DRUG ADDICTION/FAMILY/GAY LIB
In 1971, after receiving earlier death threats while in a California state prison, Spann wrote then Gov. Carter asking for help and soon afterward was placed in "protective custody", special treatment accorded less than 2% of prison inmates.
Carter press director Rex Granum confirmed that Carter received Spann's letter and forwarded a copy to then director of California Dept of Corrections, Raymond Procunier, along with a cover letter requesting him to investigate.
Granum said he did not know whether Carter and Gloria Spann had discussed his nephew but said Carter was "not aware" of any decision by Mrs. Spann to disassociate herself from her son.
In November 1975 Spann was again paroled and was discharged from parole in 1976.
It was during this period of confinement from 1972-75, a period in which Spann served time in San Quentin, that Spann met and began a homosexual relationship with inmate James Yarborough, Spann testified in SF Superior Court last week.
Both men were released from prison in 1975, after which they continued their relationship in SF, Spann claimed.
By last month, Spann was back in custody at Vacaville medical facility following his conviction for two armed robberies. He pleaded guilty to the two robberies on May 26 and was sentenced in Superior Court here to ten years to life. Spann told The Chronicle that at the time of the robberies he had been "so high on speed and heroin that I couldn't remember what had happened." Prison records show that Spann was treated in a prison hospital in 1974 for drug addiction.
"I just want to leave this state. I was convicted and I have to serve this time. But I want to serve it in a prison somewhere else." It was in regard to this most recent request that he wrote to his mother to influence Jimmy Carter to intercede again inhis behalf. Spann's mother may have discussed her son't predicament with Carter but the candidate "dismisses any thought that he had a part in making the decision" not to help Spann this time, said Granum. Granum declined to elaborate on that explanation.
Born William Hardy on Oct. 10, 1946, in Americus, Ga, Span was the only child of Gloria Carter and William Hardy, her first husband. That same year the couple divorced and young William's name was changed to Carter. He lived with his grandparents, Lillian and James Earl Carter, until 1951, when his mother married local farmer Walter Spann.
