So, those people on death row are dangerous (see article below). Hey, A.P, perhaps you could jump in on this one and explain what they mean in the article when they say this death row inmate was moved "to a higher level of custody." He is on DEATH ROW. What comes after that?

Aug. 18, 2004, 1:10PM


Death row inmate stabs guard 13 times with rod
Associated Press

A death row inmate being escorted to his cell turned around suddenly and stabbed a prison guard 13 times with a sharpened metal rod, but the wounds were not considered serious, a prison spokeswoman said today.

The inmate, Jorge Salinas, was sentenced to lethal injection for the 2001 deaths of a 29-year-old man and a 21-month-old girl during a carjacking in Hidalgo County.

"His cell had just been searched and he was irate," Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said. She said Salinas used a rod from a typewriter that he was allowed to use.

As two guards escorted Salinas on Monday night, he began swinging his hand at one of the officers, Lyons said. As the officer blocked the blow, Salinas produced the 6 1/2-inch rod and began stabbing the 24-year-old correctional officer, Lyons said.

Other officers subdued Salinas using a chemical agent, she said.

The guard was taken from the prison unit in Livingston to the Polk County Hospital, where his puncture wounds were cleansed. Lyons said he is doing fine.

The inmate was not injured during the scuffle and has been placed in a higher level of custody. He also has lost his privileges to use items such as a typewriter and radios, Lyons said.

The search of Salinas' cell was routine, Lyons said, adding that officers search all inmates cells to "make sure they do not possess contraband, including weapons."

Lyons said the attack was being investigated.

"When you are talking about a death row inmate, there is not much you can do," she said. "You really cannot stack anything more on that sentence. It will be reflected on his record and that will be something that stays with him."

Convicted killers sent to Texas' death row spend 23 hours a day alone in a concrete wall cell with one hour for recreation. There are 456 offenders awaiting execution.

Salinas, 20, arrived on Texas' death row in 2002.

He was convicted in the slaying of Geronimo Morales, who was carjacked on his way to a quinceanera, driven to an isolated orchard and fatally shot in the head with a shotgun. His daughter, Leslie Ann, was abandoned that same night and died.

Border Patrol agents found the girl dead in her car seat at a park near the Rio Grande. Agents said she was strapped in the seat and hidden in some brush.

John, I stumbled across this article buried in Section "B" of the Houston Chronicle this morning. Wonder why it didn't make the front page like all the Crime Lab controversy and anti-death penalty stuff??? Hmmmmmmm. Reckon what the "life-without-parolers" will have to say about this? A higher custody level? So he's in his cell 23 1/2 hours a day instead of just 23? Or he gets his radio taken away? That'll teach him!!!!

Seems to me a better response would be to move up his execution date.

John,
According to the defense lawyers I've been facing, I'm no expert on prison violence or future dangerousness in the prison system. If you'll watch Larry Fitzgerald, Susan Perryman, Warden Price, Mark Cunningham, Warden Chance and the list goes on..., as they testify in capital trials, you and the public in general, will be informed that prison in Texas is safer than the ATM in Austin...I want to regurgitate every time I write that, which is a lot lately. And, my "anecdotes" in articles and books about incidents of violence in prison are no indicators of the opportunities for convicted felons to continue to be dangerous when they get to the iron house.
Tell that to the dead folks, the mentally-impaired guard assault victims, the guard rape victims, the family of Off. Dan Nagle, Stan Wiley, Minnie Houston.
Why is it that the defense wants jurors to believe that I'm trying to do something "wrong" by traveling all over creation for free, on my own time, to testify what I know to be facts, but they want the same jurors to believe every jot and tittle of what their (highly) paid "experts"
belch out, -- usually distorted information of which they have no personal knowledge? Thanks for getting me riled up....

Nice rant, AP. But seriously, how does TDCJ move a person on death row to a higher level of custody?

I was thinking the same thing this morning, A.P., as I was reading that article and sipping my morning coffee. Seems to me that Mark Cunningham, Larry Fitzgerald, et al, have some explaining to do--but I'm sure they'll come up with some positive spin to apply to this latest incident; and it won't have anything to do with the fact that a jury found ol' Jorge to be a future danger and he proved them correct! I wonder if any of those paid, so-called "future dangerousness" experts testified at his trial? That would be interesting to know.

