Elderly California inmate kills self after forced release

[iamwiz82]

Sad

Reminds me of Shawshank Redemption

 

[txgixer]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Sad

Reminds me of Shawshank Redemption

Undoubtedly . . . .

Brooks as here, so was Red

 

[smp]

Yeah I just read this in the paper .. it made me sad.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

If his relations with the guards were good enough I'd have thought the prison would have just hired him permanently after the verdict so he could have stayed. From that article it seems like he was actually quite a good influence on the inmates.

Hmm, isn't that a nice controversial idea: combining a home for the elderly with a prison?

 

[tcsenter]

Hire him to do what? He was partially blind, dying from prostate cancer, and could hardly walk.

I couldn't help but feel terrible for the old man, that he would actually prefer to spend his last days in prison because there was nothing or nobody for him on the outside. Wow, it probably doesn't get any more crappier than that.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
Hire him to do what? He was partially blind, dying from prostate cancer, and could hardly walk.

I couldn't help but feel terrible for the old man, that he would actually prefer to spend his last days in prison because there was nothing or nobody for him on the outside. Wow, it probably doesn't get any more crappier than that.

no it does not.

My future holds nothing," he said. "At my age and my physical condition, it's like being dead while you're still alive."

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
Hire him to do what? He was partially blind, dying from prostate cancer, and could hardly walk.

I couldn't help but feel terrible for the old man, that he would actually prefer to spend his last days in prison because there was nothing or nobody for him on the outside. Wow, it probably doesn't get any more crappier than that.

Hire him to sit there as a human being. The rest of the prisoners didn't see him as a master criminal, but did feel a human bond with him. What would you prefer, them to get more human while locked up, or them to discuss the best ways to rob/murder/rape?

 

[djheater]

The difference between the character Brooks and this guy is that Brooks spent 40 years (IIRC) in jail and this guy was in jail a little over a year!!!

He killed a man when he was 91... crazy old dude.
~~edit (whoops... just stabbed.... not killed...)

I think he was messed up. Can any of you come up with a realllly good reason he should have been allowed to stay?... Is that what prisons are for?

 

[TallBill]

well.. he didt kill someone.. he stabbed em

 

[Lvis]

Doesn't look like he killed the guy, it just says he stabbed him.

 

[Rakkis]

While I feel bad about his outlook on life at the end, I don't understand why some of you are defending him. He stabbed someone... you don't do that for fun. You do that with the intend to harm. As djheater pointed out, it's not as if he was in jail for tens of years. He was in there for (arguably) a ballpark fair amount of time for his action.

I remember reading something in the paper a couple months back about a proposal to make a holding facility for CA's aging prisoners. I think this would be a good thing. And in cases such as this, where the inmate has no family and no way to make a living at such a great age, it would be a needed social service for people to be allowed to stay in the prison doing whatever work they were able to do. Be it gardening, cleaning the facility, speaking to children about their experiences, and yes.. to those that could, some physical work.

I just don't mean 90-year olds. The main argument was that older prisoners (those getting into their 60's.. where you still have a lot of capacity and energy; just not enough to defend yourself against angry people in their 20-30s) were being abused by others and also had very different needs than most of the prisoners.

 

[Jal]

>>stabbing his 70-year-old landlord in April 2001<<

He was only in jail for less than a year.. He stabbed someone.. He should have been in longer... This is not the story of a long time prison inmate. It is the story of an old fart that got what he deserved, if that.