CA prisons deny legal material

I am a prisoner with an active appeal in process. I have been in Administrative Segregation since July 12, 2002. I have made numerous requests to receive my legal property so I can submit my writ of habeas corpus before my time constraint is up. I did not know my exact date of my legal deadline or my case number by memory so I was denied my legal property. I wrote an inmate appeal CDC 602 complaining about my legal material and even asked the "appeal coordinator" to treat this matter as an emergency appeal being that my deadline is close, my time constraint could be up without me knowing, and my appeal will be lost because of the slow methods of regular CDC 602 appeals process. I was denied this by the appeals coordinator.

I then sent my CDC 602 to the informal level so the matter could be resolved. I spoke to Administrative Segregation Sergeant Ramose, when I was interviewed I explained to him that if the property officers would bring my legal material to Ad Seg I can show officers my legal deadline. But instead of doing what I requested Sgt. Ramose had me fill out some more request for legal property which were denied because I did not know my case numbers or my deadline that was needed in the request and to add to that, Sg. Ramose never returned the CDC 602 to me after the informal level time constraints was up. This forcing me to write another CDC 602 and waste away more time that was needed in preparing my writ of Habeas Corpus.

After getting into a pen battle with the appeals' coordinator about how I've already been to the informal level in this matter and that ad seg sergeant never returned CDC 602 to me, the CDC 602 was sent back to the informal level to be heard by another sergeant. I then wrote a complaint against the Appeals Coordinator for hindering my appeals process. But I never received a response from him and when I send complaints to appeals coordinators superiors I still don't receive a response. When I did receive my legal material it was incomplete and a week away from my court appointed deadline. So I was forced to fight for my freedom by submitting to the courts an incomplete writ of Habeas Corpus.

Property officers told me upon giving me my legal material that "my legal material that I didn't get is under investigation by CDC because it was altered." I asked when it would be returned. Property Officer said "I may never see that legal work again." I still have a CDC 602 in on trying to obtain my legal material. This is a great injustice because CDC officials has held on to my legal property up until a week before my deadline and then they still hold on to my legal material claiming that it has been altered so they are investigating it and I may never see that legal work again.

This is denying me my right to fight for my freedom completely by holding on to my court transcripts. It makes you wonder if the transcripts they are holding has the only evidence to free you of your conviction so it's under investigation because it's altered, how long will this investigation keep you from fighting for your freedom? And if you never receive this evidence you are a free man spending the rest of your life in prison for a crime you never committed making you a product of a "Great Injustice." It is a constant battle, not only am I fighting the courts for my freedom, I'm also fighting "California Department of Corrections" for the material to fight for my freedom which is my personal property they refuse to let go to let me have.

I as well as others could lose all appeal rights because of correctional officers deciding what legal work you can and can not have and what they will take to investigate. You fill out these forms and the only way the correctional officers can find your legal property is if they read your personal property documents. So your right to privacy is being violated by correctional officers because of their unsupervised search for your legal material.

It shouldn't be this way, instead of CDC rehabilitating prisoner's to function better when we're free, they fight us hard to keep us in chains. Constantly, we are forced to either pick up the pen, the sword and or act like animals in the system to get anything done (Accomplished) by CDC officials. We must always remember that we are the struggle and as long as we stay strong the struggle will continue.

--a prisoner in CA, November 2002


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