Biography
Alfonso Esparza was a Soledad prisoner who testified for Robert Charles Jordan Jr. in the 1966 civil-rights challenge to the prison’s strip cells. The court found the inmate witnesses credible. Its opinion personally records that Esparza and Warren Wells endured fifty-eight days in strip cells with a four-day interruption around Thanksgiving, and that Esparza was shot in the face with tear gas after refusing to surrender his coveralls. His underlying conviction and eventual physical release are not established.
Alfonso Esparza was a Soledad prisoner who testified for Robert Charles Jordan Jr. in the 1966 civil-rights challenge to the prison’s strip cells. The court found the inmate witnesses credible. Its opinion personally records that Esparza and Warren Wells endured fifty-eight days in strip cells with a four-day interruption around Thanksgiving, and that Esparza was shot in the face with tear gas after refusing to surrender his coveralls. His underlying conviction and eventual physical release are not established.
Jordan v. Fitzharris, 257 F.Supp.674 (N.D.Cal.1966), original memorandum opinion and order.
Source-reported institution: Correctional Training Facility (Soledad State Prison).
