Freedom Gives Innocent Man Heart Attack

DAVID RANTA, 58, was convicted in 1991 of killing a prominent Hasidic rabbi, Chaskel Werzberger, following the failed robbery of a jewelry courier in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He was sentenced to 37 and a half years. He was released last week after prosecutors acknowledged that the evidence against Mr. Ranta had fallen apart over the years. A witness, who as a 13-year-old boy identified Mr. Ranta in a lineup, now said that he had been coached by a detective, Louis Scarcella.

On his second day of freedom after serving 23 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, David Ranta suffered a serious heart attack Friday night, his lawyer said.

See the entire NY Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/nyregion/man-freed-from-prison-has-a-heart-attack.html

The main causes for wrongful convictions were identified in a Buffalo News article* with the percentage of wrongful convictions that each cause effected:
(a) misidentification by eyewitnesses (75%),
(b) unvalidated forensic evidence (50%),
(c) lying government snitches (16%), and
(d) false confessions by juveniles and mentally challenged suspects (25%)

Read more about wrongful convictions in the article, "I Didn't Do It, Your Honor!"

http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-didnt-do-it-your-honor.html

Repeat of paragraph 1: DAVID RANTA, 58, was convicted in 1991 of killing a prominent Hasidic rabbi, Chaskel Werzberger, following the failed robbery of a jewelry courier in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He was sentenced to 37 and a half years. He was released last week after prosecutors acknowledged that the evidence against Mr. Ranta had fallen apart over the years. A witness, who as a 13-year-old boy identified Mr. Ranta in a lineup, now said that he had been coached by a detective, Louis Scarcella.

Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons

Invitation from The Center for Church and Prison, Inc. to Public Forum: Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons Old South Church/Boston 645 Boylston Street.  Tuesday March 19, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. What is Solitary Confinement? “Solitary confinement is a controversial form of punishment used in prison. Prisoners who are placed in solitary will spend up to 23 hours a day in a cell with no human contact except prison staff. It has been called a barbaric form of punishment by its opponents due to its negative impact on the prisoner's mental health." Solitary Confinement: By the Numbers Solitary confinement is 23-24 hours a day in a cell six to eight feet wide and nine to 10 feet long. Over 80,000 inmates languish daily in some form of segregation in US prisons……and 25,000 of these inmates are held in supermax prisons—facilities made up solely or mostly of solitary cells. U.S. prisons hold more than three times as many men and women with mental illnesses as are held in mental health hospitals.  8-19 percent of U.S. prisoners have psychiatric disorders “that result in significant functional disabilities” while 45 percent of supermax residents have “serious mental illness, marked by symptoms or psychological breakdowns.”: Click to read more: Solitary Confinement Fact Sheet   Implications of Solitary confinement: Serious psychological damage, High rate of mental illness, High rate of recidivism, High rate of violence. Very Expensive:   $75,000, in a supermax prison  as opposed to $25,000 for an inmate in the general population. California With over 1,100 inmates in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) and 400 more in the Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU), Pelican Bay State Prison has an yearly budget of $180 million. For 2010-2011, the annual costs per inmate were as follows:  $70, 641 per SHU inmate  $77,740 per ASU inmate $58,324 per general population inmate 4 According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations, the average length of time spent in the Pelican Bay SHU is 6.8 years.5 This means the total cost of holding each inmate in the SHU is on average $480,358. Housing the same inmate in the general population would save $83,733. Some 2,200 additional prisoners are housed in Security Housing Unit Click to read more at: Fact Sheet: The High Cost of Solitary Confinement  Speakers and Panelists  Dr. Stuart Grassian  Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement Mr. Bobby Dellelo Mr. Muarice Alves  Mr. Glenn  Williams  Leslie Walkers, Esq. Director: Prisoners Legal Service  Rahsaan Hall, Esq. Deputy Director: Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights  Tuesday March 19, 2013 Time: 6pm- 8:30pm  Venue: Old South Church/Boston, 645 Boylston Street.  Directions: Take Greenline to Copley/Boylston Street. "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." Elie Wiesel "When one is frightened of the truth then it is never the whole truth that one has an inkling of." Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Center for Church and Prison, Inc. is  a resource and research center working towards community revitalization through prison reform and strategic solution development and intervention in the high rate of incarceration and recidivism in the United States prison system. Visit us: www.Churchandprison.org

Cesar Villa: Solitary Prison Torture

Solitary Watch published an account of life in solitary confinement from Cesar Francisco Villa, 51, a Pelican Bay prisoner. An excerpt of the article is published below, followed by a link to the entire article.

"SHU"

“To be considered an inactive gang member (eligible for release), you must turn over gang information. But if you are not a member, what do you have to turn in? Nothing,” Ceaser Villa writes.

The gang validation process, in which prison investigators determine whether or not prisoners are members of certain prison gangs and segregate them indefinitely in the SHU, has been criticized at California Assembly hearings in 2011 and 2013 as lacking proper oversight and providing effective due process. Currently, thousands of prisoners in California are serving SHU terms for gang validation, most in solitary confinement.

“Each morning wakes the potential for disaster. Each morning starts with anger before the anxiety,” Villa writes of the the frustrating monotony of life in the SHU, where he has since developed arthritis in the spine, hepatitis, a thyroid condition and high blood pressure. Below is an excerpt from a powerful description of life in the SHU, from a letter he wrote to California Prison Focus. For the full version, in PDF format, click here. –Sal Rodriguez

When we talk of the SHU and the affects the conditions have on the psyche, it’s not a simple construction one can wrap his or her mind around. Understanding the treatment of Pelican Bay inmates takes some getting used to. Understanding this sickness that runs rampant in the minds of prison officials leaves knots in the pit of bellies.

Nothing can really prepare you for entering the SHU. It’s a world unto itself where cold, quiet and emptiness come together seeping into your bones, then eventually the mind.

The first week I told myself: It isn’t that bad, I could do this. The second week, I stood outside in my underwear shivering as I was pelted with hail and rain. By the third week, I found myself squatting in a corner of the yard, filing fingernails down over coarse concrete walls. My sense of human decency dissipating with each day. At the end of the first year, my feet and hands began to split open from the cold. I bled over my clothes, my food, between my sheets. Band-aids were not allowed, even confiscated when found.

Continue reading at Solitary Watch http://solitarywatch.com/2013/03/16/voices-from-solitary-where-cold-quiet-and-emptiness-come-together/

And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone
~Genesis 2:18

Published by Mary Neal, director of the Human Rights for Prisoners March, in obedience to God the Father, who commands that we consider the torture of prisoners as if it were our own bodies being tortured (Heb.13:3).