For what it's worth AP, several of my jurors just last month told me that they thought you were great and Fitzgerald and Perryman were idiots! And the fact that you're free and they're high $$ "experts" was not lost on them....
They especially loved Fitzgerald's video showing how very, very safe and secure it is at the Connally Unit -- you know, the one the Texas 7 got out of!

Seems to me that common sense and incidents like Jorge's go way farther w/ jurors than Fitzgerald et al ever will!

Thanks, Lisa
You know we don't get much feedback it seems, so positive remarks do make a difference. And take this week for example: I'm on vacation to help my daughter with less-than-two-week-old twin daughters -- my first grandchildren. We feed (well she does it one way, and I do it the other) every 3 1/2 hours, so sleep is a thing only in my memory. In the middle of all that, I had to drive 3 hours to another county to be in a Daubert hearing...leaving innocent babies to go sit in a witness stand and be accused of being stupid and uncooperative, not to mention uncaring toward the capital killer, but if the right thing, whatever that is in truth, is done, it will have been worth it.

John, all they can do basically, with death row malcontents, including those who get drugs, cell phones, weapons, have sex with guards, stab people, etc., is re-classify them and take some perks away, as mentioned in the article. Although the PIO was not entirely correct -- we (the S.P.U.) CAN prosecute death row inmates, but it is usually frivolous to do so and get a 25 year or so sentence stacked on a death sentence. But it is very effective to have such a case as is mentioned in the article hanging over one's head, should he get reversed or commuted!

Hey Lee, I guess I'll be seeing you folks in the weeks ahead, too. I'll bring grand-twin photos.

Hopefully the guard is recovering well as the story suggested. Is it possible that he or she might be available as a rebuttal witness after the Defense "experts" represent how safe it is on death row? A new career for him or her if she or he is getting out of corrections ...?

He or she would be probably be able to put on quite a show and tell if there are scars ... This is probably not the only violence he or she has observed and might be an expert by "experience and training".

Could the incident be the basis of a "have you heard" during ones cross examination of the "expert"? You know, "would that change your opinion"? Sad and scary that despite all the precautions that something like this can happen and will happen again.

At a minimum such an expert on the witness list could get the defense stirred up and out of their chairs.

The most ear-grabbing expert on violence in the penitentiary that we've used is Doyle Hill. He went to prison, got into a gang and killed another convict. Then he got sent to Ad Seg (where everything is safe and secure) and he killed ANOTHER convict. He testified in one of our capital cases -- even the highest paid expert can do little to rebut a man who looks at the jury and tells them that not only could he and did he kill a man in prison; he killed two.

Of course, the man who broke ground in future danger testimony and one who(m) I'm not worthy to carry his briefcase, is Royce Smithey. Royce is the undisputed authority on the subject, and probably the most articulate witness for the State on the matter.

Just curious ...

Warden's report details death row escape plot
Associated Press

JACKSON, Ga. - A piece of gray string dangling from an air vent in the cell of a death row inmate helped unravel an escape plot at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, according to the warden's report.

A prison guard searching the cell pulled the string and noticed that it was secured by a piece of tape painted to conceal a cut in the vent. Convicted killer David Scott Franks apparently had cut through the vent and through another grate in the crawl space behind it.

The officers later found a cache of contraband allegedly used by Franks and two other condemned prisoners, Andrew Grant DeYoung and Michael Wade Nance, to further their escape - welding material, five hacksaw blades, two reciprocating saw blades, knives, duct tape, 25 feet of "rope" fashioned from bedsheets, ski masks crocheted by the inmates themselves, $280 in cash, even a map of Georgia.

Many of the items uncovered in the three cells could only have come from the outside, said Warden Derrick Schofield, who suspects prison employees might have been involved in the plot.

"In order to get the amount of contraband found would require some staff involvement," Schofield's report said. "The hacksaw blades and the J-B Weld were brought in from the outside."

Borrowing from the storyline of a prison movie, two of the inmates told investigators they plotted for months and fooled prison guards by piling blankets and clothing on their beds to make it appear that they were asleep in their cells. Instead, they were crawling through ventilation spaces that link the cells and hacking away at bars leading to an exit door.

