ACLU to Investigate : Convict-Writer Critical of Warden Transferred

SANTA BARBARA — Authorities at Lompoc Federal Penitentiary said an inmate was transferred Thursday to another prison for violating a prohibition against selling stories to newspapers, but an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union contended that he is being punished for criticizing the warden.

Dannie Martin, 48, who has written about 20 stories for the San Francisco Chronicle during the last two years, was moved to Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego late Thursday night.

The bank robber-turned-convict-journalist was moved for violating prison regulations that prohibit inmates from being “compensated byline journalists,” Associate Warden Tom Curd said.

Carol Sobel, a staff lawyer for the ACLU of Southern California, said her organization is initiating an investigation.

“They don’t want him writing these critical articles, so they sent him somewhere else,” Sobel said. “It’s hard to come up with any other reason why they’d suddenly pick him up in the middle of the day and move him.”

But Curd said Martin’s writing has been a “big disruption,” and prison officials are simply following regulations.

Last week, Martin was placed in an isolation unit for two days after he wrote an article depicting potential riot conditions at the prison and criticizing Warden Richard Rison. However, in San Diego, Martin was placed “in the general prison population,” a police spokesman said.

Rison, who previously had said Martin was confined for his own safety, was in Georgia at a warden’s conference Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

Peter Sussman, Martin’s editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, said “this may well be a violation of the First Amendment rights of both Martin and the Chronicle.”

“Martin’s been writing for us for two years, and now they decide he’s breaking some rule,” Sussman said. “It’s clear this is some sort of retaliation for Martin’s last article.”

But Curd said prison officials only recently discovered Martin had violated prison regulations by receiving payment from the paper.

“We have 1,500 inmates and when all the staff time is spent dealing with one (Martin) that’s a major disruption,” Curd said. “Because of that kind of problem and the rules violation, we decided to move him to another institution while we investigate the situation.”

Curd said Martin will not return to Lompoc.

In Martin’s last article, he complained that since Rison took over as warden a year ago, prison conditions have worsened.

Martin described Lompoc as a “caldron of fear, hatred and violence.” Rison’s policies were creating riot conditions, Martin wrote, adding, “If the lid stays on until our next ‘landlord’ arrives, it will be a small miracle.”

Rison said at the time that he placed Martin in confinement to protect him from other inmates angered by the article. He said a reference in the article to possible riots at the maximum-security prison could spark a demonstration by inmates.

Martin was returned to the general prison population the next day, after Rison said an investigation determined Martin was under no threat.