s the judge climbed the watchtower stairs in Pelican Bay prison, he heard muffled gunshots below. When he reached the top, he looked into the prison yard and saw bodies lying in the dirt. One was his law clerk, spreadeagled on the ground in his suit, alongside dozens of inmates. Guards stood over them, guns aimed.
“My clerk was thinking he’s gonna die and this is his last day on earth,” Judge Thelton Henderson recalled.
What appeared to be the taming of a riot was actually an audacious performance, staged by the guards to impress upon the judge that prison was a dangerous place, best left alone by meddling outsiders.
That prison pageant in September 1993 was a tacit acknowledgement of the power one extraordinary judge held over California’s prison system. During his 37 years on the bench, Henderson did more than anyone to transform California’s notoriously overcrowded prisons into a great experiment in second chances.
Something about what America is first at that bother me and should bother us all. Please watch this harsh video of truth… This video speaks from the heart. My a heart agrees:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML3qYHWRIZk
I wonder what Judge Henderson would say about the illogical Static 99R and Saratso schemes.