Inmate Serving 26 to Life Is State’s Top Literacy Tutor

Half a life is a long time, no matter how old you are. For David Ramos, half a life is 17 years--17 years away from his family, away from the world.

Ramos is a convicted murderer, a “lifer” whose sentence could stretch until death.

He did not pull the trigger, see the killing or, he says, ever believe that the acquaintance to whom he gave a ride planned to blow someone away. But all of that is of little consequence today.

What matters now is that instead of giving up, as many who face a life sentence naturally do, the gregarious kid from Carson underwent an improbable evolution behind bars, a journey from despair to emotional self-rescue. Five years ago, Ramos embarked on a mission, devoting his time--hours and hours of it--to helping other inmates learn to read.

Recently, Ramos reached a personal peak when he was honored by California Literacy, a group that helps the illiterate. He was named outstanding tutor of 1997, selected not just from among the few prison inmates who teach reading, but from a far bigger universe--that of 13,000 Californians who donate time to the cause.

The award does not erase the brutal facts of his past. But it is evidence that an incarcerated life need not be a life empty of worth, that a convict can amount to something beyond the number stamped on his or her prison file.

“I’m sure there are many people more deserving of this [award] than me,” Ramos says. “But I feel very honored. And in here, that’s a nice way to feel.”

Positive Attitude Despite Circumstances

Ramos is not one to rant about the unfairness of the criminal justice system. Although he believes that prosecutors wrongly charged him with murder, his trial is long over, and he has been locked up since 1981. Whining about it now is “pointless” and “negative,” he says.

Such an attitude astonishes his original attorney, Bernard Rosen of Santa Monica. Rosen, who was a Los Angeles County public defender when he handled the case, says Ramos has a right to feel bitter.

“The fact is, David Ramos was convicted because I made some major, egregious errors for which I am haunted to this day,” said Rosen, who insists that his former client is innocent.

The killing took place in March 1981, claiming the life of a retired U.S. Coast Guard chief named Febrilium Ponce. Ponce’s wife, Joan, was apparently weary of her marriage and hired Thomas Gomez to murder her spouse for $10,000, court documents say. Gomez, 19, shot Ponce in the parking lot at Harbor College in Wilmington. A father of four, he died at the scene.

Prosecutors called Ramos a co-conspirator, largely because he gave Gomez a ride to the college. Joan Ponce did not implicate Ramos when she first confessed to the crime, Rosen said, but the district attorney charged all three with the murder.

Ramos, then 19, had no criminal record and had just enlisted in the Army. Although he admits he overheard Gomez and Joan Ponce talk of committing such a killing, Ramos said he “never believed any of it was serious” and was unaware that Gomez intended to commit murder when he drove him to Harbor College that night.

“I don’t want to make excuses for myself, because the fact is I did hear things said and I should have spoken up; I should have had the gumption to do something,” Ramos said in a series of interviews, by phone and in person, at Solano State Prison. “But I was young and stupid, and I allowed myself to not believe this was really happening. I deluded myself.”

One week after the killing, the delusion ended. Ramos was sitting in his geometry class at night school when he was summoned by the dean. A police officer was waiting and took him away.

Initially, a judge dismissed the case against Ramos, citing insufficient evidence. But prosecutors refiled charges, and the case went to trial in Long Beach. Rosen said he made “every mistake in the book,” including a decision not to let Ramos tell his story from the witness stand.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, portrayed Ramos as an active participant in the plot, saying he stood to collect half of the payoff. Like Ponce and Gomez, he was found guilty of murder in the first degree.

Rosen appealed and lost. The sentence: 26 years to life.

From Self-Loathing to Self-Improvement

For Ramos, the early months were a haze of shock, embarrassment and shame. Whatever the extent of his role and guilt, he had become entangled in a terrible thing, disgracing those he loved. He told friends to stop writing, feeling undeserving of their support.

His first five years were spent at the state prison in Folsom, where he struggled to master the daily dance an inmate must do to avoid violence, a dance that never ends because the partners constantly change. As time passed, Ramos also began to confront his fate.

In the beginning, he was awash in self-loathing, obsessed with the fact that no amount of remorse would ever repair the damage caused by the crime.

But eventually he took another path, concluding that the best penance would be to “make myself into someone worthy, someone with something positive to contribute to society.

“I could have just begged for mercy and forgiveness from God,” said Ramos, who stands 6-foot-2 and wears wire-rim glasses and a neatly clipped beard. “But what good would that really do?”

So he learned a trade--air-conditioning and heating repair--and took college courses, earning good grades and nearly enough units for a degree in sociology before funding for prison education was cut and classes ended.

