The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Woodmore smiled.

"My first Christmas tree ... my very first," she exclaimed at one of the many niceties (like bath oils and artwork) and necessities (like canned food and an inflatable mattress) her two brothers have been delivering to the apartment.

Life is suddenly full of firsts for 39-year-old Flozelle Woodmore, who was released from prison in August after serving more than 20 years for the shooting death of her abusive boyfriend. First holiday season with relatives, including her 20-year-old daughter Johnisha (born in prison four days before Christmas 1987) and 2-year-old granddaughter, Janaya. First job. First apartment. First cell phone.

Most of all, it's her first chance to make good on a pledge she made to herself in 1992 soon after receiving word that her 33-year-old brother, Kenneth Jerome Hillis, a manager at Sears, had been killed in a drive-by shooting in a case of mistaken identity. Woodmore became determined to confront her demons, get out of prison and help young women avoid the pain she experienced from years of physical and emotional abuse.

Woodmore speaks softly and dispassionately about most aspects of her difficult past. But tears begin to well when she recalls the frustration of being locked up at the California Institute for Women in Corona while knowing that her mother had just lost her oldest son.

"It took my breath away to experience not being able to help my mother when she needed me the most," Woodmore said. "It was horrible."

It also was motivating. She began to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and helped start sessions for battered women. She earned her GED. She requested - and received - a transfer to the state women's prison in Chowchilla, which had superior vocational-training programs. She studied computer technology until the classes ended abruptly in 1996 for lack of funding.

Her mother died of a heart attack in 1998. To this day, Woodmore wonders about the stress her life put on her mother's.

"I do believe it played a role in my mother's death," Woodmore said. "It broke her heart."

Flozelle Woodmore first appeared before the state Parole Board in 2002. Board members were impressed with the depth of her remorse, the evidence of her rehabilitation and the detail of her plans for the future. They told her something they rarely say to an inmate they see for the first time: "Ms. Woodmore ... we find you suitable for parole."

"I collapsed," she recalled. "My knees were numb. Tears were streaming down my face."

But there was a caveat, and she knew it. A parole board's decision can be overturned by a governor. Gray Davis came into office in 1999 vowing never to let a convicted murderer out of prison on parole, regardless of extenuating circumstances. He did not make an exception for Flozelle Woodmore. He reversed the parole board's recommendation in 2002, and again in 2003.

The parole board continued to find Woodmore suitable for release in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, while acknowledging her favorable evaluations, overturned the board all three times.

Through the years, Flozelle Woodmore's case became something of a cause celebre among women's-rights groups across the nation, especially since she went into prison before a 1992 state law allowed the defense to enter evidence of "battered women's syndrome" as a mitigating factor during trial. Among the advocates for her release was the now-retired judge who sentenced her, Robert W. Armstrong. He assumed at the time that she would serve "much less" than 15 years. "Even though she pleaded to second degree, she served as much time as if she was convicted of first-degree murder," he said in an interview last spring.

Imprisoned and without Internet access, Woodmore had no idea that her name was becoming synonymous with a cause. She was stunned, after her release, when she Googled her name and learned that "so many people cared" about her fate. She did know that Ruth Dewson, owner of a stylish San Francisco hat shop, was working tirelessly to persuade politicians, clergy and others to address this injustice.

"It just shot everything to the moon as far as support coming in when Ruth got on the case," Woodmore said.

Not long after Woodmore met with the parole board for the sixth time, on March 13, 2007, Dewson appealed to this newspaper's editorial board to look into Woodmore's case. Our first editorial, "A prisoner of politics," was published on April 8.

Schwarzenegger did not announce his decision until Aug. 2, one week before the deadline for him to review the case. He let the parole board ruling stand. Flozelle Woodmore would be freed.

Woodmore was calm when she got the word. Her first call was to Dewson, who had provided counsel and encouragement in letters and phone calls.

"We both started screaming over the phone," Woodmore recalled. "For a long time, I was wondering: Is this real? Is this really happening? All I could do was drink coffee and stay awake all night."

Two days later, she was on the road to Southern California. Whether it was anxiety or the strange experience of riding in a moving vehicle, Woodmore got sick three times on the way to her new home, a transitional facility with seven other ex-inmates in Claremont.

Woodmore had a job lined up even before her release. Susan Burton had met Woodmore when they were both serving time in Corona. Released in 1996, Burton established the New Way of Life Re-entry Project in Los Angeles, which operates four sober living homes serving about 50 women a year who are making the transition from prison.

Burton, New Way's executive director, was certain that Woodmore would be a focused and dedicated worker if ever given the chance. Woodmore has not disappointed. Her main duties as an administrative assistant involve clerical duties: Answering letters and phone calls, and helping with the billing and filing. Equally valuable are Woodmore's informal counseling sessions with clients, Burton said.

An unexpected bonus was the level of technical skills Woodmore retained from her computer training at Chowchilla more than a decade ago.

"When the computers break down here, I usually have to call the IT guy - and Flozelle will get on the phone with him and troubleshoot it," said Burton. "That means it gets fixed in an hour instead of a day and a half or two days."

Claremont is about 35 miles from the New Way office on East 108th Street in Los Angeles. It's quite a trek in a region where public transportation is an afterthought. Woodmore rises about 4 a.m. each day to make sure she's on the 6:08 train to Los Angeles. She then catches the 7:30 a.m. bus from Union Station and usually arrives at her office by 8:30.

Woodmore's conditions of parole include a 10 p.m. curfew, but the rules of the Crossroads transitional facility are even stricter. She must return by 6 p.m.

