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Thursday, March 21, 2013 – Daily News Obituaries Police recover stolen pickup truck Red Bluff Police were able to recover a stolen Chevy pickup Monday evening in the area of Paskenta Road and Walnut Street. Officers were sent to the area at 11:52 p.m. Monday and contacted the owner of the vehicle, who had recently reported the truck stolen from her residence in Anderson, Sgt. Michael Graham said. BANK PETER ST. GERMAIN July 1980 - March 2013 Our beloved Peter St Germain, of Red Bluff, CA, age 32, entered the arms of The Lord on March 18 after a long battle with cancer. Peter was born in Norwich, CT in July 1980 to Melody Pajak and Charles St Germain. He attended High School in Westhampton, MA and in Indian Trail, NC graduating in 1998. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force from January 1999 to January 2009 achieving the rank of Staff Sergeant / E5 as a U-2 Aircraft Electronic Warfare Specialist. Based at Beale AFB he spent long periods deployed overseas. He served on the Beale AFB Honor Guard, and during his time in the Air Force was awarded 14 various medals and ribbons for his service. In 2007 he was chosen multiple times as NCO of the quarter. Peter was a certified EMT and served on the Nevada County Sheriff's Department Search and Rescue team. He earned multiple college degrees including ones from the Community College of the Air Force, the University of Phoenix, Devry University, and Grantham University. After leaving the Air Force Pete went to work for BAE as a Field Engineer in Abu Dhabi, and subsequently to Raytheon as a Senior Field Engineer in Abu Dhabi and at Beale AFB. Peter loved the outdoors and was very active with the Boy Scouts in Westhampton, MA ultimately achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. As an adult he summited Mt. Shasta, Mt. Whitney, Mont Blanc, and the Matterhorn and skied mountains all over the world. Peter is survived by his wife Alysha, two beautiful children, Isabella age 4, and Lucas age 2, mother and stepfather, Melody and John Pajak, Black Mountain, NC; father and step-mother, Charles and Kathy St Germain, Gill, MA; sisters Jessica Stafford and Amy St Germain, Turners Falls, MA, loving in-laws and many loving relatives and friends around the world. Visiting hours will be held at the Hoyt-Cole Chapel of the Flowers Red Bluff, CA, on Wednesday March 20 from 2:00-4:00pm and 6:00-8:00pm. A funeral service and burial will be at the Northern California Veteran's Cemetery, Igo, CA on Thursday March 21 at 12:30pm. Funeral attendees are encouraged to gather at Hoyt-Cole at 11:00 am for the procession to Igo. Contributions can be made in Peter's memory to 'The St.Germain Family Fund' Account Number 1010015137, Cornerstone Community Bank, P.O. Box 889, Red Bluff, CA 96080. We will love you for all time, Peter. You are our Hero and our Inspiration! Join us in remembering Peter St.Germain by visiting our memorial at www.chapeloftheflowers.net. Through this site, we invite you to share your thoughts and fond memories with our family. Death Notices Death notices must be provided by mortuaries to the news department, are published at no charge, and feature only specific basic information about the deceased. Paid obituaries are placed through the Classified advertising department. Paid obituaries may be placed by mortuaries or by families of the deceased and include online publication linked to the newspaper's website. Paid obituaries may be of any length, may run multiple days and offer wide latitude of content, including photos. Francis Eugene Phillips Francis Eugene Phillips of Red Bluff died Wednesday, March 20, 2013, at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital. He was 75. Hoyt-Cole Chapel of the Flowers is handling the arrangements. Published Thursday, March 21, 2013, in the Daily News, Red Bluff, Calif. PRISON Continued from page 1A by both sides, including reports and depositions from prominent psychiatrists and prison officials from around the country. The state contends that lawyers for the inmates and a court-appointed special master in the class-action lawsuit on behalf of mental health patients are prolonging the case to line their pockets. Attorneys for the inmates deny that accusation and say conditions inside the prisons are still woefully inadequate, contributing to high suicide rates. Last week, the special master, Matthew A. Lopes Jr., filed his latest suicide report in federal court, concluding that the numbers remain high because the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has refused to adopt recommendations for reform advocated since at least 1999. "It is absolutely unacceptable that such recommendations have not been implemented and realized by CDCR," Dr. Raymond F. Patterson, a nationally known suicide expert and a member of the special master's team, wrote in papers filed Wednesday. "No matter how many times these recommendations are reiterated, they continue to go unheeded, year after year, while suicides among CDCR inmates continue unabated, and worsening, as manifested by suicide rates that inch ever higher over the past several years." Patterson wrote that he has repeatedly sought — to no avail — improvements in staff training, the way welfare checks are conducted on inmates in their cells, and how follow-up checks are done on suicidal inmates. Patterson, who has compiled 14 annual reports on suicides in California prisons for the court's special master on mental health, wrote that his latest would be his last, because "continued repetition of these recommendations would be a further waste of time and effort." Patterson's latest annual report, covering 15 suicides in the first half of 2012, found the suicide rate in California prisons last year was 23.72 per 100,000 inmates, an increase over the previous year and a rate substantially higher than the national average of 16 per 100,000 inmates. Most of the 2012 deaths were a result of hangings. These suicide rates and the level of mental health care provided in the prisons are expected to be the subject of furious argument in court later this month as the two sides square off before U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton in Sacramento. (A separate court battle looms over whether the state must continue to adhere to the terms of a 2009 federal court order mandating a reduction in its overall prison population.) At the heart of the tug-ofwar over mental health care are the claims of inmate advocates that the welfare of suicidal and other mentally ill inmates is being ignored in favor of political pointscoring and cost-cutting. "Everyone from the governor on down have failed to demonstrate they understand their obligations under the 5A Continued from page 1A The teller told her manager, who said, "Hello" to the couple, causing them to abruptly leave the bank. The manager then called Chico police. As Corning officers transported Belcher from the Butte County Jail in Oroville to the Tehama County Jail, Belcher allegedly admitted to the Corning bank robbery, a July Subway robbery in Corning, the armed robbery of the Chevron station at Rolling Hills Casino, and an armed robbery of US Bank in Colusa, Corning Police Chief Don HIKERS Continued from page 1A The Search and Rescue team arrived at the trailhead at about 5 a.m. and began hiking in from Mud Flat Road and located the five lost hikers unharmed in their tents at about 6 a.m. GRANT Continued from page 1A During the investigation, officers learned the owner had found her truck occupied and parked on the 200 block of James Avenue in Red Bluff. As she tried to contact the occupants of her truck, the occupants exited the truck and began to throw rocks at the vehicle the woman had arrived in before reentering the truck and driving away, Graham said. The woman followed her truck until the suspects abandoned it on Paskenta Road and fled on foot. The suspects in this case are unknown at this time, however, the truck was returned to its owner, Graham said. — Julie Zeeb Atkins said. When they arrived at the Tehama County Jail, officers again read Belcher his Miranda rights and he reportedly confessed again, Atkins said. "It helps the merchants as well as the citizens to breathe a little bit easier that the person is no longer running around," The lost hikers advised they had planned to hike out Tuesday but due to the rain, minimal water, a limited time left on their flashlights and getting disoriented in the dark, they thought it would be prudent to call for assistance. None of the hikers needed medical attention and they were in good health. The hikers all live in the Chico area and they were provided rides Atkins said. "It was a big release for us too." ——— Julie Zeeb can be reached at 527-2153, extension 115 or jzeeb@redbluffdailynews. com. Follow her on Twitter @DN_Zeeb. Staff from the Chico Enterprise Record contributed to this article. back to their vehicles that were parked nearby. Tehama County Search and Rescue is made up of all volunteers and is always looking for new members interested in helping others. The team can be contacted by sending an email to TCSAR@att.net or calling 530-527-6561 and leaving a message. violence. The facility will who will benefit. The Dog Island project The Alternatives to Vio- house supportive services lence project application and transitional housing is scored 610 and the theater project 555. will be for $1.25 million in planned for the property. Adams Ashby Group funding for rehabilitation Councilman Clay Parkconstruction and off-site estimated the project er said, while the State improvements imposed by would score 705 points on Theatre project would be the city's planning depart- the state's 950-point scale. great for the city of Red ment. One of the main criteria Bluff, he viewed it along Island project. project would stand the best chance at receiving a state award. "I'd rather see them get it as opposed to lose out again," Councilwoman The non-profit is in the Daniele Jackson said, ref- middle of constructing a erencing a previous failed 24-bed emergency shelter attempt to submit the Dog for victims of domestic projects are judged on are "Need Criteria," which assess the number of low to moderate income residents the same lines as the park project — as a "want" where the shelter was a "must have." Proposal would charge $10 to search court records SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — In a move that is raising concern about limiting access to public documents, California courts could charge $10 for each record search under a proposal included in Gov. Jerry Brown's budget. The governor included the search fee as one of the ways the courts can raise $30 million a year to offset budget cuts. The judicial budget has been reduced by more than $1 billion through cuts and transfers over the past five fiscal years, which has resulted in fewer courtrooms, construction delays and an array of higher fees. Media organizations and goodgovernment advocates worry that such a fee would restrict access to files the Constitution," said Michael Bien, lead attorney for the inmates. "This is a life and death struggle." The legal jousting has sunk to the macabre, with a dispute over whether "Inmate HH," who is classified by the special master as the 34th suicide of 2011, really killed himself. Inmate HH was serving a six-year sentence for terroristic threats and driving under the influence, and was due to be released June 24, 2012. The special master concluded that "this death was more likely than not a suicide." Corrections officials, who initially reported the case as a suicide, later decided the inmate had been killed by his cellmate and his body positioned to appear as a suicide. The case was turned over to the Solano County District Attorney, but no charges were ever filed, corrections officials say. Lawyers for the state objected to the federal court allowing "Inmate HH" to be counted as a suicide, and on Friday Karlton overruled their objections and ordered them to provide a copy of the coroner's final report on the inmate death, under seal, to the special master. The clash over whether one inmate killed himself highlights how critical the suicide rate will be in determining whether California regains control of its prisons. The state of mental health care in California state prisons has been in the spotlight since 1995 when Karlton, in response to a class-action lawsuit, issued a published opinion that ordered improvements, established himself as overseer of care while the fixes were being made, and required appoint- public has a right to view. Democratic lawmakers also expressed distaste for restricting information to those who can afford it. ''Justice that suddenly comes with a big price tag so that not all newspaper reporters or members of the public may be able to get access to court records, for example, can mean justice denied,'' said Sen. Loni Hancock, DBerkeley. ''We know that, for instance, higher fees for investigative reporting could have prevented those young journalists decades ago who exposed the Watergate scandal.'' Currently, there is no charge to search a court file, although courts charge $15 to look up cases that require a court employee to take more than 10 minutes to search. Under the ment of a special master "to monitor compliance with court-ordered injunctive relief." Karlton adopted findings and recommendations following a trial before U.S. Magistrate John F. Moulds. The magistrate judge found inadequate screening of mentally ill inmates, understaffed mental health units, delays in access to care, inadequate treatment records and routine use of Tasers and stun guns on inmates with serious mental disorders. Moulds further found corrections officials were deliberately indifferent to these shortcomings in violation of the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Today, according to Brown and his corrections officials, the prisons provide timely treatment to more than 33,000 inmates diagnosed with mental disor- governor's proposal, a person could search for free for a case in which that person is a party but would be charged $10 for each additional search. ''We are supporting and proposing those fee augmentations not because we regard them as being sound policy, but out of a simple impulse for self-preservation,'' said Steven Jahr, administrative director of the courts. He said court officials would rather see the Legislature restore $535 million to California's court system, which includes 58 trial courts, six courts of appeal and the state Supreme Court. Hancock said lawmakers are holding off on the proposal until the governor updates his budget in May. ders, conduct approximately 95,000 mental health treatment appointments each month, and maintain 1,176 high-level-of-care mental health beds. The state says it now employs more than 1,180 psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, provides medication at an annual cost of $25 million, appropriately treats and supervises inmates at risk of suicide, and considers the mental health of an inmate when imposing behavioral discipline. This, the Brown administration says, has cost state taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. California officials contend that the oversight of prison health care has been a drain on taxpayers' pocketbooks by inmates' lawyers, the court-appointed special master and his battery of experts, and a court-appointed receiver and his staff who are in charge of inmate medical care under the auspices of a separate lawsuit. Together, these people are paid millions of dollars each year by the state. "In 2012, more than half the amount paid to the special master went to attorneys in his law firm, rather than to court-appointed mentalhealth experts," the state complained in a recent court filing, adding that these five attorneys bill the state an average of $30,000 to $40,000 each month. Reuse Facility What?: REAP the benefits of Reuse at the REAP (Reuse of Available Products) Facility. How much? All items are Free! What can I get? • Paints • Cleaning Supplies • Polishes • Stains • Automotive Fluids • and much more Where? At the Tehama County/Red Bluff Landfill: 19995 Plymire Rd., RB When? Monday-Friday 9am - 4pm. For more information, please contact: 528-1103 or visit www.tehamacountylandfill.com