Topic category:  Constitution/Constitutional Crises

The video belows shows highlights of the press conference held on Friday, December 4, 2009 at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. Five families whose loved ones were killed in prison, their attorneys, five clergymen, a former CDCr Forensic Psychologist and others spoke out about the death toll taking place in the prisons beneath the radar of most media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gv1fRkTtu4

There is almost a total lack of accountability for torturing and killing a state prisoner except for the rare victory of a lawsuit. The parents of Joseph Sullivan were awarded $475,000 in damages for the wrongful death of their son Joseph at Chuckawalla Prison. That is no compensation at all for the loss of a loved one through medical neglect and torture.

The overcrowding has caused deliberate indifference and medical neglect to be a pattern which results in the death of a prisoner every day. The media is banned, so the public cannot see this death toll visibly. But the three judge panel in the Coleman-Plata case knows of this death toll, and it is imperative that prisoner releases begin right now. None of the people who have been killed had a death sentence.

Attorneys Abraham Goldman and David Springfield successfully litigated the Joseph John Sullivan case. They have made an especially compelling statement here.

http://www.1union1.com/Dec4_springfield.html

I will be adding more written remarks from the speakers to this web page, but a number of them are already up here.

http://www.1union1.com/dec4_main_index.html

The full video of all the speakers will be available soon, this one has highlights only.

After you view the video, the last thing you will be thinking about is clicking on the stars to rate it, but that's how You Tube works, the video with the most star ratings gets moved to the top of the viewing selections, so please do it so that more people can see these victims of a hidden crisis.

I will be writing more soon on this topic. Please get active in the UNION so you can learn to become an advocate for change and help us build the necessary voting lobby it takes to be able to elect, recall, win initiative campaigns (change the laws) and be a force to be reckoned with.

rightor1@yahoo.com

B. Cayenne Bird
Columnist

Biography - B. Cayenne Bird

B. Cayenne Bird is a 45-year veteran op-ed journalist and publisher. A descendant of Mary Todd Lincoln, and General Andrew Porter, she is passionate about human rights and criminal justice issues. A mother and grandmother with advanced degrees in Journalism, Liberal Studies, and Humanities (Cultural Anthropology) she has focused on prison reform making great strides in Calif. supporting the landmark Plata-Coleman case for a decade which resulted in major prison reform. She writes scholarly articles too but prefers op-eds.