Of course, any investigation into problems at the prison must include the questioning if inmates.
One might wonder if inmates are pressured by Corrections personnel or other inmates to keep quiet, but this did not appear to be the case.
From the Arizona Daily Star, Thursday, July 11, 1968:
Inmates Back Sex Perversion Claim
By ERNEST C. HELTSLEY
Reports of sexual perversion and mistreatment of prisoners at the Arizona State Prison have evoked responses from several inmates and other persons, including the mother of convicted murderer Charles Schmid.
Superior Court Judge Lloyd C. Helm, who started his own investigation of claims by one prisoner, said Schmid's mother, Mrs. Katherine Lab, complained of mistreatment of her son.
"His treatment at the prison is worse than death," she wrote the judge from Cochise County. Helm said she was not specific.
Prison officials early in June reported Schmid spent three days in the infirmary with a minor leg cut caused by a piece of coping saw blade he and another prisoner had been using in hobby work.
He is on death row for the killings of three Tucson girls.
After a personal visit to the prison, the judge said that 15 or more prisoners, including at least one woman, are willing to talk about the alleged homosexual activity there. The penal institution houses more than 1,700 prisoners.
Helm said he has received six letters and some telephone calls since stories appeared in the Arizona Daily Star. Yesterday two more names of prisoners willing to tell what they know were given to Helm.
A file on one other inmate who has sought release on claims that he was mistreated and forced to commit unnatural acts has been turned over to the judge by Atty. Gordon Alley at a meeting with Helm and Pima County Atty. William J. Schafer III, representing the state.
Alley appeared at the meeting for his law partner, Ralph Seefeldt, who represents a 21-year-old inmate whose testimony in court before Judge Helm on June 25 triggered the investigation.
Whether there will be an investigation of the prison by the state or by a "one-man grand jury" may be disclosed in a resumption of June 25 hearing at 9 a.m. today before Helm.
Joseph A. Reynolds, who is seeking release from prison pending an appeal of his robbery conviction, told the court through his attorney that he has been shot at by prison guards as he ran to elude fellow prisoners bent on forced perverse acts.
On Helm's order, Reynolds is being held in the county jail partly for his own protection pending the outcome of the case.
Johanna Eubank is an online content producer for the Arizona Daily Star and tucson.com. Contact her at jeubank@tucson.com
About Tales from the Morgue: The "morgue," is what those in the newspaper business call the archives. Before digital archives, the morgue was a room full of clippings and other files of old newspapers.
Johanna Eubank
Online producer
