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Posts published in December 2009

From the AVA Archives: Why is Billy Mayfield Still in Jail?

Because Jerry Brown, State Attorney General, is keeping him there. Billy Mayfield should have been out in 2002 when he'd completed his 17-year sentence for second degree murder, not only completed it but completed it…

Off the Record 12/9/2009

THIS GUY SAID to me the other day, “You know what the problem is with this county?” Limo Libs running everything? I guessed. “Nope,” he said, “it's our government bringing in all these Mexicans and…

Letters to the Editor 12/9/2009

HEAVENLY MONK Editor — Steve Heilig wishes he could separate Thelonius Monk’s art from his mental disorder (“Monk For The Record,” AVA, December 2, 2009): “We'll never really know what he might have sounded like…

Credit for Time Served

Dear AVA, Yesterday I was taking a shower here at Soledad Prison thinking about your newspaper. Two minutes later they called my name for mail. I emerged from the shower and lo and behold the…

How Much is Enough?

Editor, I left Mule Creek State Prison only to be transferred to another one of the state’s many prisons that they have built from one end of California to the other from San Diego and…

‘Murder Is Messy’

“Murder is messy,” Judge Ron Brown commented, more to himself it seemed than to the courtroom as defense attorney Katharine Elliott tried to keep a jury from seeing the death photos of Enoc Cruz, 21, when…

War Cries From a Defeated Man

Ritual trumphalism about America’s righteous mission in the closing sentences of his speech did not dispel the distinct impression during President Obama’s 33-minute address to cadets at West Point Tuesday night that we were listening…

Tim Lincecum’s Pot Bust: Stigma Strikes Out

Only in the San Francisco Bay Area did the story cross over from the sports pages to the news pages: on October 30, Tim Lincecum, the Giants' ace right hander, was stopped by a Washington…

Gimme Shelter

The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors heard from the County's shelter administrators last Tuesday. Being intimately familiar with outdoor living, Mr. McEwen is co-authoring this report. The only person at the meeting who had anything…

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