12 June 11

HELLO
FROM
MATTHEW JANKOWITZ

This is my third blog post. To show you how unfair our sentencing laws are, I'll explain to you some cases I know about.

A white bars (SF train) officer killed an innocent black passenger and received only two years in prison for "involuntary manslaughter", while a 20-year-old kid here at my prison got 16 years for involuntary manslaughter. And he killed his attacker in self-defense.

Also, we have a lot of lifers in prison because of the three strikes law, which is increasing the prison population a lot. The parole board never lets them out. The parole board consists of retired C.O.'s and police officers.

A lot of inmates that are serving life sentences under the three strikes law received their third strike for minor nonviolent felonies like stealing a candy bar or bicycle. Some inmates committed their third strike over twenty years after their second strike.

An inmate here got his third strike for a nonviolent felony for commercial burglary of a vacant car wash at 3 PM, and he was just the driver parked across the street. When the car wash's alarm went off, his partner at the car wash just took off and left him behind. His first two strikes were just minor burglaries when he was 16 years old. Now, he's serving 25 years to life.
He's been locked up since he was 16 and now he'll be 41 this year—still locked up.

Another friend of mine was locked up for over 26 years and finally released by the California courts because he was completely innocent of his crime. He had been locked up since he was a teenager.

California's legal and court systems are screwed up, unjust, and unfair. There are innocent people locked up, and the sentences are way too long. And they wonder why California prisons are overcrowded.

Feel free to write me or make comments.