State’s high court allows mayhem prosecution in prison riot

CRESCENT CITY >> The California Supreme Court declined a petition to examine and possibly throw out an appeals court’s decision to allow mayhem and assault charges against inmates in connection with a 2017 riot at the state’s most secure prison.

The Supreme Court’s decision last week essentially upholds a March ruling by the 1st District Appellate Court, which found that mere participation in the May 2017 riot — not necessarily evidence of attacking and injuring guards — was enough to charge defendants with mayhem and assault on the corrections officers. The court found that given the “scope” and violent nature of the riot, “a person of ordinary prudence could have entertained a reasonable suspicion that mayhem, battery, and assault,” were “reasonably foreseeable” circumstances.

Prosecutors in Del Norte County charged four men — all validated Mexican Mafia associates — with felony mayhem, battery, assault, torture and misdemeanor charges of delaying or resisting a peace officer. A magistrate judge threw out the case at the preliminary hearing, then rejected prosecutors’ attempts to refile all but the torture counts, court records show.

But the appellate court decision reverses the magistrate’s ruling, clearing the way for the prosecution to proceed.

The May 2017 riot involved dozens of inmates at Yard 3 of Pelican Bay State Prison, known as the state’s most secure corrections facility that used to be home to the segregated housing unit, or SHU, that incarcerated all the suspected prison gang leaders across California. That changed after a federal lawsuit and corresponding hunger strike ended the practice in 2015.

During the May 2017 riot, five inmates were shot by a corrections officer in a tower, and eight guards were injured. The officers fired a total of 20 rounds, but testified that all but five were warning shots, court records show.

Three corrections officers suffered permanent injuries, including one with a torn tendon, and another who required metal plates in his skull to mend broken facial bones.

Two officers testified that they believed they would be killed, and one was dragged out of the fracas by a colleague in a semi-conscious state, according to the appellate court decision. At least two others said they believed they were going to die during the melee.