Corrections officials were tipped off to the plan on Friday and searched all 112 occupied death row cells at the prison in Jackson, about 45 minutes south of Atlanta.

DeYoung, Franks and Nance have been locked in solitary confinement since the plot was discovered.

Even if the inmates had been able to escape the death row unit, prison officials said, they still would have had to scale fences topped by razor wire and evade routine vehicle patrols of the grounds.

Scheree Lipscomb, spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Corrections, emphasized Wednesday that prison officials foiled the plan. Still, Lipscomb said, the department is concerned about the lapses in security.

"We are going to make sure there are no breaches of security at any state facility," she said, adding that charges will be filed against anyone involved in the escape plot - including employees, visitors and inmates.

No inmate has ever escaped from death row at the Jackson prison. In 1980, when death row was part of the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville, four condemned inmates fled after sawing through several sets of bars with hacksaw blades. One of the inmates was killed in a bar fight, and the other three were caught in North Carolina.

DeYoung, 30, was sentenced to death in Cobb County for the June 1993 stabbing deaths of his parents, Gary and Kathryn DeYoung, and his 14-year-old sister, Sarah.

Nance, 42, was condemned for the shooting death of 43-year-old Gabor Balogh in Gwinnett County in December 1993. Nance had robbed a bank and shot Balogh to take his car.

Franks, 43, received the death penalty for the August 1994 stabbing death of 35-year-old Deborah Wilson in Hall County. Franks also injured Wilson's children, ages 13 and 9.

---

Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com

Prison clerk dies after being attacked by inmate


Officials at Kenedy prison say worker was asphyxiated


ASSOCIATED PRESS


Saturday, October 23, 2004


KENEDY -- A prison clerk was asphyxiated by an inmate in the maximum-security Connally Unit, officials from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Friday.

Rhonda Osborne, 33, who had worked at the prison for five years, was attacked in a storage room Thursday by Gary Laskowski, criminal justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.

Preliminary autopsy results from the Bexar County medical examiner's office determined that Osborne died of asphyxiation, prison officials said.

Laskowski, 38, later killed himself by cutting his neck and wrists with a sharp-edged object, she said. He had been serving a life sentence on two counts of aggravated sexual assault in Nueces County.

All of the evidence indicates a murder-suicide, but authorities continue to investigate, said John Moriarty, the department's inspector general.

Laskowski had been in prison since 1998, and he was moved to Connally in 2002. He was eligible for parole in 2007.

Department spokesman Mike Viesca said Laskowski had a clean disciplinary record, which allowed him to work as a support staff inmate.

That job involves helping the prison's administrative staff and performing janitorial duties.

"He did have a little more freedom than maybe some of the other (inmates) might because of his record," Viesca told San Antonio's KENS-TV on Thursday night, adding there was "no indication that the offender would have done something like this."

Folks, I've been trying to keep quiet and not bore you with my ramblings, but this must be shared:

On August 28, 2004 Larry Fitzgerald testified in an Anderson County capital case that capital murderers with life sentences will be "locked away in single cells, away from other inmates..."
During that trial he also said that "Inmates in High Security units are never double-celled, and are always kept away from other inmates...".
(I sat in on his testimony, heard every word.) He was wrong on both points, and I told the jury the truth.

On October 20, 2004 Larry Fitzgerald testified in a capital case in Harris County. He changed his story from Anderson County, and said that capital murderers are "...classified as G-5, and will be so for 10 years minimum." This was incorrect, but he did allow this time, that capital murderers doing life can be housed in general population, and celled with "minor" felons like DWIs, Forgers, etc. (Got that part right finally) -- He also told Tommy LaFon during cross, that he was getting $250 an hour, and had been in court for three days, so far. Oh yea, he got $100 an hour for "pre-trial work."

They put me on in rebuttal (don't ask me why, they could've gotten a real expert), and I told the jury that capital lifers are NOT G-5, they are G-3 (it's a long story, but it does make a difference to convicts).

Lo and behold, on October 21, 2004 (the VERY next day) Fitzgerald testified in a Polk County capital case that capital lifers are classified as "G-3", just like I've been saying for a long time, in capital cases across the state. He also said he only got $1,000 for that testimony.

Does anybody see the import of the changes in his testimony -- especially after he listens to our side testify, then confirms the facts, then tries to sound like us?

