Calling Death Row

Dear Governor Newsom. As we wind down season two of Dear Governor, Jarvis Master's federal appeals process is just winding up. The law firm Kirkland and Ellis has assembled an ace team of attorneys that will guide Jarvis through the post appeals process with great expectations that he will after a lifetime in prison and celebrate freedom once and for all. We at Dear Governor will continue to follow Jarvis and

his fight for freedom. If you're moved by Jarvis's personal story, we encourage you to keep him in your thoughts, to pay attention to his developments and engage support system is critical to a successful transition to the outside if and when that day becomes real. Later in the show, Jarvis answers some of your pressing questions and curiosities. But up next Jarvis's lead attorney, a man for whom Jarvis is trusting his life and future. My name is Mike Williams.

I'm a partner at Kirkland and Ellis. I'm a partner in the litigation practice, so I'm one of the people who tends to go to court to try cases. Typically, I represent large corporations to in large corporations, that happens more than cases like jarvis Is that involved the death penalty.

My largest client to date was the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, So when they were sued by their bond holders and creditors and banks and on a line bond insurers during their financial crisis in twenties seventeen, I represented Puerto Rico and those proceedings and making sure that these creditors weren't allowed to seize property in Puerto Rico and so there

could be this orderly bankruptcy practice. I represent a lot of companies in a broad array of different cases, but it's mostly commercial litigation with a few exceptions, and some of those exceptions are death penalty cases like Jarvis's. There was a case that I had handled. I stuck with this client for about seven years up and through the Virginia state and federal courts. His name was Ivon Telugus. He was one of the nine people on Virginia's death row.

By the time Governor mccauliffe granted our petition for clemency. We've gone through federal proceedings, state proceedings, state proceedings because the State of Virginia was actually considering using the electric chair against him when they couldn't find access to the drugs that they needed for the lethal injections. So this was an example of a case where Van was also actually innocent. It's very very hard in federal courts to

unwind a state court conviction and state abeous. That's where we are with Jarvis now, and I've got to say, the facts have to be really stark because of the deference that the federal courts tend to give to state courts. In Ivan's case, even though we stuck with him, it took really a courageous move by Governor mccauloff at the time to say this man's innocent. I'll at least commute his death sentence. So that was back in And what percentage I mean, you're a global firm, so what percentage

of your cases are like this our pro bono? How do you decide which to take? I would assume there would be dozens and hundreds of people wanting your representation. It's it's that's one of the difficult parts is because we're a large law firm, we'd love to take on more cases, but just as a as a fact of life, so many of these cases are so difficult, and so many of the cases the record is so difficult. In many of these cases, the client is difficult to reach

and differ pope to contact for lots of reasons. It also has to be a case where even though it's very rare for somebody who's on death row to have been served well by counsel before it reaches the federal courts, there are a lot of cases not this one, where we found that state council is actually almost an obstacle to get in relief. And just to give you an example there, very recently we had another death penalty case in Brazoria County, Texas, on behalf of a fellow who

was intellectually disabled. And this is this is really the story of somebody's worst state corney because James Harris was intellectually disabled, had drug addiction issues, had a terrible day where he was locked out of the motel where he was living, and he just in a fit of rage, he committed acts of violence that he never would have

committed under other circumstances. He had tried to plead innocent, plead guilty rather with the d A. The d A cut off PLEA negotiations and force him to take the case to try ill and he was sent to trial in Texas State court without anybody ever raising the defense of intellectual disability. An intellectual disability in our system, under our constitutional system, that's mitigation per se. You're not allowed to execute somebody under the Eighth Amendment if they're intellectually disabled.

