MEDIA

SELECTIONS FROM CHARLES CARBONE, ESQ. IN NEWS ARTICLES

SF WEEKLY - 2007

Charles was featured as the cover story on an issue dedicated to parole matters and life inmates.

Read the entire article.

ABC NEWS - 2007

Charles was featured in a nightly broadcast of SF's ABC affiliate on the issue of prison overcrowding.

NY TIMES - AUGUST 2006

"He has been in solitary confinement in a small concrete cell for almost two decades. He paints with a brush he created with plastic wrap, foil and his own hair. He makes paint by leaching the colors from M&M’s in little plastic containers that once held packets of grape jelly. His canvases are postcards.

It is not clear whether the prison will stop Mr. Johnson from creating paintings. In a recent postcard to his mother, Mr. Johnson wrote that prison officials have stopped him from mailing his art to his family, friends and supporters.

A lawyer for Mr. Johnson, Charles Carbone, said he was considering bringing a legal challenge."

Read the entire article.

LONG BEACH PRESS - JANUARY 2007

"In a move that could make thousands of prisoners eligible for shorter sentences and flood the courts with appeals for new trials, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down a key part of California's sentencing law. The court ruled in a 6-3 vote that a California law allowing judges to impose stricter sentences based on facts not presented to a jury at trial was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruling sends a message to the lower courts that juries, not judges, must decide the length of a prisoner's sentence. Prisoner rights attorney Charles Carbone called the decicsion monumental and said it could re-shape the criminal justice system in California."

PRESS DEMOCRAT - APRIL 2006

"The San Francisco Chronicle reported Woodford was leaving because the governor would not give her the job permanently. ‘It's yet another correctional administrator jumping off a sinking ship,’ said Charles Carbon, a lawyer for California Prison Focus, a prisoner rights group."

ASSOCIATED PRESS - MAY 2006

"Charles Carbone, an attorney for the California Prison Focus, a prisoner rights advocacy group, said officials need to better define the term ‘sex offender’ so those who don't pose a threat to communities are allowed ot return home. But, he added, ‘everyone recognizes that you have to err on the side of caution.’ "

SF CHRONICLE - 2005

Advocates for prisoners' rights said the policy switch put added pressure on already overcrowded prisons and ballooning prison budgets.

Charles Carbone, an attorney with California Prison Focus in San Francisco, said sending violators back to prison "doesn't serve public safety, and it absolutely doesn't save taxpayers money."

"Most parolees are violating their paroles on minor drug offenses and minor reporting offenses," he said Saturday. "They are not doing armed robberies and such."

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS – November 2005

The New York Daily News reports Michael Jackson would face at least three years in prison if convicted of molesting a 12-year-old, but any jail time could be a death sentence. "Among the rank-and-file, child molesters fall below rapists," said Charles Carbone, a lawyer with California Prison Focus. "In prison culture, a child molester is the worst of the worst." Donald Specter, director of the California Prison Law Office added, "Michael Jackson would have a tough time in prison, no question about it."

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO – May 2005

"Prisons are one of the most racially unfriendly environments in the country," Carbone said. "It's especially difficult for Jewish prisoners who are seen as white, but due to their history and culture, they're obviously non-white."

It is too soon to predict the outcome of the suit, said Carbone, whose organization has represented other inmates with similar complaints. But if successful, Liebb's suit could severely challenge the way cultural definitions are assigned in prisons.

"If it's a victorious case, it will definitely have a precedence in the California court system," Carbone said. "Counting other prison systems, which typically learn by watching, it will have a far-reaching effect in judicial prejudices." The practice of racial segregation within prisons also is legal, and to many, is the easiest way to promote safety within prisons, Carbone said.
"They realize inmates segregate themselves according to race," Carbone said. "Institutions have a 'conquer and divide' approach to race. If blacks are fighting Latinos, there's a recognition that prisoners will not share a commonality - they will fight amongst themselves."

ABC NEWS – January 2006

Charles Carbone: "It makes profound sense to let the cameras roll and to document whatever kind of misconduct or altercation or assault may be taking place on prison grounds."
But surveillance cameras can also protect guards. Case in point -- a massive riot at Pelican Bay six years ago. One inmate raises a knife to stab another. The tape proves the tower officer was justified in firing a fatal shot.

ASSOCIATED PRESS – March 2005

Charles Carbone, a human rights attorney in California, attributes the
trend to the hefty price tag that comes with such restrictive prisons.
He said they tend to be much more expensive since paid employees
maintain the facility instead of inmates and prison trusties. The
California Prison Focus organization estimates that a super
maximum-security prison in California costs $57,000 per prisoner per
year, compared to $26,000 per inmate in a regular prison.
"There's also going to be a cost increase because of all these mental
health issues," Carbone said. "It costs money to take care of these
prisoners."

ASSOCIATED PRESS – October 2004
But a lawyer who has represented some Mexican Mafia members in lawsuits
over conditions at the Pelican Bay prison say the Department of
Corrections is overreacting.