A retired, 6-year veteran of working as a mouthpiece for the prison CAN NOT have current, factual information, CAN NOT have information that is not based on hearsay (he gets a fax from a law office somewhere, then testifies from it -- I thought there were "Best Evidence" rules. He CAN NOT tell jurors, what life in prison is like today or last night or October 21, when Rhonda Osborne was murdered by a LIFER/TRUSTIE. It happened in the infamous "Texas 7" unit, the one Fitzgerald shows a video of and tells juries how safe prison is.

I wonder why prosecutors don't put his feet to the fire and make him tell the jury that the only reason he's doing what he's doing is for the money. (Tommy L. and Lee Hon have done well at this, by the way, but there are other cases where he shows up.)

Friends in the fight, when you get your free, yes, free copy of Vol 3 of "Future Danger?" from TDCAA, please read at least a few pages of it, especially on the section provided by Greg Miller on expert witnesses. It could help a lot, really.

End of ramble, at least until the next tragedy that causes people to say "Oh, maybe there is violence in the Texas penitentiary..."


Somebody get me an Alka Seltzer.

By the way, the Houston Chronicle news article that John referred to, describing the killing of Rhonda Osborne, has a typo or mistake, you make the call: the killer inmate was not received in the prison system in 1998; he had been there for about 20 years, with a good disciplinary record --that's how he got to be a trustie. You see, defense experts say that having a good disciplinary record in prison proves that such an inmate is absolutely not a future danger. But it only takes one act of violence, even 20 years later, to prove them wrong.

Thanks, A.P, that was an important detail. I wondered about that when I saw the article, figuring the defendant had been in the joint for a long time.

Death row guard injured in spear attack


Authorities probing how weapon got onto high-security prison
By Mike Ward

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Tuesday, November 23, 2004


A condemned murderer on death row armed with a 25-inch, homemade spear injured a prison guard Tuesday after narrowly missing another death row prisoner he was trying to attack, officials said.


Authorities immediately launched an investigation into how Pablo Melendez Jr., 25, was able to make the spear � with an inch-long head made from a sharpened piece of metal � on a cellblock that is among the prison system's most secure.


Officials said the high-security Polunsky Unit just outside Livingston, east of Huntsville in East Texas, was placed on lockdown after the 11:35 a.m. attack that sent Correctional Officer Bradley Davison to the hospital with a head wound.


A preliminary investigation showed that Davison was escorting handcuffed death row convict Robert Lynn Pruett back to his cell when the spear � its shaft made of rolled-up paper with a sharpened head � shot from Melendez's cell and struck the guard on the right side of his head. Officials said Davison suffered a two-inch wound along his scalp near the right temple.


The injured officer immediately summoned help, and other officers moved Pruett to safety and recovered the spear. Davison was transported by ambulance to a hospital in Livingston, where he required stitches and was expected to be released Tuesday evening, according to Mike Viesca, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.


John Moriarty, the prison system's inspector general, said his office was investigating the incident. Ethnic tensions between the two convicts were being investigated as a possible motive in the attack, officials said. Pruett is white, and Melendez is Hispanic.


Prison records show Melendez, 29, was sentenced to death for the September 1994 shooting death of Michael Sanders, 29, during a robbery in Fort Worth. Sanders and another man had stopped at a car wash to use a pay phone when Melendez approached them and demanded money, then opened fire. The second victim was shot in the neck but recovered, police said.


Pruett, 25, is awaiting execution for the December 1999 slaying of a correctional officer at the McConnell Unit outside Beeville. At the time of that killing, Pruett was serving a life sentence for murder with a deadly weapon stemming from a Houston attack.


Officials said Melendez has been on death row since May 1996, and Pruett has been there since April, 2002. Neither has a pending execution date, officials said.


Tuesday's attack came a month after Rhonda Osborne, a 33-year-old prison clerk, was assaulted and killed by convict Gary Laskowski at the Connally Unit outside Kenedy, near San Antonio. Laskowski, serving a life sentence for aggravated sexual assault from Nueces County, killed himself after the attack by slashing his neck and wrists.


The Polunsky prison, located five miles southwest of Livingston, was opened in 1993 and has a maximum capacity of 2,900 offenders, including 436 men on death row.

