SOLEDAD — Monterey County District Attorney’s Office announced Nov. 18 that Michael Ellison, an inmate at Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP) in Soledad, was convicted by a jury of murder, attempted murder of a peace officer and attempted murder, all in the first degree.
Ellison, 42, of Riverside, was also convicted of three counts of assault by life prisoner.
On April 8, 2018, Ellison stabbed fellow prisoner Jason Lewis to death on the yard at SVSP. On July 26, 2019, Ellison, while housed in administrative segregation at Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, stabbed a correctional officer multiple times. Then, on Aug. 12, 2023, he stabbed his cellmate at SVSP.
The jury also found true allegations that Ellison has a prior conviction for murder out of Riverside County in 2004, assault by a prisoner with a deadly weapon from Kings County in 2005, and assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury from Kern County in 2017.
Ellison faces a maximum sentence of life without parole, plus an additional 87 years to life in prison.
I grew up in Salinas and Soledad. After 4 years as an Army Infantry Paratrooper, I worked 27 years in 5 different California State Prisons. In almost every single instance of an inmate killing or attempting to kill another inmate or Staff, they were originally sentenced to prison for a type of Homicide. I saw clear evidence of the fact when society allows a convicted killer to live, they are only moving them to another location where they have the opportunity to kill again or at least try. Nothing about this latest conviction and sentence changes any of those circumstances.