He read voraciously, wrote poetry and taught himself to type and work a computer. He explored a half-dozen religions and attended a host of prison seminars, from relaxation therapy to a “victim-offender reconciliation group,” which links inmates with crime survivors to help them fully see the consequences of their deeds.

Along the way, he corresponded with pen pals and nearly married one. At the last minute, he abandoned the wedding plans, concluding that it was “best not to pull someone else into this situation with me.”

By 1993, Ramos found his world shrinking. This often happens to lifers; the longer they’re in, the more their opportunities dwindle. After 13 years behind bars, Ramos had worked nearly a dozen jobs, mastered plenty of hobbies and steeped himself in self-analysis. It was time for a greater purpose.

He found it in teaching fellow inmates to read.

Ramos was introduced to tutoring while working as an instructor in the computer lab at Tehachapi State Prison, where he lived from 1993 to 1997. Diane Deutsch, coordinator of the literacy program there, recruited and trained him, and he plunged in, she said, with gusto.

“I have never seen anyone as committed to this as Mr. Ramos,” said Deutsch, who estimates that one in two California prisoners is functionally illiterate. “He spent most of his off-hours tutoring and has a great, caring rapport with his students. He believes in it.”

Before long, Ramos was certified to train other tutors. A short time later, he developed a literacy handbook and began teaching English to speakers of other languages. And after he was transferred to Solano last summer, he left a paying job as a purchasing clerk to become volunteer coordinator of the tutoring program there.

All told, he has had a hand in teaching more than 1,000 inmates to read, prison officials say.

His motivation? “To help prepare these guys for life on the streets, so that when they get out, they succeed instead of stealing or hurting somebody else.”

His reward? Letters like the one from a former Tehachapi inmate, who wrote back after his release to say he had landed a promising job with a nursery.

“He said if it wasn’t for the tutoring program, he wouldn’t have been able to fill out an application and wouldn’t have gotten that job,” Ramos said. “It sounds corny, but that sort of thing feels so great. It lets you pat yourself on the back.”

Dedication ‘Above and Beyond’

And then came the outstanding tutor award from California Literacy, a wood and brass plaque bearing his name. Glenn Henderson, a retiree who lives in Palm Springs, was chairman of the committee that chose Ramos--the first inmate ever honored by the group in its 42-year history.

“All 13,000 of our volunteers are deserving of awards,” Henderson said, “but this is someone whose dedication truly stood out, who went above and beyond.”

Ramos’ achievement is remarkable in part because of the era in which it occurred--a time when the once-popular goal of rehabilitation has fallen far out of favor in the state’s penal system.

Deutsch--who nominated Ramos for the honor--telephoned her protege to tell him he had won. “And what he said was, ‘Are you sure? There must be some mistake,’ ” she recalled.

“It meant so much to him, to all of us,” said his sister, Jennie Enriquez, a postal worker in San Pedro. “It’s proof that even in prison, he accomplished something many people never do.”

Ramos was not allowed to attend the awards ceremony, nor does he expect that his accomplishment will lead to his release any time soon. Although he is eligible for parole now, few convicted murderers are set free in these law-and-order times. Last year, the state Board of Prison Terms held parole hearings for 2,267 lifers--a group that includes kidnappers, carjackers and rapists, as well as murderers. Of those, 10 were declared suitable for release.

“The story of the Wilson administration is that people are simply not getting out,” said Dennis Riordan, a noted San Francisco defense attorney who tracks parole statistics.

Ramos had his first parole hearing in December 1996. A transcript shows he was questioned about the crime, his remorse, his plans upon release and his near-perfect prison record, marred by one fight in which Ramos said he was defending himself after being attacked by a mentally ill inmate.

The three commissioners--two of them Wilson appointees--also discussed his “exceptional” job evaluations, commitment to tutoring and a prison psychologist’s conclusion that his “self-improvement” would continue if he were released.

As the hearing came to a close, a deputy district attorney from Los Angeles praised Ramos’ “very good progress” but opposed his release, saying “more insight is needed into his criminality.”

Ramos’ lawyer then spoke, and urged the board to give his client a parole date, “a light at the end of the tunnel.”

“He’s done an exemplary program,” the lawyer, Tim O’Hara, said. “He’s done everything possible in his power.”

At 11:30 a.m., the three board members adjourned to deliberate. Six minutes later, they returned with their answer--parole denied.

The presiding commissioner explained it this way: Ramos, he said, would “pose an unreasonable risk of danger to society” if released.