Posts Tagged: Thelton Henderson

News

Ghost of Proposition 209 haunts November ballot

Voters casting their ballots at a local precinct. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, Shutterstock)

Proposition 209, the constitutional amendment intended to prevent discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex in areas like public education and contracting, was approved by California voters a generation ago. In November, they will decide whether to get rid of it.

News

Thelton Henderson: His prison reforms face a backlash

Federal Judge Thelton Henderson in his chambers shortly before retiring. (Photo: Screen capture, Capitol Weekly)

As the judge climbed the watchtower stairs in Pelican Bay prison, he heard muffled gunshots below. When he reached the top, he looked into the prison yard and saw bodies lying in the dirt. One was his law clerk, spreadeagled on the ground in his suit, alongside dozens of inmates. Guards stood over them, guns aimed. “My clerk was thinking he’s gonna die and this is his last day on earth,” Judge Thelton Henderson recalled.

Podcast

Capitol Weekly podcast: Rob Gunnison

Judge Thelton Henderson and journalist Lowell Bergman chat during our oral history project. (Image: Screen capture)

Journalist, educator and now, documentary filmmaker, Rob Gunnison joins the Capitol Weekly podcast to talk about the new Open California Oral History Project, which recently completed its first two installments — filmed interviews with retired U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson and long-time Sacramento loobbyist George Steffes. 

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