Nobody ever raised that defense, and so I used this as a case because it was another recent death penalty case that we handled. But we got a call from the American Bar Association where they said there's a case. It's going to a hearing in four months. And this is before the holidays, so you know, takes us over Thanksgiving takes us over Christmas. There are very few firms like Kirkland and Ellis that have the resources to do

that anyway. And then it's an even smaller vent diagram when you talk about the firms that are willing to do it, that have the capabilities of doing it in terms of experience. So we were really lucky to get that case. Just a few months ago in March, we got a ruling that vacated recommended that we vacate James's death sense, So there was another win. But it still has to go up to the TECH to his Court

of Criminal Appeals, which could reverse that. I think we've got a good factual record and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decides these cases at their own pace. But again that's an example of you know, you asked, how do these cases come to Kirkland? A lot of times it takes somebody like the A, B, A or somebody to say not just this is a good case, but also this is the sort of case where Kirkland should get involved. How did Jarvis come to your um? How

did you learn about him? So we have We're fortunate Kirkland. We have a great partnership, we have great lawyers who are associates, not partners. And then we also have lawyers who are affiliated with Kirkland and Ellis. And one of those lawyers who is affiliated with Kirkland and Ellison of council position is Larry Marshall, who's one of the foremost professors on the planet in terms of innocence, sentencing, criminal law,

criminal justice, I mean a whole host of issues. When I start talking about Larry's expertise, it's not to it's not even to try to exhaust it, because he's just that good of a law professor, and he's just the sort of smart person that you want to be lacoll if you're working at a law firm that reaches tony positions like this. And I understand that Larry got a call not from the A B A, but from Oprah Winfrey. And when Oprah asks for assistance from a law firm,

the law firm pays attention. And so this is it's a sort of story that Larry would tell better than I would. But when you get a call that says, would you please hold for Oprah Winfrey and Brian Stephenson, you this this better be good. I better take a seat Jarvis Masters. I said this to several good friends of mine. If I lose with these guys her glean analysis, I've never had a chance of winning because this law

firm is very, very good. And my conversations with Larry Marshall just gave me the confidence that he knew the case and he was going to find the best people to you know, represent me. And he's one of the few lawyers that in my life I totally trusted. So it was just a relief. I didn't ever, I didn't do anything but just trust in, you know, in my innocence to find the right people that represent me. And

that's what happened. So why do you think they took on your case because they're a huge international team, global firm. But that they knew that I was innocent. That's that's the bottom line, and that that was the That was everything that I thought would would determine if they would take my case or not. Did they see my innocence

right there? Did they research my innocence right there? And when they took on my case, I finally had someone who would really really believed in me, and I just felt, you know what, I have the best law firm that I can be fine in my life and in my situation, and from there, I just let it go. You know. I just give my faith to this law firm to do whatever they need to do to get me out of here. And what I would do is that he

promised myself that I won't die in here. Uh, you know, I'll be able to leave here with a lot of my sanity in place. What does the team look like that you have put together to support Jarvis. We have a team that it's a cross offices. It's one of the things that I'm happiest about. Because Jarvis's cases bending in California, we're able to draw upon some of our best partners and associates in our Bay area offices. Leading the team with me is a lawyer named Erica Williams

who was in the Obama White House Council's office. She was in senior positions in the Securities Exchange Commission. Death penalty cases aren't her expertise, but she was also leading the team with me on James Harris's case in Texas that I was just describing. So, Erica is a gifted lawyer who has an amazing courtroom presence. She's an amazing

strategic sense. And she's one of those lawyers who when I call Eric and I say we've got a case, and Marie Marshall said that this is when we should take Erica is like one of the first people to say, of course, I'd get involved. So it's it's good to

have her involved. But then also just a really talented team in our In our office in San Francisco, we have Ashley little Field and Austin Clark, who are two of our up and coming, really talented partners who are helping lead the team in the day to day efforts. They know California courts, they know California law, They've actually appeared in front of our judge before, so all of that is very helpful and leading a team a fairly large team of associate lawyers and also legal assistants, and

all the resources that we have here at Kirkland. All told, our team is about i'd say about twenty lawyers, which is very large for a Kirkland case. You know, even our chemical company cases, you know, we we tend not to staff them that large. But here, I mean, it's an important case and there are lots of people who want to get behind it. Yeah. Yeah, I would imagine you took him on or you signed on Jarvis just prior to the outbreak of COVID. So how has that