"I think the department is hypersensitive and somewhat paranoid when it
comes to any innocuous communication or transfer of money between
inmates," attorney Charles Carbone said, adding that the Mafia's
strength has diminished in recent years.

SAN LUIS OBISPO HERALD – October 2004

"The investigation is ongoing and we encourage full cooperation," Charles Carbone, a prisoner-rights lawyer retained by Riley's family, said in a written statement. "We welcome information or contact from anyone who might help solve Mike's death while in the care of Salinas correctional officers."

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS – May 2005

All of this points to a trend, says Charles Carbone, a prisoner-rights attorney with California Prison Focus.
"You're creating an organizational culture that is hostile to your inmate population," he explains. Inmate services, medical treatment and use of force may indirectly affect one another, Carbone says, when they contribute to a negative environment.

"Two deaths in any calendar year for a county jail is a significant number," the attorney says. "Three or more deaths per year that can be attributed to use of force or excessive force show a pattern that should be a cause for alarm." In Santa Clara County, there have been three in just over six months.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE – August 2004.

Soledad, Monterey County -- They arrive in the dead of night, parking alongside a frontage road with no name.
“Prisoners’ families should not be treated like criminals to visit their loved ones in prison, Charles Carbone, an attorney with California Prison Focus.

OAKLAND TRIBUNE – June 2004

"The hope is that this will keep thousands of people out of SHUs," said Charles Carbone, a San Francisco attorney who represents the inmate-rights group California Prison Focus. "It's been a system that's been prone to abuse and this settlement should change that."
The lawsuit was filed 10 years ago by Steve Castillo, a prisoner who is serving a 35-year sentence for attempted murder and has spent a decade in the secured housing unit at Pelican Bay State Prison near Crescent City.

MEDILL NEWS SERVICE – 2004

"Prisons in California are one of the most racially charged environments on the planet," said Charles Carbone, a lawyer with California Prison Focus, a San Francisco prisoners rights group. "When you have a state that embraces and institutionalizes race, you end up prolonging and exacerbating racial divides."
Carbone said one California prison is so preoccupied with race that it keeps a separate pair of hair clippers for prisoners of each racial group.
"When these people return to society, they tend to hold more bias than when they arrived," he said.

AMERICAN RADIO WORKS – September 2004

Charles Carbone: Well, the debriefing process puts inmates in harm's way. And it needlessly puts inmates in harm's way because it says to them, "The only real way out of the gang is to snitch on your friends, to snitch on the people who are immediately around you, and people who have proven to be very violent and very capable of violent behavior." So it's a sure way for the prisoner to make a lot of enemies.
Carbone says California should copy states, like Connecticut, that allow gang members to drop out and leave the supermax without becoming informants. He says that would address another weakness in the Pelican Bay program: a large majority of gang members refuse to debrief and remain in the SHU without access to rehabilitation programs. But prison staff say they have to require inmates to debrief, otherwise some men might pretend to leave the gang in order to infiltrate the program. Pelican Bay Warden Rich Kirkland says the prison is only asking inmates to come clean.

ASIA WEEK – March 2003
Asian American Studies Denied to San Quentin Inmates
“The department has so many rules,” Carbone said. “If you were a correctional officer and you were to walk into any cell, you would find something in there that’s going to violate a rule. They identified these guys as troublemakers because they were advocating reforms for the San Quentin public programs — specifically to have ethnic studies classes added to the curriculum.”
“The problem is that they don’t want prisoners to have any say in formulating departmental policy, so any time prisoners speak up and say they’re going to assert their rights, it’s going to be a threat to the institution,” Carbone argues. “The prison doesn’t care if San Quentin prison has Asian studies or not. They care about having the sole discretion over the nature of the curriculum and this is not subject to negotiation.”

SAN FRANCISCO CRONICLE – May 2003
"The way it is now, you don't actually have to do anything wrong ... you just have to associate with the wrong people," said Charles Carbone, a San Francisco attorney aiding the hunger strikers.".

LA TIMES – April 2002

"It's a gouging of family members, those who have never committed a crime," said Charles Carbone, a lawyer with Prison Focus, a prisoner rights group in San Francisco.
Inmates and their families have few options. Regular contact is possible only through highly restricted visits and phone calls out, which must be made by inmates, either collect or with special calling cards.

SAN FRANCICO CHRONICLE – June 1999

``Right now, the phone companies are taking advantage of a vulnerable community,'' said UCAN's Charles Carbone. ``They're saying it's OK to bilk families of prisoners and overcharge them because they're a vulnerable community and they probably won't do anything about it. That's not right.''

UCAN's Carbone said California should follow Virginia's lead and consider lowering the surcharges and getting rid of the bidding system.

``The families of prisoners shouldn't be going broke just trying to stay in contact,'' Carbone said. ``If nothing else, the cost of the calls should be tied to the cost of providing the service.''