As a defense attorney, I have met clients seeking help on their cases though they had been convicted and sentenced to State Prison for various years. I remember how stark and foreboding the prisons were. One wonders why the potential threat of prison and all it entails wouldn’t deter criminals from crimes, but it doesn’t. It’s the “I am not going to get caught” syndrome that keeps us defense attorneys in business. I have been to San Quentin Prison located in Marin County right on the San Francisco Bay, but the view isn’t enjoyed by those cons inside. I was there to interview a prospective client; he and his family were hoping I could find something to get his case reversed and he could end up a free man. I arrived with Sharon Thompson. Sharon was one of the good attorneys who came aboard while my office was in Santa Ana, California. She was very talented and stayed with me for a substantial period of time. However like many of the attorneys who came to work for me , after a period, she wanted to branch off into other ventures. She got married to Chris Strole, who at the time was one of the best trial attorneys in the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, handling the major defense cases including a batch of homicide cases. Sharon eventually was hired by the District Court of Appeals writing briefs, doing research and eventually became the Writ Appellate Clerk. If you wanted to get a Writ before the court, you had to go through Sharon. All the required pleadings and procedures had to be met and most important, there had to be merit to your request. It was a very powerful job. Her husband Chris became a Superior Court Judge. When he retired not so long ago, Sharon did as well, and they moved to Arizona, got a home on a golf resort and, the last I heard, are very happy. Both Sharon and Chris are pretty good golfers.
Well after driving from Orange County to San Quentin, I parked the car, and went through a search procedure before being admitted to the grounds. Had to almost strip to one’s shorts, but got through. We were advised by the guards to go through, turn left and continue walking. If we followed that advice, we would have found ourselves back to where we came from and have to go through again. I caught on before it was too late and followed a yellow line into the facility. When admitted, we were given a desk and chairs in the visitors’ room waiting for the client to be brought out. The visiting area was also the visiting area for the inmates, and out they came. They were in bunches according to their ethnicity: Blacks, Latinos and Whites. They all appeared- huge, tattooed and mean-looking. Sharon and I were alone among all the prisoners while the guards were behind bullet-proof glass, heavily armed. You can imagine I was not too comfortable… actually scared; not only we were unprotected in a large room full of inmate criminals who themselves were segregated by race and gang membership, but worst of all, I probably had put some of them there who might be holding a grudge. Fortunately, most of them were more interested in their female visitors engaging in some heavy love-making, and I was able to get through the interview and leave unharmed. Couldn’t do anything for the potential client, sorry to say, but was compensated by his family for our time.
Other prisons I have been admitted to were the prison in Soledad where younger, but violent inmates are kept, the women’s prison in Carona where the smell of cow manure permeates the facility, also federal prisons at Terminal Island in San Pedro, and the Federal prison in Tehachapi;which is a minimum security prison; Also California Rehabilitation prison in Norco, Riverside County, California
Norco, basically at the time was not only a regular prison, but a rehabilitation center for addicts. The client I was to visit was located there. So I arrived and to my astonishment, I met up with a former deputy district attorney who had entered the LADA’s Office on the same day in 1956 as I did and we started at the same time and same assignment, preliminary hearings. He looked good and was eventually assigned to the Long Beach Branch Office where he did very well, tried a bunch of cases, and eventually went into private criminal defense practice in Long Beach and was very successful.
Well, Jack was married to a socialite who had a string of party friends, and, as the story goes, Jack came home one day and guess what? Saw his wife and her boyfriend comfortably in Jack’s bed together. Anyway, that was the way the police found the two lovers, both having left this life through gunshot wounds to the head. Jack denied he was the shooter, and instead of admitting his alleged conduct, went to trial. A jury did not believe him and, based on circumstantial evidence, convicted him of murder in the first degree and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Jack and I greeted each other, and I learned he was not at Norco for rehabilitation but was there as an inmate fireman. Jack still professed his innocence, and frankly I believed him, as there were plenty of other suspects and no direct evidence linking him to the murder: no gun, no real scientific evidence connecting him to the murder and later one of the prosecution witnesses regarding scientific evidence was proven to be a fraud and a liar at worst and badly mistaken at best. A writ of Habeus Corpus was filed when the new evidence was discovered, and the appellate Court found the evidence bad, but not bad enough to give Jack a new trial. (probably if Jack had admitted to the shooting he probably could have been convicted of manslaughter, “heat of passion” and had a much more lenient sentence.) If you want to read more about Jack Kirshke, Google 16 Cal 3rd 902e
I did once visit Folsom Prison just to see it. Reminds me of Jonny Cash and Folsom Prison Blues. (“I killed a man in Reno, just to watch him die.” When Johnny visited San Quentin and sang the song, and uttered those words, the inmates all hollered “Yeah!”) Folsom is one scary place, a fortress-looking entry, and, when I entered and looked up from the courtyard entry to the main building, I saw a guard had a machine gun pointed directly at me. Folsom has the older inmates who just want to be left alone and do their time. They were done with all the intrigue of the other prisons. Folsom has a gift shop off the entry manned by prisoners. Met one who told me he had earlier got drunk and beat a man to death and he was there on a murder charge. He claimed he should be released as his problem was drinking and he hadn’t had a drink since he was arrested. (I did not point out the incongruity of being locked up without access to liquor and being free and able to drink, he was a rather huge man and no need to contradict his assertion.)
Enough for one day
ByeMarshall
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