THE CDC AS A STATE-WITHIN-A-STATE
To call the California Department of Corrections a mini-police state would be to denigrate it. The denigrating word would be "mini." With upwards of 200,000 disenfranchised subjects, thousands of staff, a large stable of compliant legislators, a well-stocked armory, including various kinds of noxious gases--and money enough to guarantee the election of the present governor, California's Correctional apparatus can already claim status as a virtual state-within-a state.
This governor has promulgated a strikingly autocratic edict: a ban on interviews with prisoners by members of the press. With this still-unchallenged attempt to gag the media, California has taken another step toward a closed fortress state.
The Governor's appointed CDC Director does not lag far behind. When federal prosecutors procured grand-jury indictments of 8 correctional officers for instigating gladiator contests, shooting several and killing at least one prisoner, Director Terhune authorized public payment for their defense. When questioned by Andy Furillo of the Sacramento Bee , he reportedly said that his decision to spend $1 million of our money to defend the "Corcoran Eight" was simple: "He thinks," wrote Furillo, "that the officers are innocent." This act effectively reduces the CDC Director to a figurehead and proclaims his role as a mouthpiece. With it, he sets himself up as a judge seeking, in effect, to abrogate the decision of a federal grand jury. These are large powers to be claimed by an appointed official. How was this accomplished?
While the nominal director of the CDC is a civilian appointed by the governor, many observers agree that the real head is Don Novey, the Shogun-type official who heads the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). This personage welcomed Director Terhune's unilateral decision to spend tax dollars in defense of the 8 indicted officers, of whom a US Attorney said, "They used their authority to sponsor a blood sport." With forthright bluntness, the union leader pilloried the federal prosecutor in language rarely used by a law enforcement person about another. He said, "The weasels are moving in to dirty up prison workers."
When told of it, the governor, beneficiary of a large campaign contribution from the Correctional Union, discreetly left it to a spokesperson to say, "The governor is supporting his director." Under this double shield of immunity, CDC custodians not only got away with murder; they also got away with fatal assaults on due process. See, for instance, the following transcript of an interview conducted by one Lt. Rosano with prisoner Demian Johnson. Johnson cites it verbatim in a lawsuit he is preparing against the CDC.
Lt. Rosano was pressing the prisoner to admit membership in a prison gang, and also to give information on his hand-held list of other "suspected members":
Rosano: What can you tell me about [various Black Guerrila Family members]?
Johnson: Nothing. I don't know any of them, and I make it a point to stay out of any gang's business.
Rosano: Are you a BGF, CRIP, PIRRU, or 415?
Johnson: No, No, No, and NO.
Rosano: Well, I think you are a BGF associate. I could even say you're a member.
Johnson: I was cleared of all gang affiliation at San Quentin. I've already been through this.
Rosano: Yeah, well, them jerks [officials] screwed up. I been on your case for a while. It has taken a long time, but I'm sure I can make it stick this time. I know you are going to appeal it, but I think I got enough to lock you in the hole. . . . You were identified by a confidential informant as a BGF member-even though the source was unreliable. . . .
Johnson: I have not now, nor have I ever been, involved with the BGF, or any other prison gang.
Rosano [to the officer who had brought Johnson]: Get him out of my face.
It requires some hands-on experience in the malodorous bowels of corrections to know how sinister this is. Had Johnson given the demanded misinformation, one or more convicts would have been jacketed as BGF members. Johnson would have had to live with himself and the population as a captive snitch under the indispensable but dubious protection of Custody. And any shred of personal integrity would have had to be sacrificed. Johnson chose years in the hole instead. And Officer Rosano, if ever his extortion became the subject of a criminal or civil action, could count on the Director's assurance of a defense paid for by you and me. One might question the cost-effectiveness of this perk to indicted officials.
One might also wish--though probably in vain--that this piece of interrogation--not up to the standard of Sherlock Holmes, but wholly acceptable in Stalinist Russia or Hitlerite Germany-could be brought to the attention of the CDC Director or the Governor, who "stands behind him." Johnson paid for his refusal to become Judas by years in Maximum and bore the added cost of being shot in a gladiatorial contest in Corcoran Prison. Sic transit gloria justicia in California.
Johnson's case is typical. Untold numbers of righteous convicts are serving hard time in places like Pelican Bay because they refused offers to save themselves at the expense of their brothers. When their stories are told and believed, the Rosanos of the world, their compliant superiors, and their complicit Chief Executive may have their come-uppance at the hands of the citizens they have betrayed. But that time now appears to be far off. It may be their innocent children who will have to live with a disgrace so adhesive that it may well extend to Biblical generations.
The behind-the-scenes crimes and conspiracies of CDC officials remind one of the successes achieved by the quasi-legal entities supported by the pre-Hitler German government in the 1930s. These popular assassins eventually took formal power, and creatures like Goering and Himmler assumed catastrophic legal control of the German Reich. Thus was the Germany of Goethe, Heine, Einstein, and Freud delivered back to the Vandals.
The goal of all behind-the-scenes dictatorships has always been to assume the mantle and immunity of public office. For those who enjoy reading the entrails of illicit power, the auguries are auspicious. The informal police state wishes to become THE State. And why not? Distinguished models are available. One recalls that photogenic pillar of law and order who went from Hollywood to Sacramento, ending up in Washington. But there are still obstacles. There are those who still regard the Constitution with more than nostalgic affection. Not all legislators have tacitly consented to such usurpations as the Governor's unconstitutional nullification of parole for "lifers," even though some--supported by the Guard Union--have abdicated their oversight role.
The hidden movers of the CDC still must negotiate some obstacles en route to full legitimation. Critics will have to be smeared and discredited as "outside agitators." That failing, they will have to be menaced by threats of libel suits.* And the judiciary as a whole, being relatively unpurchasable in an era of democracy-gone-sour, is not yet for sale. But the time of accounting may well be far off. Michael Kroll, a correctional prophet in this place and time of wilderness, has written:
The slave-owning public is not clamoring to know what its hired guns are doing behind steel doors surrounded by barred gates and razor-ribbon. Nor is there much interest in how the 4 billion dollar budget . . . is being spent. What is the governor trying to hide--and from whom? (PNS, Sept. 10, 1999)
Who remembers that aphorism about eternal vigilance as the price of liberty? Is anyone listening?
*Note: In the 1970s, the author, a private citizen, and several colleagues, were sued by a high officer of the LAPD for libel and defamation of character. The suit, instigated by the Police Union, was dropped on the plaintiff's sole and deplored initiative when he learned he was being lied to by his sponsors, who had hoped to use him as a cat's paw. It was a rare and righteous action. Needless to say, we respect that L.A. cop.