Thirty years for freedom: the story of a lifer By Nancy Mullane on February 3, 2011

Noel Valdivia leaving prison in July 2010. Photo by Nancy Mullane.

Governor Jerry Brown has his hands full with California's budget deficit, but his job is about more than just economics. One of his many responsibilities has to do with criminal justice: the former attorney general will appoint up to six new members to the state parole board. It could mean a big shake-up – the board is comprised of 12 members for adult convicts, and five for juveniles. They decide whether inmates are a threat to society or if they've reformed. It's a grave responsibility. Take inmates serving life sentences with the possibility of parole. California has more than 28,000 of them locked up. And right now, when they seek parole, more than 95% are denied.

But there's an interesting paradox, here: lifers who are paroled have the lowest recidivism rate; less than 5% of them reoffend. And because the state denies their freedom, many lifers appeal their cases to federal courts.

That's what Noel Valdivia did. And after serving nearly 30 years for murder and attempted robbery, he was granted his freedom by a federal district judge. Before his release, KALW's Nancy Mullane spoke with his family.

ALICIA ENAJOSA: I'm the oldest sister, Alicia Enajosa. My brother got a release and will be coming home in 15 days. We're so happy and grateful. We've been waiting for this for the longest. And we're just overwhelmed with joy!

NOEL'S FATHER: I've been waiting 30 years to see my son free.

NOEL JR: It's going to be weird. It's different, you know. I was happy when I heard the news. Finally get to spend time with him, you know? I'm already 26, you know, and now we're going to be able to do stuff outside that we never got to do inside, while he was inside there.

NANCY MULLANE: What do you most want to do with him?

NOEL JR: Play ball. Basketball. Yeah, he wants to take me to the court. I was like, "We'll see!"

ENAJOSA: We're going to throw a big party. We're going to have a prayer, thank God for what he has done and just rejoice. There is so much people waiting for him. Church members, family members who weren't able to be here today because of work. And people from Texas are coming. He got educated and he's tried his best. He did his best to change, and I believe he deserved this chance. I mean I do, I do. I know he hurts for what he did, but I also believe that we all have to get a second chance. And I believe God has given him a second chance.

For the past six months, Noel Valdivia has lived with his family in Stockton. But, last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state courts, not the federal judiciary, are responsible for ensuring that the California parole system adheres to the law. That means only the state authorities can grant parole. So Valdivia and others released by federal courts will likely be sent back to prison.

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Noel Valdivia drove from his home in Stockton to our studios in San Francisco to tell his story. He sat down with KALW's Holly Kernan.

HOLLY KERNAN: What was that first day when you were released?

NOEL VALDIVIA: A lot of it was just so fast and so surreal, that it was just flying through like this numbness mechanism to try not to show emotion and try to feel like … I don't know, I kind of identified as a plane landing, hit the ground landing, so that I don't really feel the effects of the new environment, you know. I think that's what I practiced inside, is trying to replay or play how I would react and how I would approach things.

KERNAN: So what was it like for you to be turned down so many times?

VALDIVIA: You have to learn how to deal with it, you learn to adapt. The hard part of it is more in the family, you know because, the lifestyle I came, and at a young age getting involved in gangs and things like that. You know in the beginning when you're young, adolescent, you'll do things – you'll lie to your parents. After so many times, you know they don't believe you anymore because they know you're not telling the truth. When you come back from the board and they ask you what happened, and you tell them, "Well I was denied again and again," and they start looking at you with a suspect eye, you know. Are you sure you're doing what you say you're doing. You can't do anything about it but try to comfort them. Just go back and continue to progress, continue to program, do what you've been doing. And hope for the next time things will turn out differently.

KERNAN: You have two kids, we heard from your son, who talked about largely getting to know you through prison visits. Were you worried about him turning to the gang life?

VALDIVIA: Oh, yeah I was very worried. So every time I had time to spend with him, I'd take him outside and play ball with him. Talk to him. One thing I always told him was, you don't have to experience everything, or things other people experience to know that they're not good for you. You just watch their actions, watch their behaviors – and I kept pounding that into him. And to this day he very rarely drinks, you know. He doesn't get in trouble, he's not in any gangs, you know, he tries to raise his daughter right, and do his best. So I'm very happy for that.

KERNAN: So, you were released by a federal judge last July. And he said it should have happened years earlier, right?

VALDIVIA: Sure, yeah, 2004 is the board hearing that was appealed at that time.

KERNAN: So what has life been like for you since July? What have you been up to?

VALDIVIA:I mean it's great, freedom is great. The ability to just wake up, and decide when you want to wake up and when you want to eat, and when you want to get dressed and showered and exercise, whatever it is that you feel like doing, you can do it anytime you want to. That has been probably the greatest thing. You know, change is real, you know and desire to contribute to society is real. So that stays in the forefront of my journey, my life, the rest of my life.

KERNAN: You committed murder. Some people would say that you don't deserve to ever have freedom because of that. What's your response?

VALDIVIA: I kind of tend to believe the same thing. The way I lived my life … if you harmed me, I was going to harm you. You know, so I had the eye-for-an-eye mentality as the lifestyle that I live, the street culture, that's what we believed. Or I used to believe.

I don't stay too far away from it, in the sense that I want to be the bridge, a light for someone who wants to come out of that life, and change their life, so I stay connected with those guys for that purpose only, because somebody has to be there to help them, and I want to be that person. So yeah, they have every right to believe what they want to believe, and we have laws that we have to follow.

If I were to give life without, I would have served life without. If I'd have been given the death penalty, which I was facing – the death penalty – I'd be sitting on death row. But when I plead guilty, I told the judge, "Whatever you give me, I am going to accept because I know taking a life is not right, and I've lost family members. My family's been victims of crime, so I know how they feel, I know how I feel about it, nevertheless, there's laws that have to be followed, and we have to trust in the system, regardless of how we believe and what we think."

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Last week, the Supreme Court issued a decision that only state courts can grant parole, which could invalidate Valdivia's parole, and send him back to prison. Keith Watley is the attorney who represents lifers like Valdivia at parole hearings and in their appeals. He sat down with KALW's Holly Kernan, to talk about the ramifications of the Supreme Court decision.

HOLLY KERNAN: Can you give us a sense of the scope? How many people like Noel are we talking about? What's going to be the effect of this?

KEITH WATLEY: Well, it potentially will affect all people in California prisons with the possibility of parole in there. Right now, maybe 25,000 maybe 28,000 lifers and that doesn't count those 8,000 or 9,000 pursing life sentences to a third-strike conviction. But any of them who had hopes that they could successfully challenge the denial of their parole in federal court have seen those hopes dashed in one fell swoop, unfortunately. And people have called me a lot, just to get a sense of what this really means. Clients and prisoners will call, and when they call my office collect – maybe a dozen or more standing around them just to find out what this really means – and you know, I've had to tell them it's as bad as it looks. It's as bad as it sounds. This is actually one of those instances, rare as they are, where the prison grapevine is fairly accurate. And it's doom and gloom.

KERNAN: So California faces this huge overcrowding issue. People have talked about the parole system being very problematic. I'm listening to Noel's story and kind of reflecting on the difference between an 18- or 20-year-old and someone who's 50, and change and wisdom and mellowing that happens. Is this whole class of inmates that probably would do fairly well on the outside?

WATLEY: Certainly, I think there are a couple of reasons California law presumes that those sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, should actually be released when they first become eligible. Part of it is because of the unique circumstances that surround more serous offenses, including murder, are circumstances that are highly unlikely to ever occur again. Almost no one commits murder more than once. We get caught up with the fear of murderers, but for a lot of reasons those prisoners are unlikely to commit such an offense ever again.

KERNAN: And murderers actually have the lowest recidivism rate of all.

WATLEY: By far. By far. Again, it's one of those things that doesn't get much attention, but people serving life sentences in general, for a lot of different reasons – and I mentioned the unique circumstances of the crime – but also it's the maturity. They're much older by the time they're eligible for parole. And also when you compare their recidivism rates to people serving determinate or fixed rates of sentences, lifers do a lot better. And one of the main reasons is because all the work they have to do in order to be granted parole. When you consider the fact that they have to actively engage in programs while in prison in order to show that they have grown, changed, understood how they can live successfully on parole, and they've nailed down specific residence, jobs, had to gain additional skills, improve their education, create a support system to deal with any issues of alcohol or substance abuse – all of these are things that a determinately sentenced prisoner has no requirement, very little incentive to do on his or her own.

KERNAN: So you seem to be saying lifers are your best bet to do well, once paroled.

WATLEY: They are, and it's not even really, not even a dispute. But it is something that is often not talked about it. When you talk to agents about former lifers on parole, they love them. Because they are by far the best, most compliant, productive parolees that they have. But many of these points are lost on the parole board's commissioners who have difficulty thinking of these prisoners as successful parolees. We officially in our penal code recognize redemption, we recognize that people change, and that they are supposed to be given a second chance. We hold it out as something that, not only that we believe in, but that, like Mr. Valdivia's, we promise that as they're entering a guilty plea and accepting a term of life with a possibility of parole, we promise that redemption is a reality, that we as a state will recognize. So when you get to that point, when you've really turned your life around, demonstrated that you can safely be released, we promise we are going to release them. If the law said something else, I would do something else, but that's what the law says. And I respect the rights of prisoners to succeed in these challenges because it's what we say we owe them, and many people will say: if you commit a serious crime, we'll then we don't owe you anything. The laws not written that way. We haven't decided that we are going to be a vengeance-oriented society, and instead we recognize that people can change, and once they've changed, they will be released.

KERNAN: What are your next steps?

VALDIVIA: Just keep doing what I'm doing. You know, next week I have a speaking engagement at USF. Um, pick up the kids, take them to school, you know, drop them back off. Be the grandfather taxi that I am, you know, trust in God. Wherever I'm at I'm going to be okay, because first and foremost, I'm not the same person that I was over 30 years ago, and with that I can live anywhere. And do the best I can wherever I'm at. And I'll never give up, I'll never give up on life. Because even in prison there's people still in there need help, you know on the streets. I walk the streets I see so many homeless, and that's the thing too with the economy the way it is, the purpose that we serve as lifers and being … and I can go grab a handful of guys that are active right now and that are on parole, that are contributing to society. They are going to schools, programs, that are initiating programs.

I have an interview tomorrow to establish a program at a halfway house, you know, because they need re-entry. That's because I went to a symposium here in San Francisco with public defender Adachi, and they did a video on three prisoners getting out of prison that had no actual rehabilitative programs to show for it. And they came out, and they came out just the way they went in.

And I'm telling us, I like we're here to put a band-aid on cancer. Rehabilitation starts at the time you get inside. And that's where we try to do, we reach out to the inside, so that when they come out, they try to live life successfully. And so there's programs, there's things we can put into place that given the opportunity we will, as ex-lifers, and ex-convicts, or as whatever it is that determined their prison sentence.

And like I said that's not only me, there's hundreds in there. I can go in there and grab a handful and I know they'll be successful, and I know they'll make an impression on the society. And they're just there, you know, and that's where I'll be. You know, but at least I can go back if I have to go back and take hope to them and say, "Hey – keep fighting because we'll make it, we'll get out. And just keep doing what you're doing, because when you do good, it comes back to you." I mean that's my belief.

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Want to get in touch with Noel Valdivia? Email him at noeleonvaldivia@yahoo.com.