State Prison

Johnny Cash's life in the 1960s is mostly remembered as a time of glorious achievement - from the landmark prison albums at Folsom and San Quentin to the launch of the ABC-TV series featuring such guests as Bob Dylan and the Doors that led to his becoming a giant figure in popular culture, a symbol to millions, no less, of the best of American social values. But Cash also experienced excruciatingly dark times in the decade, fueled by drugs and guilt over the breakup of his marriage.

FRENCH CAMP, Calif. - California's $840-million medical prison - the largest in the nation - was built to provide care to more than 1,800 inmates. When fully operational, it was supposed to help the state's prison system emerge from a decade of federal oversight brought on by the persistent neglect and poor medical treatment of inmates. But since opening in July, the state-of-the-art California Health Care Facility has been beset by waste, mismanagement and miscommunication between the prison and medical staffs.

It was, an appeals attorney said, "a dirty little murder." Ronald Lee Sanders is not a notorious killer. Like most of the 167 condemned men living on San Quentin's two Death Rows, Sanders is virtually anonymous. The murder for which he was convicted did not make the pages of The Times. It was not even a big story in Bakersfield, where it occurred. The judge who sentenced Sanders to the gas chamber couldn't remember the details of the case 3 1/2 years later.

Prosecutors are asking a Superior Court judge to send the former second-in-command in scandal-plagued Bell to prison for 12 years and eight months. Angela Spaccia, who has been in jail since her conviction in December on corruption charges, is expected to be sentenced Thursday. Spaccia's request for a new trial was denied, as was another motion that her former boss - Robert Rizzo - be called to the witness stand. The attorney representing the former assistant city manager asked Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy to take into account a letter his client wrote to the court that said she regretted her actions.

California risks repeating past mistakes as it doles out hundreds of millions of dollars to help county jails house inmates who once would have ended up in state prisons, according to an American Civil Liberties Union report released Wednesday. The report highlights a recurring concern of advocates: Rather than pursuing cheaper ways of protecting public safety, the state is shifting the problem of prison overcrowding to the local level. "Left unchecked, these counties will build larger jail systems that will cost more tax dollars than they do now and hold more people than they do now," the report said.

Lawmakers on Friday gave final approval to a plan to cut the state's giant prisons budget, passing a hard-fought measure that would reduce the inmate population by thousands but stop far short of solving the overcrowding crisis. It would also leave California's budget with $200 million in red ink. Administration officials said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger intends to sign the measure nonetheless. But as the lawmaking calendar drew to a close, the only other major legislation heading toward the governor appeared to be destined for a veto.

Former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf has been moved from a drug treatment center to the state prison in Deer Lodge, Mont., after being kicked out of the center for poor behavior. "The Montana Department of Corrections terminated Leaf from the treatment program and placed him in prison after he was found guilty of behavior that violated conditions of his drug treatment placement," Dawn Handa, regional probation and parole administrator in Great Falls, said in a statement. "The violations included threatening a program staff member.

State parole officials missed many chances to capture convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido and find Jaycee Dugard, whom he is accused of kidnapping 18 years ago and harboring in his Antioch backyard, a prison watchdog has concluded in a highly critical report to be released today. Inspector General David R. Shaw said a two-month investigation found that the state parole division supervising Garrido for the past decade could have discovered Dugard, and her two children fathered by him, much earlier than August, when he was arrested.

For the first time since the nation's prison boom began, the state prison population declined for a six-month period last year, the Justice Department said Sunday. Thirteen states--including Texas and New York--housed fewer prisoners on Dec. 31 than they did when the year began. The combined population of state and federal prisons grew slightly when calculated for the entire year, but the 1.3% increase was the smallest since 1972.

Foes of a state prison planned for Lancaster said Thursday that the city should file suit to block construction of the facility, which cleared a key bureaucratic hurdle this week despite community protests. The state Department of Corrections has approved an environmental report on the prison, to be near Avenue J and 60th Street West, a department spokeswoman said.

A former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy convicted of pulling over female drivers and asking them to have sex with him was sentenced Friday to nine years in state prison and ordered to register as a sex offender once he is released. Jose Rigoberto Sanchez, 29, pleaded no contest last month to rape and bribery charges, crimes that prosecutors said took place while he was on duty. Sanchez pulled over a 24-year-old woman in Palmdale while on duty Sept. 22, 2010 and allegedly offered not to arrest the driver on an outstanding warrant in exchange for sex, prosecutors said.

She was driven to a dark road in the desert in the back of patrol car. The sheriff's deputy parked in a secluded spot in Palmdale and told her to walk to the front of the car. It was there, the woman said Friday in court, that the L.A. County deputy raped her and changed her life forever. "You essentially murdered a part of me and I'll never be able to get it back," the victim tearfully said as she stared at her attacker, Jose Rigoberto Sanchez. "A police officer is supposed to serve and protect.

One of four gubernatorial candidates introduced to California Republicans recently is a registered sex offender who spent more than a decade in state prison, convicted of crimes including voluntary manslaughter and assault with intent to commit rape. Glenn Champ, 48, addressed hundreds of GOP delegates and supporters Sunday at the site of the state party's semi-annual convention. Introduced by party chairman Jim Brulte and allotted 10 minutes, Champ spoke in between the main GOP candidates, former U.S. Treasury official Neel Kashkari and state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino County.

HOUSTON - Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, who has been serving a life sentence in Texas prison, has been hospitalized, officials said. Jeffs was in stable condition Monday at a Galveston hospital, where he was admitted March 11 for treatment of a non-life-threatening condition, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Robert Hurst. Hurst declined to release additional details, including why Jeffs, 58, was hospitalized. Jeffs was transferred to the hospital from a state prison in Palestine, about 140 miles north of Houston, where he had been held in isolation.

A 19-year-old charged with fatally shooting his parents and critically injuring his 8-year-old brother while they slept in their San Juan Capistrano home had long planned to “kill the people that loved him the most,” an Orange County prosecutor said Monday. Dressed in a jail-issued orange jumpsuit, Ashton Sachs appeared in court briefly Monday, and told the judge he could not afford to hire an attorney. A public defender was appointed and his arraignment was postponed to April 4. Sachs is accused of entering his family home on Feb. 9 and shooting his parents, Bradford Hans Sachs, 57, and Andra Resa Sachs, 54, and then shooting his 8-year-old brother, who survived but is now paralyzed.

A 36-year-old Fullerton man who shot a teenager to death as he was helping change a tire on a friend's car was sentenced Friday to 50 years to life in prison in the 2011 slaying. Charles Ramirez was found guilty in December of fatally shooting Larry Ruiz, a 19-year-old who was changing a car tire while the car was parked in an alley behind his parent's Fullerton home. Ramirez confronted Ruiz and accused him of having been in a fight with his friend earlier that day. When Ruiz denied being in a fight, Ramirez punched him in the face, pulled out a gun and shot him in the head, prosecutors said.

Records on notorious gangster John Dillinger have been discovered in a state prison, including a confession and early mug shots. "This material is extremely valuable," state archivist Jerry Handfield Jr. said Tuesday. "There are some unique items that to my knowledge have not been researched." The documents include Dillinger's confession to a botched robbery in Mooresville that first landed him in the Indiana Reformatory at Pendleton in 1924, and his initial prison mug shots.

L. Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, the former Tyco International executives convicted of improperly obtaining $600 million at the expense of shareholders, entered New York state's prison system Thursday to serve their sentences. The two arrived by bus at Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill, N.Y. -- one of three reception centers where male inmates stay for several weeks while being evaluated and waiting to be assigned to a prison.

A man who operated a youth boot camp in Pasadena was sentenced to state prison Friday for charges including sexual assault, kidnapping and extortion stemming from two cases, prosecutors said. Kelvin Bernard McFarland, 43, was sentenced to four years and four months in state prison and was ordered to register as a sex offender, according to the Los Angeles district attorney's office. McFarland pleaded no contest last year to child abuse, kidnapping, false imprisonment, extortion and unlawful use of a badge, a misdemeanor.

Peter Azevedo is a hard man to keep on the straight and narrow. Released from state prison in early 2012, he has been in and out of L.A. County jail at least half a dozen times, serving a few days, a few weeks or a few months for skipping out on probation, using drugs and carrying a knife. As of Christmas Eve, he was gone again. Two years into a major redistribution of responsibility for convicted felons, Los Angeles County officials are struggling to deal with a recalcitrant group of former state inmates like Azevedo, who keep absconding and cycling through an overcrowded jail system.