Christian Parenti, Guarding Their Silence, SALON.COM, Nov. 22, 1999.
The acquittal earlier
this month of four California corrections officers charged with arranging
for a young inmate to be raped by Corcoran State Prison's notorious "Booty
Bandit" was the result of a massive legal and political show of force
on the part of the state's prison guards union, prisoners' advocates say.
The four guards were facing nine years in prison.
State prosecutors
alleged that in March 1993, the four Corcoran State Prison Security Housing
Unit officers, led by Sgt. Robert Alan Decker, deliberately transferred
inmate Eddie Dillard to the cell of Wayne Robertson, aka the "Booty
Bandit" knowing that the younger, smaller inmate would be raped.
At trial, Robertson testified that he had indeed beaten and sodomized
Dillard for two days because guards had said that Dillard needed to "learn
how to do his time."
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