SAN QUENTIN (CBS SF) — Two death row inmates at San Quentin State Prison died Friday at outside hospitals from what appear to be complications related to COVID-19.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation identified the inmates as Scott Thomas Erskine, 57, and Manuel Machado Alvarez, 59.
Erskine had been on death row since 2004 for the murder of two young boys in San Diego, while Machado had been on death row since 1989 for a string of crimes in Sacramento including rape and murder.
There have been two other deaths of condemned inmates deaths amid an exploding number of coronavirus cases at the prison.
Richard Stitely, 71, was found unresponsive in his cell last week on June 29 and was confirmed Monday to have tested positive for COVID-19.
He was sentenced for the 1990 rape and murder of a 47-year-old woman in Los Angeles County.
Joseph S. Cordova, 75, was found dead in his cell on July 1.
He had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in San Pablo.
As of Friday afternoon, there were a total of 1,381 infections, with 944 of them occurring within the last two weeks.
Dozens of inmates have been treated at Bay Area hospitals under heavy security, including Marin General, Seton Medical Center and Saint Francis Hospital in San Francisco.
The CDCR said there are currently 722 people on California’s death row.
Source: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com, Staff, July 3, 2020
Convict in East Bay child rape, murder dies on San Quentin death row
A 76-year-old inmate convicted of the rape and murder of an 8-year-old San Pablo girl died Wednesday, authorities said.
At 4:08 p.m., Joseph S. Cordova was found unresponsive in his single cell at San Quentin Prison, according to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation statement Wednesday night. Guards called for an ambulance and attempted to provide medical assistance. He was pronounced dead at 4:22 p.m.
Cordova, who had been on death row since May 22, 2007, showed no signs of trauma, and the Marin County coroner will determine a cause of death and COVID-19 status. His next of kin was notified Wednesday evening, the CDCR said.
The coroner and state Office of the Inspector General still are investigating last week’s death of 71-year-old death row inmate Richard E. Stitely, who was found unresponsive in his single-occupant cell. Stitley had been on San Quentin’s death row since 1992 for a rape and murder conviction.
Some San Quentin prisoners have been sent to Bay Area medical centers for treatment in the wake of a COVID-19 outbreak that has sickened more than a thousand prisoners.
Cordova was one of 725 people awaiting execution on California’s death row, though Gov. Gavin Newsom effectively has suspended the death penalty here.
Cordova was convicted and sentenced to death five years after a cold DNA hit revealed him to be the suspect in the rape and murder of 8-year-old Cannie Bullock in 1979.
Cordova got away with the crime for more than 20 years but at the time of his arrest was serving a prison sentence in Colorado for a sexual assault on a 12-year-old.
Cannie was murdered on Aug. 24, 1979, after her mother left her alone at her San Pablo home to go to a bar that evening. When she returned in the early morning hours, Cannie was missing, and her blood-smeared robe was on the living room floor.
Cannie’s body was discovered under a blanket in the backyard.
A witness, Cannie’s mother’s roommate, later would testify that Cordova was an acquaintance — known for having a methamphetamine addiction — who would occasionally come by the home.
Judge Peter Spinetta, who handed down the death sentence, said at sentencing that Cordova likely coerced his way into the home since there was no sign of forced entry.
“At no point has Mr. Cordova evinced any remorse for the crime, not only denying that he perpetrated it in the face of all-but-conclusive DNA evidence to the contrary, but not even showing any sympathy for what happened to the child,” Spinetta said, according to a Contra Costa Times story on the sentencing.
Before the sentencing, Cordova said his appeal process will last longer as a death row inmate and that the single cells given to condemned inmates will keep him from mixing with other convicts.
“Death row is a little more safer,” he said at the time, adding that because he has diabetes and hepatitis, he expected to die in prison either way.
The state Supreme Court unanimously upheld Cordova’s conviction in October 2015.
Source: eastbaytimes.com, Staff, July 2, 2020
COVID-19 ‘Tears Through’ San Quentin, Infecting Nearly 200 on California’s Death Row
Nearly 200 death-row prisoners in California have been infected by a coronavirus outbreak that, news reports say, has “torn through” the nation’s largest death row.
Fueled by an influx of infected prisoners during a prison transfer at the end of May 2020, the COVID-19 virus has exploded through San Quentin State Prison. As of June 29, at least 1,000 San Quentin prisoners had been infected, including 196 on death row. More than 1/4 of the state’s 725 death-row prisoners have now tested positive for the disease.
The outbreak killed Richard Stitely, 71, who was found dead in his cell on June 24 after exhibiting symptoms of the coronavirus. He was the first condemned California prisoner to die of COVID-19. Stitely had refused testing prior to his death, and prison officials would not confirm his cause of death. However, Marin County officials reported on June 29 that Stitely had posthumously tested positive for COVID-19.
89 San Quentin staff members have also tested positive.
Marylou Hillberg, a lawyer who is representing 2 men on death row, noted that California’s death-sentenced prisoners are especially vulnerable to COVID-19. “It’s an aging population on death row,” she said. “There’s a lot of folks who have medical conditions that make them especially fragile: heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, hypertension.” She added that she feels “totally helpless to do anything” for her clients in the midst of the outbreak.
In one month, San Quentin went from zero known infections of the novel coronavirus to more than 1,000. On May 30, 121 men were transferred from the California Institution for Men in Chino, which at the time had the state’s largest number of infected prisoners. Though prison officials claimed the men had been tested prior to the transfer, many had been tested weeks before the move without being retested. A federal judge overseeing medical treatment in California’s prisons called the transfer a “significant failure.” San Quentin has now surpassed Chino as the prison facility with the most COVID-19 cases, and it accounts for more than 20% of the total 4,800 confirmed cases in the entire California prison system. Twenty-three prisoner fatalities have been attributed to COVID-19 across the state, including 16 at the facility in Chino.
Public health experts from the University of California–Berkeley and the University of California–San Francisco warned prison officials in mid-June that San Quentin’s population would need to be cut by 50% to avoid a major outbreak. Some prisoners have received expedited parole, and prisons have halted intakes from local jails, but the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has not undertaken the kind of efforts recommended by public health experts. According to San Quentin officials, “Air-conditioned tent structures are in the process of being set up to help provide on-site locations for additional physical distancing in housing and for medical triage.”
Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Staff, July 2, 2020
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde