San Quentin Six
The San Quentin Six were Fleeta Drumgo, David Johnson, Hugo Pinell, Johnny Larry Spain, Willie Tate, and Luis Talamantez.
In addition to Jackson, those killed in the altercation were guards Paul E. Krasenes, 52, Frank DeLeon, 44, and Jere P. Graham, 39, and inmates John Lynn, 29, and Ronald L. Kane, 28.
"[7] The state first said that attorney Stephen Bingham and a female assistant arrived at San Quentin for a meeting with George Jackson at around 2:00 pm.
[8] According to an Associated Press report based on interviews with prison officials, a cursory search of Bingham's briefcase was performed and a guard failed to open a tape recorder case that was in it.
[9] The San Francisco Chronicle reported, based on officials' accounts, that Bingham had triggered the metal detector while carrying the briefcase through it.
[8] That report said that an officer opened the briefcase and found a cassette tape recorder; he inspected its battery compartment to determine whether it was functional.
"[7] As calls for help went out, heavily armed California Highway Patrolmen and Marin County Sheriff's deputies raced to the prison, blocking all access roads to it.
[8] The bodies of officers Frank DeLeon and Paul Krasenes were thrown on top of him, as well as those of two white inmates (John Lynn and Ronald L. Kane).
[10] Defense attorneys presented a conspiracy theory suggesting that prison and law enforcement officials set up Jackson to be killed.
[10] After seventeen months and deliberating 124 days, the Marin County jury of five men and seven women rendered their verdicts on August 12, 1976, for six [7] of the forty-six separate felony counts.
The defense attorneys had been able to argue that various law enforcement agencies had set up a plan to murder a black prisoner and, in the process, frame six innocent inmates in other assaults.
[14] According to court documents, Drumgo initially admitted his involvement in the break-in after officers found him at the address of the registration of the getaway car used by his accomplice.
[14] In September 1967, the court, pursuant to California Penal Code, reduced Drumgo's previous conviction to secondary burglary and sentenced him to six months to 15 years in state prison.
[16] According to Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Drumgo approached attorney Charles Garry two weeks after the May 1979 shooting of Fay Stender by alleged suspect Edward Brooks; he hoped to sell information he had regarding the attempted murder.
[17] Collier and Horowitz wrote: "[Drumgo] was a member of the Black Guerrilla Family, that he had known of the BGF's plans to shoot Fay two weeks before the event and that he was willing to sell information.
He reappeared on several occasions, sometimes wearing a gun in his belt, and named a former prisonmate of Brooks as head of the BGF and the man who had ordered the shooting.
[19] David Johnson (born circa 1947) was serving a sentence for burglary of five years to life at the time of the escape attempt.
[23] On March 3, 1971, Pinell fatally stabbed correctional officer Robert J. McCarthey at Soledad after luring him to his cell under the guise of needing a letter mailed.
[23] By the time of the trial for the uprising at San Quentin, Pinell was serving a life sentence for rape, and for three other violent offenses committed while in prison.
[24] Pinell was reported by a San Quentin spokesman to have been subdued by guards on March 26, 1975, after he stabbed his defense attorney, Lynn Carman, during a conference at the prison.
[1] In January 2009, Pinell lost his ninth bid for parole, while at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California.
[27] Johnny Larry Spain was born July 30, 1949, in Jackson, Mississippi, to Ann Armstrong, a white woman, and Arthur Cummings, a black man, from their extra-marital affair.
[28][page needed] During a delivery to a nightclub and restaurant in Utica, Mississippi, Fred Armstrong asked the black owner if she would take in the six-year-old mixed-race boy.
[28][page needed] At the time of the escape attempt at San Quentin, Spain was serving a life sentence for murder; he was convicted of having killed a robbery victim who resisted.
[10] Spain's attorney Charles Garry opened his defense with expert testimony from Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford University professor and psychologist.
[30] After his conviction for the San Quentin escape was overturned, Spain continued to serve time at Vacaville for his original murder.
[32] Professor and author Lori Andrews published a biography about him: Black Power, White Blood: The Life and Times of Johnny Spain(1996).
After being released on parole on August 20, 1976, he was taken to a celebration party at the home of his primary defense attorney, Robert Carrow, in Marin County.
[35] According to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Tate was picked up as a runaway at the age of 14 and served 10 years in prison for "minor offenses".
[36] On April 26, 1977, Tate was critically wounded after being shot by Earl Satcher, the leader of a group of ex-convicts called Tribal Thumb.
