HAYWARD, Calif. -- Convicted murderer G. Daniel Walker's philosophy of using the legal process against the penal system is simple - 'I try to leave each place a little better than I found it.'
Walker said, 'I started instantly filing lawsuits everywhere I went.'
He is now in state custody because of the many writs and lawsuits he filed while in federal prisons and for his drives to organize his fellow prisoners to protest a lack of beds and lousy food.
Federal officials said in a court document they wanted him transferred back to state custody because they were unhappy with his habit of challenging the system in the courts.
And now Walker can claim a 'first.'
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Richard Bartalini ordered the state Board of Prison Terms to hold his Friday parole hearing outside of state prison. This has never happened before, according to court observers.
Walker, who calls himself 'The Wretched Writer of Writs,' sought the action because he wanted his hearing to be more accessible to the news media to publicize what he perceives as a lack of thoroughness by parole board members in conducting hearings.
Walker told the San Francisco Banner Daily Journal, a legal newspaper, that he filed the action because 'there's never any real public insight into how a parole hearing is held.'
The board tried to block the action but was denied by the Fifth District Court of Appeal.
Walker was sentenced to life in state prison for the murder of a Los Angeles advertising executive in 1973. He has represented himself since then and has had several parole hearings.
Walker is an inmate at the California Correctional Institution at Tehachapi. He ended up before Bartalini after numerous challenges in other courts. Bartalini is considering more than 100 writs and lawsuits the convict has filed protesting everything from prison food to lack of writing supplies to produce more writs.
One failure was Walker's request that he be allowed to use the credit card of U.S. District Judge Robert F. Peckham to purchase paper and other writing supplies. The petition came after the judge paved the way for him to have access to a typewriter.
The parole board has turned him down because of the circumstances of the killing -- the victim was shot in the back of the head. And the board has noted that he shot an Illinois Highway Patrol officer and has been a disciplinary problem behind bars.
Walker still faces federal charges of attempted murder, mail fraud and credit card fraud.
He and his wife, Olivia, were indicted last year by a federal grand jury for plotting to poison Victor Brincat, owner of the Magna Carta University Law School in South San Francisco, in an effort to take over the school. Walker was behind bars at the time.
Bartalini said Walker is 'very well prepared, very courteous to the court and responsive to my requests and my rulings.'
Some of the writs were written on lunch bags because Walker was not able to get enough paper in prison.
'I wrote right around the peanut butter stains,' Walker told the Daily Journal. 'They're willing to give me five sheets of paper a week.'
