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Battered Woman Freed from Prison after 24 years Knows Parole System Too Well |
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Thursday, 09 August 2007 |
SAN BERNARDINO
By Chris Levister
BUSTED FOR POSESSION OF ‘JOLLY RANCHERS’
Sandra Redmond shot and killed her abusive live-in boyfriend
in 1982 during a confrontation in which she feared for her life. She was
convicted of second-degree murder in 1983 and sentenced to 17 years to life.
Even as Redmond walked out of
the California Institute for Women in Corona,
the former Orange
County resident's voice
vibrates with outrage. "High hopes and crushing disappointment," she says of
waiting to be paroled.
Redmond,
47 a soft spoken woman with a ready smile was released after testimony that Arthur Moore, 58 raped and abused her.
Testimony not permitted at the time of her trial.
 Sandra Redmond (r) is elated, relieved and happy. She was freed after serving 24 years in prison. The domestic abuse survivor mentored Time for Change president Kim Carter (l) while the two were in prison. Redmond hopes to become an advocate for women and teens in abusive relationships.
Redmond
was granted parole twice but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reversed it both times,
most recently in March. It was only in 1992 that a law allowing such testimony
took effect. In 2001, the law was allowed to be applied retroactively.
That California
affords little sympathy for battered women who've killed is not surprising.
What is remarkable is that after 24 years behind bars Redmond is not bitter.
"I'm looking up. You can never plan the future by the past."
said Redmond gazing at a starry sky during a
recent retreat in the San Bernardino Mountains.
"Today I took my first bubble bath in 24 years." The time warp followed her to
the toilet. "I was sitting there and all of a sudden I heard this loud swish of
water. I jumped up and shouted oh my God, an automatic flush."
"We worked so hard to
get her out - she's finally free." That's Kim Carter, accountant, prisoner
advocate and founder of San Bernardino based
Time for Change, a sober living re-entry facility where Redmond works as an office clerk.
"She's a walking textbook on a parole system that makes up
its lines as it goes along." Carter should know.
"I met Sandra while cycling in and out of prison for drug
use." The two women bonded immediately. "Over and over she'd see me get out on
parole only to return through the revolving door. She'd say you're back! She would scold me and
mentor me.
She told me self destruction never looks like self
destruction when you are living through it," said Carter.
Carter remembers Redmond's
simple advice. "What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult
for each other?"
"That day I walked out of prison. I never looked back," Redmond's endless
optimism sent Carter on a journey toward relentless activism.
"Once you push the curtains back you see the system for what
it is. Watching Sandra fester along with the thousands of other inmates
needlessly imprisoned is not a pretty sight."
"The waiting process was excruciating." said Andrea Bible
project coordinator for San
Francisco-based Free Battered Women.
"You wait for your
hearing. There's a gripping ache when you find out you've been rejected because
you were caught with something as stupid as two ‘jolly rancher' candies in your
pocket."
Referring to one of many ‘parole busting' infractions,
Redmond, a veteran prison counselor, recalls minutes before she was to give a
lecture to inmates.
"Out of no where several guards rushed me. They said empty
your pockets. They found two cellophane wrapped jolly rancher candies. I used
them to freshen my breath. They wrote me up: ‘possession of unauthorized
contraband'. It knocked the wind out of my sails." Worst yet says Redmond "they used the infraction to suggest
I was a risk to society. My parole was denied."
Redmond
says despite a lengthy list of positive reports from prison officials on her
behavior and mental health she was almost systemically denied parole.
"You can't get excited when it boils down to whether you are
suitable for parole based solely on whether you are a risk to society," says
Bible.
In June an Orange County judge in the case changed her conviction to
voluntary manslaughter and released Redmond
on time served.
Politics may propel the charge toward freedom for battered
women. Free Battered Women is optimistic about Gov. Schwarzenegger's attitude
and approach to battered women seeking release. They hope he will support
measurable system wide reform.
"Even if he does so for self-serving reasons, battered women
in prison and the people who care about them anticipate that his administration
will be more receptive to their pleas," says Bible.
As for Redmond,
she hopes eventually to work as an advocate for women and teenagers in abusive
relationships - "I don't want to see them crushed by a system that ultimately
must break before its captives can fly."
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