So, how could this happen, A.P.?

John and others who might face "mitigation" and non-dangerousness-of-prisons experts (and anyone else interested or lurking):

The "spear" was what convicts call "warheads," or homemade knife tips that can be launched from inside cells, even Ad Seg cells, where a felon is locked 23 hours a day, no contact with other inmates etc., etc. You've heard it all before.

Convicts can make crude slingshots, which are actually better than many store-bought ones, and "shoot" the warheads from inside their cells, through the foodslots and into the bodies of passersby. It's happened many times before, but rarely gets publicity until it happens on death row. Actually, several guards have been stabbed on death row, but the media doesn't always find that interesting enough to report.

Somebody should write a book about prison violence, and then the public, including future jurors could be informed and recognize a veracity-challenged witness pretending to know about what really happens in our state's prisons.

By the way, thanks for asking: You all remember the female prison employee who was murdered on 10-21-2004 at the Connally Unit, the home of the Texas 7? She was a 33-year-old single mother of a special needs child who couldn't make ends meet by working at Wal Mart. She got a job a few years back at the prison, and a convicted rapist of 18 years behind bars became fixated on her. He murdered her then killed himself. But, a mitigation expert in the person of retired warden Susan Perryman Evans, showed up in two capital trials in Collin County, for the defense of course, and she testified that "...the woman was having an affair with the inmate and died...". Folks, she was not challenged in the first trial (not a Collin County case, but one on a change of venue), so the jury heard that and I guess believed her. But in the Saldano case, Evans testified to that and I was able to hear her with my own ears, and I almost had a coronary right there.

You see, that was like saying Laci Peterson was sleeping around with OJ, so Scott had her killed. Folks, there is NO evidence that the victim in that murder case was having a relationship with her killer! That was investigated right off the bat, as in any other homicide, and NOTHING developed indicating a relationship between the two. When the $100/hour defense witness Evans was taken on re-direct, the defense lawyer said, "So that woman was having an affair and she died, right?" And, Evans said, "That's what I heard."

Now, you tell me, why can she get away with "That's what I heard" the key word being 'heard' there and be allowed to testify, and testify to something that is not true, and command several thousand dollars from the taxpayers for doing so? But I have to get on the stand and tell the truth, after trying to convince a judge that I know what I'm talking about... Will someone please help this uneducated fellow from south Georgia understand this paradox?

I leave you with this tidbit: the warhead was manually operated and shot with run-of-the-mill, available-to-convict materials. What about the "zip gun," an explosive device that actually shot a projectile in the manner of a short-barrelled rifle, that was made in Ad Seg at the Eastham Unit (the shooter pled for 30 years)? Why wasn't that news?

A.P., the best advice I can give in avoiding the type of hearsay garbage that Evans and Fitzgerald espouse is to take advantage of the opportunity that we have to hear these so-called "prison violence experts" outside the presence of the jury in a Kelly/Daubert hearing. From personal experience, I know how exhausted one can be when you're getting near the end of a capital murder trial. It's so tempting to just skip the Rule 702 hearing and either stipulate to the "experts" qualifications or trust that you'll handle the "expert" on cross. DON'T DO IT!!! The information that you can get from such a hearing is invaluable. Even though the judge may get impatient, hold their feet to the fire. We're absolutely entitled to know what their opinions are going to be and what the facts and data are that they're relying on. Make them produce the records they were furnished, studies, articles, treatises supporting their opinions; tests administered to the defendant; and notes from any interviews with the defendant. This is especially true when dealing with psychologists and psychiatrists who have a tendency sometimes to stray away from their field of expertise. Much of what Fitzgerald and Evans want to testify to can be dispensed with by way of objection during a 702 hearing. At worst, you can get a head start in planning your cross-examination. It may take extra effort, but nothing can be more satisfying that taking a defense witness at the punishment phase of a capital trial and either destroying his/her credibility in front of a jury or turning him/her into a State's witness.

I've stayed out of all the conversations because AP is much more articular (and he can spell and knows english), but why is it these "experts" can continue to give false information and nothing is done. If I got on the stand and lied, somebody would be trying to file on me for perjury. Somebody explain that to me. They listen to our (mine and AP) testimony but they continue to testify to the same false facts.