San Quentin Prison

Carrying water bottles, placards and backpacks, 100 protesters set out from the state Capitol on Friday for a 120-mile trek to San Quentin Prison to demonstrate their opposition to the death penalty. The "March Against State Killing" began in a pep-rally atmosphere on the west steps of the Capitol as protesters were told that their efforts would indicate to the world that not all Americans favor executions.

The execution of mass murderer William Bonin again revived the debate over capital punishment. A team of Times Orange County edition reporters chronicled the days leading up to the execution, and the event itself. AWARD Orange County Press Club 1st Place (tie): News Story * 'Freeway Killer' Executed By KEN ELLINGWOOD, J.R. MOEHRINGER and REBECCA TROUNSON TIMES STAFF WRITERS Feb. 23, 1996 SAN QUENTIN--William G.

One inmate was fatally shot and three others wounded Tuesday when a racial fight broke out in the exercise yard at San Quentin Prison, forcing guards to open fire, a prison official said. Percy Kimbrough, 29, of Los Angeles, serving a 15-year-to-life sentence for second-degree murder, was shot once in the chest by guards after nine inmates refused a warning to stop fighting, said John Reid, administrative assistant to the warden. Two other unidentified inmates were wounded by gunfire.

A retired prison guard Thursday recounted for jurors in the murder trial of Stephen M. Bingham the gruesome details of the slaughter caused by revolutionary inmate and author George Jackson's ill-fated 1971 escape attempt from San Quentin Prison. Kenneth McCray, whose throat was slashed during the incident, was generally unemotional as he testified that Jackson did not have a gun before his meeting with Bingham but moments afterward produced the pistol, touching off the bloody revolt.

As Tuesday's scheduled execution of Robert Alton Harris draws near, news organizations have begun quietly renting rooms, balconies and even lawns from residents living near San Quentin prison. The grim business--and it indeed has become an enterprise, with one well-located balcony renting for $2,000--developed because of the difficult access to the prison's main entrance, where a large anti-death penalty demonstration is planned for the night of the 3 a.m. execution.

Stephen Bingham lived as a fugitive for 13 years because he feared he was being set up in the 1971 slaying of prison revolutionary George Jackson, Bingham's attorney, Susan Rutberg, said Tuesday. She told a jammed courtroom in her opening statement that the one-time Berkeley lawyer fled after state officials announced that they had conclusive evidence that he had slipped a gun to Jackson. Bingham is being tried on two counts of murder and one of conspiracy in the Aug.

Male inmates of San Quentin Prison who objected to being watched by female guards while showering and using prison toilet facilities were told by a federal appeals court Tuesday that security interests outweigh their rights to privacy. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was marked by a warning from a leading conservative judge that the entire area of prisoner rights should be approached with caution by the courts. While Judges Thomas Tang and William C.