California Court of Appeal

In two petitions for habeas corpus challenging separate gang validation decisions by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in which prison staff determined that petitioners were active associates of the Northern Structure (NS) prison gang: 1) petition for Fernandez is denied, where three adequate sources, including a roster of prison inmates, support the validation of Fernandez as a gang associate; 2) petition for Saldana is granted because the debriefing report does not satisfy the evidentiary requirement specified in the regulations that requires that a debriefing report refer to specific gang-related conduct, and there is no other evidence indicating how Saldana was actually involved with the NS; and 3) the validation process employed by CDCR complies with due process requirements and there was no prejudicial error with respect to the limited disclosure of confidential source material.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/16/2013
• Published 01/16/2013

Judges

• BLEASE

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel