CASE OF INTEREST
Date: November 5, 2004
Case: People v. Elbert Jackson: 03F01715
Contact Person: D.D.A. John Pezone (916) 874-8756
District Attorney Jan Scully announced today that 23 year-old Folsom inmate Elbert Jackson was sentenced to 55 years to life by the Honorable Gregory Haas following convictions of two counts of weapon possession and one count of assault with a deadly weapon.
On Friday, September 13, 2002, Officer Hail was on duty in the gun tower of an administrative segregation yard at California State Prison – Sacramento, or New Folsom. He saw a handball fly into the concrete Administrative Segregation yard from the out yard. When it landed, inmate Elbert Jackson picked it up, opened it and took out the contents. He was searched after he left the yard. The bindle he took out of the handball contained 14 razor blades, used as weapons in state prison.
About six months later, on March 16, 2003, Elbert Jackson was brought to a new cell assignment. He and his new cellmate were both handcuffed. Once Jackson was put inside the cell he was the first to be uncuffed by Officer Alan May. Once his hands were free, Jackson took a razor weapon from his boxer shorts and attacked Jason Thomas, his new cellmate. Thomas, who was handcuffed, was knocked to the floor and cut numerous times by Jackson. Officer May pepper-sprayed Jackson until he stopped his assault with a deadly weapon. Before Jackson allowed himself to be cuffed again he flushed his weapon down the cell toilet. Fortunately a search of the drain yielded the weapon he had used. The victim, Mr. Thomas, was taken to the infirmary and treated for approximately 11 razor cuts to his face, neck, arms and back.
Defendant Jackson, already serving 30 years to life for attempted murder with the personal use of a firearm, two counts of shooting into an inhabited dwelling, and assault with a firearm, was prosecuted under the three strikes law. D.D.A. John Pezone noted that had Proposition 66 passed, this violent criminal would not have been subject to the three strikes law, since his prior convictions had all occurred in the same case. Because of the defeat of the initiative Elbert Jackson is serving a lengthy life sentence, and will never threaten society again.