Herman’s House is a feature documentary that explores what the filmmakers understatedly call “the unlikely friendship between a New York artist and one of America’s most famous inmates as they collaborate on an acclaimed art project.”
The inmate is Herman Joshua Wallace, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison on a bank robbery sentence. While he served his sentence, though, he and a fellow prisoner were accused of murdering an Angola (La.) prison guard, which landed him in solitary confinement. Though claims have been made that he may be innocent of the death charge (including claims by a widow of the guard), he has remained in solitary confinement for decades.
The film opens with an artist forming and sanding a uniquely shaped object: Is it an egg? Perhaps a stylized womb? (more…)
What looks to be a remarkable program is on tap for this Friday at the ASU Law School.
Titled “Dialogues on Detention: Applying Lessons from Criminal Justice Reform to the Immigration Detention System,” it is part of the Public Dialogue Series of advocacy group Human Rights First. (CLE credit may be available.)
Discussions will focus on: gaps in legal representation, alternatives to detention, privatization; and conditions of detention. Panelists also will explore whether lessons we have learned from criminal justice reform can inform immigration detention reform.
Here is more information about the Friday event:
Speakers include:
Dora Schriro, former director of the Arizona Department of Corrections
Lindsay Marshall, Executive Director, Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project
Arizona State Representative John Kavanagh (R-8)
Dodie Ledbetter, Deputy Court Administrator and former Detention Director for the Pima County Juvenile Court Center (Tucson)
Victoria Lopez, ACLU Arizona
Milagros Cisneros, Assistant Federal Public Defender, District of Arizona
Andy Silverman, Joseph M. Livermore Professor of Law and Director of Clinical Programs, University of Arizona James E. Rodgers College of Law
Rod Blagojevich headed to prison, March 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
In mid-March, I came across a truly fascinating piece of writing in the Chicago Tribune. It purported to be some useful advice from one (former) convict to an incoming con. Not knowing any prisoners firsthand, I can’t tell you how spot-on the counsel is.
But as I read it through a second time, it struck me how valuable much of the advice was for lawyers, or anyone who seeks courteous relations with their fellow-travelers.
The advice was for none other than former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who’s just starting his prison term in a federal pen in Colorado. As the Associated Press describes it, “Blagojevich was convicted of 18 criminal counts over two trials, including charges that accused him of attempting to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat. The 55-year-old Democrat is due to report to a prison in Colorado on Thursday to begin serving a 14-year sentence, making him the second Illinois governor in a row to go to prison for corruption.”
The writer of the advice article was Jeff Smith, whose bio in the newspaper I reprint in its entirety:
“Jeff Smith, a former Missouri state senator, is a professor in the Milano Graduate School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy. He spent 2010 in at the Federal Correctional Institution in Manchester, Ky., as a result of charges stemming from a 2004 campaign-finance violation.”
A professor, eh? Well, he certainly landed on his feet.
Anthropologically, convict–convict communications are something we’re typically not privy to, and so I found his advice intriguing. He opens his piece—simply titled “12 Tips for Blagojevich”—thus:
“After spending a year in federal prison on an obstruction of justice charge stemming from a 2004 congressional campaign violation, I have a few tips for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich as he heads for prison.”
If you were worried that his article would be filled with advice that’s too insider to be of use, his first piece of counsel eliminates that concern:
“1. As your grandma probably taught you, God gave you two ears, two eyes and one mouth—use them in proportion.”
Bullet points further flesh out this and every recommendation.
Read the full story here. And below is a graphic that details what Blagojevich faces in prison.
I would like to tell you that when I read a news story about rancid meat and jails, I did not immediately think of Arizona.
Of course, I have a commitment to honesty to readers, so I cannot do that.
But as I scanned this story out of New York City, I did find reason—small—to cheer. But first, the story.
I have never visited the jail at Rikers Island, but I have watched a lot of Law & Orders, so I can’t say I was surprised when I saw that facility connected to 65,000 pounds of spoiled meat.
As the story says, jail officials realized that the refrigeration had been off for days. So the contents were “off” too. But at least one of the leaders thought the problem could be solved with some spices.
(Hint to the wise: Do NOT search Google for “Rikers Island meat.”)
How many of us immediately think of the Seinfeld episode where a character remembers with horror his hubris as a young Army cook? Thinking he could salvage meat that was turning, he spiced and spiced—and made his entire unit sick.
Apparently, he has a future in corrections kitchens.
And of course, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s green bologna came to mind too. Because serving past-its-prime meat to jail inmates is not just something that happens in the Bronx. They have a lot to learn from the Grand Canyon State and Maricopa County.
Enough of that. I had promised you news that cheered me. Well, here it is:
In 115 comments that followed the story, not one—NOT ONE!—mentions Arizona and Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s notorious bologna.
In what passes for progress in Arizona’s national reputation, that fact cheers me.
“Each morning, and again in the afternoon, the blades of three bread-slicing machines are counted carefully. Only then does the bakery let workers go home — to their jail cells on Rikers Island.
“Twenty inmates at one of the largest jail complexes in the United States are part of a team that bakes 36,000 loaves of bread a week to feed the city’s entire prison population — about 13,000 people. Employees in orange-and-white-striped jumpsuits and surgical caps earn $31 a week churning out whole-wheat bread. There’s not an apron in sight.”
Freshly made bread leaves the oven along a conveyer belt at the Rikers Island bakery. (Bebeto Matthews/AP)
I just flew in from New York, and boy, are my arms … cold.
As I reported last week, I was attending a conference on criminal justice. It was terrific, but more on that later.
The unfortunate part of my trip was that it caused me to miss a potentially significant criminal justice event right here in Arizona.
On Tuesday, February 1, the Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice held a press conference to roll out its new report on criminal sentencing reform.
The New York conference I attended earlier this week touched on that topic quite a bit, and we will have an article on sentencing in Arizona Attorney Magazine in the coming months. There, we’ll also look at the AACJ’s proposals in more detail, as well as responses from many in the system.
Calls for change are perennial (even in Arizona). But what may make 2011 different is a budget crisis that is dire. Nationwide, statehouses are confronted by an array of awful choices. Decisions that reduce the corrections line item may begin to look attractive.
Arizona may be different. I’ve spoken to more than one state leader who says that the economic situation will have to be far, far worse before state legislators would consider reducing prison sentence lengths or aggravating circumstances that lead to (more expensive) prison time.
But a new movement of conservatives who seek sentencing reform may be the elephant’s nose under the tent. The Right on Crime project urges changes that will save states many resources. Will it have an effect here? We’ll examine that in our story.
Tonight, a film will be screened at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art that may interest lawyers and many others who seek to examine the U.S. corrections system. (Jump to the bottom for times, tickets, etc.)