impacted your representation of him? You know, it's it's really made the challenges exponential. And I just talked about a case in Missoria County, Texas that was pre COVID, where we could, over the course of four months, take that team of twenty lawyers or what have you, and spread out over east southeast Texas and conduct an investigation here. Because so many of the witnesses are in an institutional setting, and because COVID had completely locked us out from those

institutional settings, that's led to real challenges. On the other hand, and Jarvis's case, one of the things that I think is a real advantage for us is that I think the procedural problems, the constitutional deficiencies, and his state proceedings are pretty clear from the record below. You know, we we we can bring facts to the court, We can bring evidence to the court that would help the court decide these cases in our favor. We can show where

the state court made errors even involving facts. But there are certain principles about not being able to use state procedural rules, you know, what can be admitted into evidence to create a constitutional violation, and that's what happened in Jarvis's case. So, while it's unfortunate we haven't been able to spend more time in sam Quentin and speak to people there, one of the benefits of Jarvis's cases is that it's pretty clear what these constitutional problems are just

based on the face of the record that's there. Will you be hiring an investigator to go back and look at the facts of the original case, or is this more specifically about the constitutional issues that dealt with the case?

And it's it's all the above corny because we are you know, we're compiling the facts and we've got people that you know, I don't want to talk too much about the investigation, but I will say it's both there's a factual challenge that I think is pretty important, and then there's also, fortunately in Jarvis's cases, there is also this black letter legal challenge units in James's case, just

to give you a counterexample. In James's case, we had to go and we had to speak to his aunt to say, tell us when he was growing up, we had to go to his high school yearbooks and find people who were on his football team and match up the photos with the captions and say what can you

tell us about James? And over the course of this investigation, we found out that James had a niece who is intellectually disabled and was actually a special Olympian, and nobody had ever said, wait, James, you have a niece who is a special Olympian who's intellectually disabled, who's close to you personally. Nobody had ever asked about this before. Of course,

nobody raised your intellectual disability defense. With Jarvis, the set of witnesses is somewhat more cohesive, and it's also a little bit better explored because he had really good lawyers working for him before, you know, lawyers who were trying to do the right thing. Yeah, So there's the legal issues that are based on the actual record that they've created.

Those legal issues are pretty stark. I mean, when you're not willing to listen to testimony because you're just saying, I'm tired of this, I'm gonna hang up the phone, I mean, that's probably an unfair caricature, but that's that's an example of a legal issue that we can raise on the existing record, but the factual investigation is also a piece of that. So where do you go from here?

What is the best case scenario? What are kind of the next steps that we can anticipate, and how can our listeners support you or or support Jarvis in any way, shape or form. Well, so where we go from here? We filed our petition, our federal habeas petition, and I think that it lays out in I hope, in readable language for anybody who's not a lawyer. Doesn't you know, isn't you know? Isn't steeped in what you know Chambers versus you know what what the Chambers case means, what

the Brady case means. But I hope that it says in in fairly straightforward terms what went wrong at Jarvis's earlier proceeding. I think it also makes a good case for actual innocence as well. So we've got we filed our petition. At this point, we're still waiting for the state to file its answer. I mean, that's that's how this proceeds. As we file our petition, the state files its answer, we file what's called the traverse, which is just basically an answer to the state's answer that's not

usually as important. And then from there, one or both sides might see this case up either for an evidentiary hearing where we put on evidence, or the state might move for some rejudgment and say, even based on everything that they alleged, we think this is so clear a case that you should deny relief. So those are the next steps. And because because the state has been so slow and filing their answer, we've really got some questions

about what they're going to say. They were supposed to file it in July thirty one, and we just received an email yesterday asking for another week. Now. I get the state has all kinds of resource issues too, but it also prompts the question, Corny, if you've got those sort of resource issues, why are you fighting this so hard?

