San Quentin State Prison

'Night Stalker' Richard Ramirez, Who Terrorized L.A. in 1985, is Dead

Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker" who terrorized Southern California in the summer of 1985 with a series of random and horrific home-invasion murders, has died, according to reports. KRON television in the Bay Area reports that the 53-year-old died of natural causes at San Quentin, where he awai ... More >>

The Best Concerts to See in L.A. This Weekend

Friday, April 13 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival EMPIRE POLO CLUB Although it's unlikely that the Rolling Stones and their sprawling entourage will descend on this sun-baked music festival for a surprise set, as was rumored earlier this year, there are still many intriguing storylines scatte ... More >>

Tattoo Nation Chronicles the History of the SoCal Ink Scene, From Danny Trejo to Ed Hardy

Cellphones in Your Butt: The Extreme Lengths Prisoners Take to Get Phones Inside California Prison

SamsungIs that a phone in your arse or are you just happy to see me?​At LA Weekly we've been all over the prison cellphone-smuggling story. It's gotten so bad that authorities have had to ask Facebook to cancel the accounts of people known to be behind bars. (They can get accounts through smar ... More >>

Luís J. Rodríguez's It Calls You Back: Famed L.A. Writer Pens Sequel to his Memoir on Gangs, Drugs and Violence

Like the late Chicano literary pioneer Raúl Salinas, the street-bred vernacular poet and political firebrand who adopted me as a teenager and helped steer me away from the streets and toward books, Luís J. Rodríguez has made a life-time of mentoring inner-city youth. Using his own escape from a v ... More >>

Nellie Goes Noir

Blogger Jailed Over Bad Beef Noodle Review

We've heard of restaurateurs having hissy fits over bad Yelp reviews and even kicking out newspaper reviewers, but jailing a blogger over a bad review? That would be insane... or would it? A Taiwanese blogger was recently sentenced to 30 days in detention, two years of probation and ordered her to ... More >>

Pan African Film Festival 2011

Documentaries shine at 19th annual event

Life Of Crime: Robbing For Records and Five Rock 'n' Roll Criminals

Les Rallizes Denudes -- Rock 'n' Roll Hijackers​ Via Gawker via the NY Post: Four men knocked off a series of laundromats, gas stations, and convenience stores earlier this week, making off with cash and cigarettes in hopes of getting money to start a record label. (180-gram vinyl is expensiv ... More >>

Johnny Cash's Guitar, Song Books, and San Quentin Jumpsuit Up for Auction

Johnny Cash's Guitar, Songbooks, and San Quentin Jumpsuit Up for Auction

Greenwood Brown, Jr, Southern Californian Scheduled For Execution In California Death Chamber, Gets Two More Weekdays To Live

Associated PressThe California death chamber.​Albert Greenwood Brown, Jr. was one of three Southern Californians cleared to meet his maker, and his execution was scheduled for Wednesday. But on Monday Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave the killer of a 15-year-old girl a 45-hour reprieve that woul ... More >>

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Picks Country Outlaw Merle Haggard for Hall of Fame

Country music outlaw Merle Haggard​Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the 2010 inductees of the California Hall of Fame today, with country music outlaw Merle Haggard making the honor roll, which strikes us as kind of funny. Possibly only in free-wheelin' California would a Republican, ... More >>

State Prison Doctors 'Working In A Third World Environment;' Preventable Deaths Rise 50 Percent

Ray Chavez for the CDC.Treating inmates at San Quentin State Prison.​Looking into a federal receiver's numbers on California's prison health-care system, KPCC (89.3 FM) found that while inmate deaths have declined for the second year in a row, the number of preventable deaths was up 50 percent ... More >>

Jesse James Hollywood: Penalty Deliberations Begin

Today the same Santa Barbara jurors who last week convicted former West Hills drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood of kidnapping and murder began deliberations over his sentence. He could be sent to the death house in San Quentin for his part in ordering the abduction and execution of 15-year-old Nicho ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Landmark Realty The Los Angeles Coliseum! San Quentin Prison! Orange County Fairgrounds! These and other hot properties must liquidate and are priced to move! See Governor Schwarzenegger for details. L.A. TimesA Sequel You Can Believe In Obama for President campaigners are morphing their 2008 moveme ... More >>

A Forgotten Director's Oddball Gem Screens at UCLA

Stage Raw: Arts Investments -- The Wallace Foundation and Alan Mandell

ARTS INVESTMENT: WALLACE FOUNDATION AND ALAN MANDELL The Wallace Foundation just announced a new study by the Rand Corporation that confirms what anybody with even half a brain already knows: The effects of arts programs in schools really do trickle up to the adult society in terms of quality o ... More >>

California Prisons' Big Group Hug

Under court order, races must co-exist

Q&A With The Realist's Paul Krassner at Chicago 10 Screening

"Communicate without compromise," says the man who coined "yippie"

Sean Penn, With His Own Two Eyes

Sean Penn on anger, humility and the power of seeing things for yourself

Children of the Revolutionary

Former black revolutionary Watani Stiner turned himself in to San Quentin so his children could come to America. Was it worth it?

Cut Shorts

Time’s Up, Clarence

Why the crowds aren’t shouting to spare an aged death-row inmate

Farewell to Tookie

Tookie’s Hometown Sendoff

Tookie’s Saving Grace

Can the convicted killer’s inspirational books persuade the governor to spare him?

From the Depths of Hell to Hollywood

A new documentary charts the remarkable rise of actor Danny Trejo

The Voice of the Beast

Remembering Eddie Bunker

Trouble for a New Death Row

Freedom From the Test

Death Mansion

What’s really behind Gray Davis’ push for a 1,000-bed death row?

Test Phobias

IQ tests for all San Quentin’s death-row inmates worry attorneys

The Killing Routine

Stephen Wayne Anderson’s final 15 minutes

Death Penalty Archive

The following are articles Sara Catania has previously written for the LA Weekly on the death penalty:

The Insane System

Judge considers whether convicted killer is mentally fit to halt his appeals

The Edge of the World As We Know It

Notes on the second annual Los Angeles Edgefest

Echo Chambers

Sounds from the young 20th century

Heartaches by the Numbers

Window on Death Row

Death Row Ink

South Bay publisher cashes in on the condemned

The Quietest Killing

Silent night for Siripongs

Season’s Greediness

Can’t Kill for Trying

The Avengers

Sometimes, the Play Isn't the Thing

Living in Solitary

Samuel Beckett and the San Quentin Drama Workshop

Killing Joke

For jurors, Kelly trial lasted way too long

The Alienists

Where experts divide, jury must decide

A Matter of Life or Death

Condemned prisoner’s sanity trial begins

Last Rights

Convicted murderer Horace Kelly is scheduled to be put to death in less than two weeks despite a Supreme Court ban on executing the insane. Why? His lawyers failed to file his federal appeal.