4 Reps Letter to Kelli Evans, Governor Gavin Newsom’s Legal Advisor – Jan 14, 2021

Dear ​​Kelli Evans,

          We are the four representatives of the plaintiff class in Ashker v. Newsom, but are writing to you as citizens to request a phone conference with you and representatives of CCOPA and CDCR to follow up on the discussion we had with you on April 20, 2020. 

          First, we recognize that the State is in crisis, and you and your office are working hard to gain control of the pandemic. As people in prison, we are deeply impacted by the pandemic as well.  At a time when we are deeply concerned for the health of our loved ones outside, and our loved ones are concerned for us, our communication with the outside world has been strictly limited.  Now, more than ever, CDCR must move forward immediately with providing a tablet to each prisoner in the State. A tablet pilot program has been successful for over two years, tablets are being used in other States, and the Pelican Bay Warden and some others have already approved the tablets for use in their institution, but Secretary Allison has not signed off on the request. The tablets cost the State nothing, as J-Pay provides them for free. Indeed, it is our understanding that the tablets actually make the State money. In this time of crisis, providing tablets so people in California’s prisons have a safe means to stay connected to their loved ones is essential to meet CDCR and the State’s mandate to serve the interests of rehabilitation.  

          Next, we would like to continue our previous discussion about the damaging, isolating, and non-rehabilitative environment in many level 4 prisons throughout the State. Judge Wilken had found that the transfer of class members into such conditions violates our Settlement Agreement. However, Judge Wilken’s decision was reversed subsequent to our last meeting by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that the transfer of plaintiffs into conditions providing less out of cell time that they had in the SHU was not covered by the Settlement Agreement.

          During our discussion with you and others, we were promised a follow up meeting, but CDCR is now refusing to meet for a second semi-annual meeting, despite the fact that it is required under our Settlement Agreement. They also say that they will not discuss the Level 4 issues that we raised in court, now that the Ninth Circuit has held that those are outside of the Settlement Agreement. That is why we are now writing to you as citizens concerned that CDCR’s level 4 policies and particularly their refusal to provide tablets are counterproductive to rehabilitating prisoners, are continuing the harm that CDCR has admitted was caused by years in solitary, and are wasting taxpayer dollars which could be saved by more humane and penologically appropriate policies.

          We therefore ask that the governor’s office set up a phone conference between us four representatives, your office, and CCOPA and CDCR representatives to discuss how to fix the problems that exist in the Level 4 prisons. We also request that either our legal team lawyers or lawyers from the outside mediation team also be involved in the phone conference. We believe that we have valuable insights to offer, since we have to exist in these conditions and have thought about how to ameliorate them while also saving the State money. 

          We are the four representatives of the prisoner class. The COVID crisis has put great strain on CDCR’s system, causing frustration, anxiety and increasing anger and tension amongst the incarcerated population. For example, the use of phones in the absence of tablets presents a threat to our safety and increased anxiety among prisoners worried about contracting a potentially deadly disease. We have demonstrated our ability and willingness to work with CDCR to provide and implement much needed reforms to their system. 

          The problems we are raising, particularly CDCR’s continuing refusal to provide tablets, require urgent attention. We request a phone conference as soon as possible, hopefully before February 1, 2021. Thank you for your consideration of this request. 

                                                                         Arturo Castellanos

                                                                         Ron Dewberry (Sitawa Jamaa)

                                                                         Todd Ashker

                                                                         George Franco

STATEMENT OF PRISONER REPRESENTATIVES ON SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF Ashker v. Brown SETTLEMENT

Oct 14, 2017 marks the 2 year anniversary of the approval of the Ashker settlement. We celebrate our victory in the Ashker case, in which virtually all of the over 1600 prisoners then languishing in indeterminate SHU were released to General Population. This victory was achieved through 3 hunger strikes and the non-violent legal and political action of thousands of California prisoners, their families, supporters, and their attorneys.

However, unfortunately our general monitoring is due to run out after two years unless the Court grants an extension. We believe that CDCR is still engaged in constitutional violations that deny prisoners due process and seeks to put us back in the hole, for many, indeterminately under the guise of Administrative SHU.  Our attorneys will seek an extension of the agreement due to CDCR’s systemic violations of the Constitution.  We don’t know what the Court will do, but we do know that prisoners and their families have to re-energize our human rights movement to fight against the continuing violations of our rights. Examples are:

·       CDCR’s continued misuse of Confidential Information to place prisoners back in the SHU, particularly with bogus conspiracy charges;

·       The lack of out of cell time, programming and vocational programs in Level 4 prisons. The last letter of CDCR stands for rehabilitation, and there is almost no rehab programs and opportunities in the level 4 prisons. They function like modified SHUs;

·       The denial of parole to lifers and Prop 57 prisoners who have clean records simply because of old, unconstitutional gang validations and CDCR’s illegally housing us in SHU for years;

·       The turning of the Restrictive Custody General Population Unit which was supposed to be a GP unit where prisoners who had real safety concerns could transition to regular GP, into a purgatory where the only way out is to either debrief or die;

·        CDCR promulgation of new regulations which gives the ICC discretion to put people back in the SHU, allows for many prisoners to be placed in the future in indeterminate Administrative SHU, or to be placed in the RCGP on phony safety concerns.

We must stand together, not only for ourselves, but for future generations of prisoners, so that they don’t have to go through the years of torture that we had to. We need all prisoners – young and old -to make our collective outcry public to ensure that the victory that we have won is not reversed by CDCR behind closed doors. Ultimately, we are the ones who are responsible for leading the struggle for justice and fair treatment of prisoners. That is why we entered into the historic Agreement to End Hostilities, and why it is so important that the prisoner class continue to stand by and support that agreement. We cannot allow our victories to be nullified by CDCR’s abuse of power, and may have to commit ourselves to non-violent peaceful struggle if CDCR continues on its present path.

We need everyone- prisoners, their families and the public – to send comments on CDCR’s proposed regulations to staff@aol.ca.gov, send emails and letters urging Gov Brown to sign Assembly Bill 1308*, make sure that prisoner complaints about unfair treatment are publicized, and to work together to rebuild our prisoners human rights movement.

We cannot let CDCR increase its use of prolonged solitary confinement either by misusing confidential information to place prisoners in SHU on phony conspiracy charges, or through increasing the use of Administrative SHU. As the Supreme Court stated over one hundred years ago in the 1879 case of Wilkerson v. Utah,  it is “safe to affirm that punishment of torture… and all others in the same line of unnecessary cruelty are forbidden by that [the Eighth] Amendment.” The admired historian Howard Zinn noted the application of that decision to the modern SHU:  “All we need then, is general recognition that to imprison a person inside a cage, to deprive that person of human companionship, of mother and father and wife and children and friends, to treat that person as a subordinate creature, to subject that person to daily humiliation and reminder of his or her own powerlessness in the face of authority… is indeed torture and thus falls within the decision of the Supreme Court a hundred years ago.”

    Sitawa (S/N Ronnie Dewberry), Arturo Castellanos, Todd Ashker, George Franco

* AB 1308 became law on Oct 11, 2017