You know, if we've got a man who's got this even you don't know Jarvis, you've never met him, you don't know who he is, You've still got this claim of innocence in California, why are you pushing forward with

the death penalty here? You know? And I don't want to sound flip, and I don't want to sound disrespectful, but like, why the blood bust, Like, what in the world would make you push so hard to make sure that Jarvis, with all of these procedural problems and with the showing of actual innocence, why are you fighting to keep him on death row? And I mean, it's a question that I hope gets answered at some point, but at this point, we just like to see what the

response is by the State of California. Is there a time limit in which they have to answer you? At this point, they've extended the time limit, and you know, in federal courts, and with good reason, judges tend to be very lenient with extensions in cases like this. And typically, as somebody who's represented people who are on death row, ordinarily, when the state asked for an extension, we know we can't really oppose it. And for many of my other cases,

execution was imminent. You know, when the state of recipent extension, it's like, well, great, that's another two weeks that we don't have to worry about somebody issuing a death war. Sure, but since the moratorium zon in California, that's not an issue. That's right, but the federal judge will well, ordinarily we just assume it's very difficult when the state can say I've got COVID, I've got a docket. You know, he's

on death row. But you know, so it's it's very hard for us to to oppose an extension by the state. It breaks my heart because I mean, his his whole the whole state process for the habeas the filing and then the oral arguments that was decades before he got an answer, and he's just this is just not a speedy trial that he's guaranteed by the by the constitution.

Huh no. And it's it's it's something that it's hard because I know every day that Jarvis is on death row is another day that an injustice is being committed. And yet at the same time, we don't want to say to a judge or to any decision maker, please hurry up and give us. We don't want a fast answer despite all the challenges of remaining on death row when you don't belong there. We really want the right answer, and so that's what we hope we can convey to

the judge. Was there anything that that the listeners can do to support or follow We have a petition on free Jervis dot org that people can go and sign and it's basically just an open letter to Governor Newsom. But is there anything above and beyond that and that we can do as a podcast to help, you know, I I hope everybody keeps listening. And I hate to go on and on about stories like this, but I've

had death row clients who had been executed. I had the first one just during COVID and this was a man who was on federal death row and even though he had a shocking procedural story, he was executed in June and the federal death Row in Terra Haut, Indiana.

He died in obscurity. I mean, he was a person who had these really significant constitutional claims and I had only represented him before the Supreme Court of the United States, but he was very well represented by amazing habeas counsel during federal habeas proceedings, and the Supreme Court doesn't have to take a case. And so you know this, this, this client of mine was executed, and there were a

couple of ap stories. You know, the federal government just executed somebody, and there was his picture and there was a video of his mother saying, please don't execute my son for a crime that he committed when he was nineteen, but he basically died in obscurity. So when I started by talking about how special a case Jarvis was, a big part of it is there's Jarvis, but there's also

all these people who support Jarvis. And if there's going to be a change, whether it's in Jarvis's case or whether it's in the application of the death penalty, more generally,

it's going to come from people who care. So I'd say, just by virtual the fact that Jarvis has supporters, people who would listen to a podcast and pay attention to this case, that puts Jarvis in an entirely different category from of anybody who's on death row, and almost certainly from anybody who's got these sort of injustices that have been committed in his proceedings. So I see the thing

that you can really do. I know it's not above and beyond, but especially for now, it was just stay engaged. You know, as a lawyer, I want to win this case in the courtroom, and so I would never say now is the time to start writing letters to the editors. That's not my lane, you know. My lane is let's put forward the best case that we can let's put forward a team that can win this case for Jarvis. I have to say, it's a real shot in the arm to know that there's somebody who cares and that

we're going to do our best to win. And I'm confident that we're going to win. But to know that Jarvis has people who care about him, that makes all the difference in the world in a case like this, and that's to his lawyer. I can only imagine with me for Jarvis, well, David Cheff, who wrote The Buddhist on Death Row, the latest biography, and I have committed to host a freedom party when you succeed in getting him out. So I hope you will be a v I P. You will be a v I P at

