Alcatraz on trial

Although Young did participate in a January escape attempt, he was not kept naked in a dark dungeon for 3 years as punishment, as the movie indicates. Instead, he was held in the disciplinary segregation unit in the main cellhouse as punishment for the escape attempt. He was confined to a normal cell--not a dungeon--with plumbing, an electric light, a cot, and other appropriate cell furnishings.

Various events in the movie set in a dungeon--such as scenes where the associate warden slashes Young's Achilles tendon to prevent future escapes--are fabrications. The events surrounding Young's fatal attack on Rufus McCain are also portrayed inaccurately. In the movie, Young becomes a madman after 3 years in the dungeon, is then taken directly from the dungeon to the dining hall, and, moments later, stabs McCain to death with a spoon handle.

The implication is that Young's homicidal behavior was a direct result of his inhumane confinement and that he had no control over his actions. In reality, Young was released from his cell in segregation after only a few months.

He was returned to the general population no later than autumn More than a year after that--in December he killed McCain in the industries building. The movie also implies that Young died on Alcatraz in , evidently committing suicide after scrawling the word "victory" on the wall or floor of his cell. This is not true, either. When his Federal sentence expired in , he was turned over to the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla to begin a life sentence for an earlier murder conviction.

In , he was released from Washington State Penitentiary, but he jumped parole and, according to Washington State authorities, his whereabouts are unknown. Prior to the coming of the Spanish and Portuguese explorers, over 10, indigenous people, later to be called the Ohlone a Miwok Indian word meaning "western people" , lived in the coastal area between Point Sur and the San Francisco Bay.

Early use of Alcatraz Island by the indigenous people is difficult to reconstruct, as most tribal and village history was recorded and passed down generation-to-generation as an oral history of the people. A large portion of this oral history has been lost as a result of the huge reduction of the California Indian population following European contact and exploration. Based on oral history it appears that Alcatraz was used as a place of isolation or ostracization for tribal members who had violated a tribal law or taboo, as a camping spot, an area for gathering foods, especially bird eggs and sea-life, and that Alcatraz was utilized also as a hiding place for many Indians attempting to escape from the California Mission system.

Once Alcatraz Island became a prison, both military prisoners and civilians were incarcerated on the island. Among these were many American Indians. The largest single group of Indian prisoners sentenced to confinement on Alcatraz occurred in January when the U. Indian people continued to be confined as prisoners in the disciplinary barracks on the island through the remainder of the s and the early s. On this day, Indian people once again came to Alcatraz Island when Richard Oakes, Akwesasne Mohawk, and a group of Indian supporters set out in a chartered boat, the Monte Cristo, to symbolically claim the island for the Indian people.

On November 20, , this symbolic occupation turned into a full scale occupation which lasted until June 11, In actuality, there were three separate occupations of Alcatraz Island, one on March 9, , one on November 9, , and the occupation which lasted nineteen months which began on the 20th of November, The occupation lasted for only four hours and was carried out by five Sicangu Lakota, led by Richard McKenzie and wife, Belva Cottier.

This short occupation is significant because the demands for the use of the island for a cultural center and an Indian university would resurface almost word for word in the larger, much longer occupation of The November 9, occupation was planned by Richard Oakes, a group of Indian students, and a group of urban Indians from the Bay Area.

Since many different tribes were represented, the name "Indians of All Tribes" was adopted for the group. They claimed the island in the name of Indians of all tribes and left the island to return later that same evening. In meetings following the November 9th occupation, Oakes and his fellow American Indian students realized that a prolonged occupation was possible. Oakes visited the American Indian Studies Center at UCLA where he recruited Indian students for what would become the longest prolonged occupation of a federal facility by Indian people to this very day.

They asked to see the files of Young and McCain. They also asked to see and photograph the Tailor Shop, where the stabbing had occurred and arranged to have Young brought to the U. Marshall's Office in San Francisco where they could interview him at length. The court set April 15 as the day for the start of the trial and on that day, the members of the jury were selected. This task done, the dueling attornies gave their versions of the stabbing. Abrams rebutted nearly everything Hennessy had to say.

Young, he insisted, had no inkling of what he had done until he found himself sitting with Deputy Warden E. Miller, listening to questions about the slaying. Abrams' defense of Young was one of irresistable impulse. Henri Young, he was to prove by the testimony of his witnesses, did not and could not perceive what was happening around him or what he was doing. It could not be argued, therefore, that he intended to kill Rufus McCain. It could not be said that he had committed the conscious, premeditated act of murder.

McCain, Abrams said, had made homosexual advances to Young and, for this, Young had struck him. Then, said Abrams, McCain moved in on the escape plot which Young and Barker had hatched together and, after McCain's pleas had forced the group to return twice to shore, it was McCain who first threw himself to the mercy of the guards.

Young, who refused to sell out after the capture, found himself in perpetual isolation, and in this environment of sensory deprivation, brooded and brooded until McCain became, in his mind, " not a human being, but The prosecution brought Warden Johnston to the stand first, for the purpose of identifying Young and McCain's commitment papers.

Abrams, who took the witness only a few minutes after he was sworn in, kept him answering questions for most of the day. He had the warden sift through the inmates' files, noting McCain's every visit to the isolation and solitary cells. The Warden told the jury that the size of the cells were five by nine feet; that the solitary cells were unlighted; that prisoners sometimes slept in the cells with only a blanket or less; and that, in the past, men in solitary only used to receive one full meal every three days.

He had changed this, so that they received a full meal every other day and soup on the days when they did not get this meal. Johnston often claimed in interviews and before the court that nothing happened on Alcatraz that he didn't know. Abrams, however, surprised him with a question about the tipple made of milk and gasoline which went hand to hand between the cells and which Young had sometimes imbibed.

Johnston confessed that he did not know this drink. We must show it in its true light. We're trying to show the effect of those conditions on Young's state of mind, his mental condition. We'll show a legal defense -- that Henri Young had no intent --therefore must be acquitted. The jury did not hear much of the evidence which Abrams and MacInnis hoped to introduce. But the questions were asked and some glimpses of life on the Rock, as well as accusations of staff brutality, found their way into the record and into the newspapers.

A standing room only crowd came the day the Weyerhauser kidnapper, Harmon Waley AZ , sat in the witness box and told about being thrust into solitary after asking for relief from a cold: The doctor said he would send some [medicine] down to my cell at night. I told him I was sick, to take my temperature and see, but he wouldn't do it. Then I asked for a couple of aspirin at least, but he said he would send some to my cell at night.

So I made a remark to him I was beaten up. I was half crazy. I was put in a strait jacket. The defense put the word of the kidnappers, robbers, murderers, and other denizens of America's demimonde against that of the staff. As if signaling the end of an era, the Alcatraz gun batteries fired the official mourning salute during San Francisco's honorary funeral procession for President Lincoln. The old guns were gradually removed from Alcatraz, and by there were only seven cannon mounted.

The island endured another topography change as new low-profile earthwork defenses were attempted. Army engineer Major George Mendell's "Plan of " designed new defenses which could withstand the impact of rifled projectiles. Cliffs behind the old gun batteries were cut down, and rock was dumped in front of the walls.

Pairs of Rodman cannon were separated by traverses, rocky hills covered with dirt and grass. The traverses contained powder magazines and tunnels to allow access to ammunition and other gun emplacements. Only initial excavation work was completed for the earthwork batteries, but some of the imported soil was used for flower gardens around the officers' quarters.

At the same time, the south end of the island was leveled into a military Parade Ground. Cavalry and infantry units performed maneuvers on the mainland, followed by a staged battle over the bay. All army forts and navy warships would shoot at a flag on Lime Point and at an old schooner loaded with explosives.

Crowds gathered on the San Francisco hills in anticipation of a impressive gunfire display. As the battle wore on, the military became increasingly embarrassed as the old cannon were not accurate enough to hit the boat.

Finally, under cover of gunsmoke, a young officer was sent in a tug to light the fuses on the schooner. The explosion proved anticlimactic, as spectators and military personnel realized the defenses of San Francisco Bay were inadequate.

Alcatraz Island was originally planned as an army defense site, but it also was a good location for a prison. When Captain Stewart arrived in , eleven of his enlisted men were incarcerated in the guardhouse basement. Two months later, Alcatraz received Pvt.

Matthew Hayland, "an insane man delivered for confinement and safekeeping. In , Alcatraz was officially designated the military prison for the Department of the Pacific.

During the Civil War, Alcatraz imprisoned local civilians arrested for treason. The Confederates from the Chapman joined military prisoners in the guardhouse.

The Chairman of the California Democratic Committee was arrested and sent to Alcatraz after making an "incendiary" speech during the Presidential campaign. He was released after posting bond and swearing an oath of allegiance to the Union. The number of prisoners continued to increase. When the Howitzer rooms of the guardhouse were filled with prisoners, Alcatraz needed a more suitable prison facility.

A temporary wooden prison was built in just north of the guardhouse, but later it was replaced with several adjoining structures called Lower Prison. This prison complex housed an average of men throughout the late s. The army prisoners labored as part of their punishment. Some prisoners excavated and constructed new fortifications and housing at Alcatraz, and others went on daily work details to nearby military posts. Untrustworthy prisoners were given simple indoor tasks or confined in their cells on Alcatraz.

Prisoners were identifiable by their obsolete uniforms with a "P" on the back of the shirts, jackets, and hats. Many American Indians were imprisoned at Alcatraz after troubles with the U. Some were the army's own Indian Scouts, who were convicted of mutiny. The army sent Paiute Tom to Alcatraz on June 5, , but he was shot by a guard two days later. Broncho and Sloluck were arrested for participating in the murder of members of a peace commission during the Modoc Wars in northeastern California.

The older members of their group were hanged, but President Ulysses S. Grant spared these two young men and sent them to Alcatraz. Broncho died of disease on Alcatraz, and Sloluck remained five years, then joined the remaining members of his tribe exiled in Indian Territory. Kaetena, a Chiricahua Apache chief who was a compatriot of Geronimo, was imprisoned for two years on Alcatraz.

Upon his release, the army said "His stay at Alcatraz has worked a complete reformation in his character.

In January , nineteen Hopis were sent from northern Arizona to the Alcatraz prison. These Hopi village leaders were involved in land disputes with the government, and they refused to comply with a mandatory government education program for their children. Besides sawing large logs on Alcatraz, some of the Hopis were given tours of San Francisco public schools "so that they can see the harmlessness of the multiplication table," according to a San Francisco newspaper.

The Hopis were released after they pledged to "cease interference with the plans of the government for the civilization and education of its Indian wards," although they continued their resistance of government policies after returning to Arizona. Many soldiers returned with contagious tropical diseases, and all local hospitals, including Alcatraz's, were filled with convalescing patients. Many other soldiers returned as prisoners and Alcatraz was quickly overwhelmed.

Between and the prison population grew from 25 to Another prison complex was hastily built on the Alcatraz parade ground in early Upper Prison consisted of three wooden cellhouses with two tiers each, surrounded by a stockade fence. As additional support buildings were added to the complex, Lower Prison was converted into work space for prisoners.