Sometimes she gets a shortcut in the form of a ride to Union Station from her two aunts, her guardian angels, Shirley Curlin and Juanemia McClinton. They are determined to see that Flozelle Woodmore is not one of the many California inmates who are sent back to prison on a technical parole violation. For the aunts, it is a labor of love.

"Everybody is so happy she made it through all the disappointments ... after all the running around and all the letters sent to governors ... and knowing they didn't even look at them," Curlin said. "There were times we felt like giving up, but we knew we had to keep going."

Curlin was standing in the apartment that Woodmore's two brothers, one younger and one older, were in the process of preparing for her arrival in early February, when she is eligible to leave the transitional facility in Claremont. Her brother Alvenus Hillis, an artist, has made a wall hanging of mirrors and tiny lights that gives the illusion of a tunnel - tantalizing, ominous, different from each angle - to symbolize the end of a long journey.

Woodmore does not complain about her commute on the Metrolink train, either the length or the $200-a-month cost. Other passengers doze. Woodmore absorbs every detail: The cars in the streets, the cityscapes and hills, the rhythm of the train. Twenty years of suppressed sensory stimulation have a way of bringing the most out of life's most mundane routines.

Woodmore was asked what she missed most about the outside world while in prison. She said she yearned for everyday family dynamics, even the annoyances: Her mother badgering her in the morning, warning that she would be late for school; the constant commotion of her brothers running in and out of the house.

"How bad I wanted that to get on my nerves," Woodmore said. "I missed that. I really missed that."

Perhaps the most outrageous moment in Woodmore's final parole hearing came with the suggestion of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney David Dahle that it would be a mistake to let Woodmore anywhere near her family. He apparently never looked into the eyes of Aunt Shirley or Aunt Jaunemia to see their willingness to invest as many hours and dollars as they can humanly muster to keep Woodmore on the straight and narrow. The deputy DA who spoke so callously of "a pattern of behavior imprinted, I believe, from generation to generation" never anticipated how Woodmore's two brothers - and relatives from across the country - would respond to her release.

"It's just like a whole nation has come together to help her," Curlin said. "We want to make sure none of these efforts are in vain."

Johanna Hoffmann, the Oakland-based attorney who successfully represented Woodmore before the parole board, said the family reunification has been "touching and inspiring" to observe - especially Woodmore's building of a relationship with her daughter and granddaughter after years of separation.

Woodmore's ultimate goal is to enroll in community college to become certified to counsel battered women. She particularly wants to help teens, to show them there is a way out of abusive relationships.

The women at the Crossroads transitional facility, in concert with students from Pomona College, recently made a play about Woodmore's story. It was titled "If Yes, Please Explain," in reference to the box about criminal history on employment applications.

They wanted Woodmore to play herself. She could not. It was, she said, "too difficult to relive what I want through."

As smoothly as the transition is going, Woodmore has at least one major piece of unfinished business. Her son Clifton Morrow Jr., also the son of the man she killed on Aug. 16, 1986, is incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison. Clifton was two years old on the night when his mother shot his father to death with a .357 magnum after she was choked and punched in the front yard. Young Clifton is now serving time for murder in a "supermax" prison with some of the state's hardest convicts. Woodmore hopes to pass some of her resolve onto her son. But for now, her parole travel restrictions preclude a trip to the prison near Crescent City.

"He needs to see me," she said, "and I need to see him."

Christmas is a time of great anticipation and equal anxiety. It's a chance to fulfill the dreams of a loved one - and all the pressure that comes with it. The commercial influences of society further up the ante. Flozelle Woodmore shakes her head in awe at the lengths to which her relatives are going to make this the perfect Christmas for her. They're constantly asking her what she wants.

"You don't have to get me a gift," she tells them. "I already have my Christmas gift."
Overcoming the odds

Until her release on Aug. 4, 2007 from the Central California Women's Facility, Flozelle Woodmore was one of the more than 27,000 state inmates who are serving life sentences with the possibility of parole. But for most inmates, the hope of release is illusory, even if they demonstrate deep remorse, compelling evidence of rehabilitation and solid vocational skills. One of the reasons so few inmates are freed is that the California Board of Parole Hearings is famously - and properly - judicious in deciding which inmates are fit for release. In most years, less than 5 percent of the "lifers" who appear before the board are recommended for release. Woodmore's case is remarkable in that the board recommended her release six straight times. But in the first five, she, like many inmates found suitable for release, ran into a roadblock at the governor's office.

-- In November 1988, California voters approved Proposition 89, which gave the governor the power to overturn a parole board decision. The measure, which won with 55 percent of the vote, was propelled by outrage over the 1983 release of murderer-rapist Archie Fain.

-- Gov. Pete Wilson, proudly law-and-order, allowed the release of only 68 "lifers" who were found suitable for release by the parole board.

-- Gov. Gray Davis came into office in 1999 vowing to essentially slam the door on parole requests for anyone convicted of murder - and he did. He allowed the release of just six of the hundreds of parole-board recommendations for release that reached his office.

-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proved more willing than his predecessors to consider the evidence and conclusions presented by the parole board. He has allowed the release of 170 inmates - including Woodmore - from the 771 parole-board recommendations for release during his tenure.

See a video of Woodmore's new life at sfgate.com.

Our past editorials on this case include "A prisoner of politics," April 8 (sfgate.com/ZBWU), "Free Flozelle," July 15 (sfgate.com/ZBWT) and "Flozelle - free at last," Aug. 3 (sfgate.com/ZBWS).

Send comments to Editorial Page Editor John Diaz. E-mail: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/24/ED43U1KBH.DTL

This article appeared on page B - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle