An inmate serving a life sentence was convicted of assaulting a correctional officer in 2023 with a homemade dagger at Salinas Valley State Prison, the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office said.
A jury convicted Curtis Hemphill, 57, on Tuesday of assault with a deadly weapon by a state prisoner, the District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Thursday.
The attack happened July 4, 2023, during an afternoon recall from the recreational yard at the prison in Soledad. Hemphill lunged without warning at an on-duty correctional officer and stabbed him in the chest near his right armpit with a 6-inch, dagger-style inmate-manufactured weapon, prosecutors said.
The officer suffered severe redness and bruising. He was wearing a protective vest issued by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which authorities said helped protect him from more serious injury.
The jury also found that Hemphill had prior convictions that qualify as “strike” offenses under California’s Three Strikes Law. They include attempted murder, kidnapping, mayhem and assault with a firearm in Riverside County in 1998, as well as voluntary manslaughter in Monterey County in 2012.
Hemphill faces 27 years to life, plus another 10 years to be served consecutively to his current 60-years-to-life sentence, according to the District Attorney’s Office.