For clients who do not have that experience and/or
are anxious about the prospect of moving to a mainline prison, you might
remind them that this is a two-year pilot program. They do not have to
move.
5. Will my client be able to work or enroll in non-work programming in
a CITPP facility?
CAP has not been able to definitively answer this question.
Certainly, the intent in Proposition 66 is for the condemned to work.
Here are some of the factors that make this less than clear.
In the CITPP, the condemned will be designated Close Custody
(Close A and Close B), and that will not change, according to the CDCR
memo. Historically, Close Custody, which involves a heightened level of
supervision and additional counts, limited the hours prisoners could be
out-of-cell, and limited where they could go inside the prison. This in
turn restricted the work that was available to anyone with that
designation. The regulations governing Close Custody changed in 2017
allowing for much greater out-of-cell time, which will theoretically make
both work and programming possible for the people who transfer under this
program. Nevertheless, because the Close Custody designation increases
the level of supervision, and still requires additional counts, it may
reduce prisoner mobility, which may result in making it difficult for
prisoners to get certain jobs. This is one factor in the mix.
With respect to non-job programming, the fact that condemned prisoners
cannot earn credits under the CITPP may limit their access to
non-job programming in some facilities. We have heard this is an issue in
some prisons, where prisoners who are supposed to go before the parole
board and therefore need these credits have greater priority and access
to these programs than those prisoners who are not going before the board
and therefore have a less pressing need for credits. But this again is
just a factor in the mix. We learned of it, and therefore strike a
cautionary note.
Per our conversation with the prisoners' rights bar, the most important
variable in any given prisoner getting a job or getting into programming
is the commitment of the CITPP prison administrators to making sure
prisoners have opportunities. Each client who transfers to a CITPP
facility will go before Unit Classification Committee where their
suitability for certain jobs will be reviewed. The captains at those
committee hearings at the CITPP prisons will vary. Some captains will be
trying to ensure that all the prisoners on their yards have jobs. Some
may be less invested. This is very difficult to know in advance.
Finally, some prisons have had long waiting lists for jobs. This has also
changed and improved or become worse over time.
6. Will my transferred client be double-celled in a CITPP facility?
Is single-celling a possibility?
The women who are on the mainline at CCWF are either double-celled or
in small dormitories that house 4-6 women at a time. CCWF continues to
experience overcrowding and some of those dorms have housed as many as
eight women. Therefore, it seems unlikely that a woman could be
single-celled on the mainline, but we do not know the answer to this
question with any certainty.
It used to be impossible for the male prisoners to be single-celled. That
has changed somewhat since the over-crowding case was decided. As
a result, there is some opportunity to ask for single-celling. There is a
CDCR memo about single-celling that CAP will provide to interested
counsel. Nevertheless, single-celling remains a distinct rarity. CAP is
not suggesting this as a realistic option to any of the unrepresented
prisoners with whom we work and we do not recommend you encourage your
capital client(s) who may be interested in the CITPP to hope for this
either.
7. What is the medical care like at CITPP facilities? If my client
has medical care needs, is it a good idea to transfer?
The answer to this question is quite nuanced. The odds are that San
Quentin has the best medical care of all the facilities. If that is a
primary concern for your client, staying at San Quentin may be your
client's best option. Counsel certainly has better access to the doctors
at San Quentin and to information about their clients' care than it is
likely to be available at the CITPP facilities. This does not mean it
will be impossible to get good care at other facilities. CMF-Vacaville is
a medical facility and is one of the better institutions for access to
specialists. Corcoran is now a reasonable place for medical care even
though it was bad for a long time. Note that there are no seriously ill
people housed at Centinela; someone who moved there and then developed
serious medical needs would have to be moved somewhere else.
We have no information to suggest that the medical care for the women on
the CCWF mainline would be better or worse than the care for the women on
the row at CCWF. But we really don't know.
If your client does move, and you have an urgent concern about medical
care, the PLO has offered to help.
www.prisonlaw.com.
8. What is the state of mental health care at the CITPP facilities? If
my client has mental health care needs, is it a good idea to
transfer?
This is again
a nuanced subject. As with medical care, capital counsel has quite
extraordinary access to some of the care providers at San Quentin. There
are no guarantees that could be replicated at other facilities. In fact,
that seems quite unlikely.
Mental health
care, like medical care, is governed in part by a large class action,
Coleman v. Newsom. Attorneys in this suit know a great deal about
the care at each institution, and would be glad to help capital counsel
understand the CITPP facilities better.
One cautionary
note from the prisoner and civil rights attorneys with whom we spoke,
that we wanted to pass along regarding the Psychiatric Inpatient Program
(the PIP) at San Quentin: this is the best run and best functioning PIP
in the CDCR at the moment. If your client is currently in the PIP,
staying at San Quentin is probably best.
The women housed on the row at CCWF are able to receive the Enhanced
Outpatient Program (EOP) level of care, a designation under
Coleman, which provides for regular access to a mental health
professional and medications. There is nothing about the CITPP that makes
us believe that EOP care would not be available were the women to move to
the mainline.
9. Another note about timing and availability of good placements:
As noted above under point 3, clients may wait before deciding to
transfer. There is a risk however, as one client relayed to us, that if
the prisoners wait too long, the better slots on the Level III yards,
which are available now, will be filled. Level III yards are less heavy
that is, with a lesser security designation and perhaps a lesser threat
of violence -- than Level IV yards. It was suggested to us that if your
client is informed there are no more Level III placements, he could pose
the following question in committee: what do I need to do in the next six
months, or next year, to make sure I am eligible for a Level III yard?
Although this assumes that Level III slots will open up, which may not
happen, it should nevertheless work to your client's benefit. The
committee may become enrolled in seeing your client succeed. It also
puts some of this process back into your client's hands.
10. Is my client able to take art supplies, other property, musical
instruments, etc. to a CITPP facility?
While we don't know the answer to these questions, we do know that
San Quentin Death Row has one of the few, if not the only, hobby craft
program left in the CDCR. At other facilities, prisoners may order
certain supplies from vendors, but these are more restricted. At this
point, we would be concerned about a client for whom art or music is a
lifeline moving to another facility. Meanwhile, we are continuing to try
to get better answers to these questions.
11. Legal Property how much iss permitted at the CITPP
facilities?
Same as above, No. 10. We have raised this question and we are trying
to get an answer.
12. Resources for understanding more about these prisons:
CAP is glad to try to answer your questions; we are also glad to
connect you with the attorneys we spoke with who know more about these
institutions. Please contact us at one of the emails below. In addition,
the Prison Law Office has a terrific website with resources, including
their Prisoners' Rights Handbook available in downloadable form.
www.prison.law.com. The Office
of the Inspector General regularly writes reports about prisons in the
CDCR. These are available on the OIG website,
https://www.oig.ca.gov/. Sometimes
their reports are not timely, for example, the most recent report about
CCWF medical care is dated 2018. The Prison Law Office will know if
things have improved at that facility since then.
Thank you for reading.
Heather Hardwick
hhardwick@capsf.org
John Harrison
jharrison@capsf.org
Lauren Roberts
lroberts@capsf.org
Sarah Chester
schester@capsf.org
---------------