our party. Listen, I'll be bartender at your party. I don't need to be a v I P. And we've got a Kirkland team that's so large you can't have as all as as V I P. So you know, it's it's a hard it's a hard system to beat in the federal courts. But I think of the cases that I've seen and of the clients that I've seen, I mean, this is one that the federal courts really

should make right. So I always get very nervous when I talk about pending cases, and especially pending cases like this where I don't even know what the state's going to say yet. But I will say, I mean, just knowing Jarvis and knowing the facts and knowing the law, there's a reason why Kirkland took this on, and there's a reason why people support Jarvis, and it's because this is the sort of case that should send a message to the system that things go wrong. Well Amen, Amen,

good Corny, and thanks for everything you do. I mean, I know I keep saying this, but it really does make all the difference in the world. I mean, it's it's just terrible. I can say from from Christopher's case, which is the client I'm talking about, to you know, pour your heart and soul into pleadings and and and convincing yourself and then trying to convince the court and saying this shouldn't happen, and then the Supreme Court denies review and he's executed, and it's like, did this even

make a difference at all? The effort? You know, I had a team on that one too, And did this make a difference? And here, it's like knowing that Jarvis has people who care, who are watching, and who are speaking to him. That really makes a difference, not just for Jarvis's case, but for all of this. Absolutely, thanks for everything you do. Point Thank you to Absolutely and U. I'll be waiting for your firetending skills. Thanks to take care. Okay by My name is Tyler from Atlanta, Georgia, and

I wanted to ask Jarvis. After all the complicated legal battles and issues around people not believing that your innocence, what thought brings you peace? What do you think of you when you want to find peace with the world that seems so frustratingly cool and unjust meditation? I think the ability to sit down with both the good and bad does a lot to help me find that interfeace. I think there's always have to be something good about

the worst things that are bad. And I definitely felt that when when COVID hit sand Quick, Where do I find my piece? You know? And my piece was to let it go through me? What does that mean? Let go through you? Knowing that I knew that this was something that I couldn't fight, This was something that they were not going to medicate me to keep me from catching it. I had assessed that San Quentin didn't know

what to do. I didn't panic. I just said, you know, I'm gonna let this, whatever it does, go through me, COVID go through me. I was not going to try to fight it, you know, I was just gonna let let my Buddhist practice give me an idea was the best way I can deal with this. That you have a place in your brain that you go, Like for me sometimes it's when I'm stressed out or whatever, Like I'll go to like the beach in my brain, you know, visit a peaceful place. Do you have any place you

go or is it just a mantra? This is what I'm doing. I just noticed it's not long ago. Whenever I feel really bad about something, really depressed, and I don't think meditation is gonna who's going to address the issue. And I think that's what the question was really asked of me. I create good conversations with people, you know,

I really do. I create good conversations. I'll bring up something that would just put everybody involved in the conversation, whether it's a football game or something, and we're all talking about this you know, and it can go on for an hour or two hours, you know, and somewhere in between these conversations, I just looms that that thing about feeling really really you know, depressed, are set at them, you know or something. So that's where I really go to.

I've noticed myself doing that a lot. Can you talk to the guys like through yourself? Is that how you communicate with them? Yeah, I'm sitting at my cell door and I will throw something out there and we talked about it, you know, and it maybe ten fifteen people involved in conversation, maybe even more, but we're talking over each other, but we can hear each other. We have

that ability to do that. You know, sometimes when you hear the noise, you think everyone's making noisely everyone's really talking to each other, and they can not the noise and not even pay attention to them. You know, that someone else's noise, not my noise. After editude, I visioned it.

I envisioned someone getting real frustrated. And what they do is they call a friend, someone of best friends, someone who they don't have to worry about using the correct speak each our words to get across what they feel most frustrated about m h. We do that here, I know I do that. There's people that I talked to like that. You know. I would say, hey man, let me bounce this off the wall and tell me what you think about this, you know, and I would get

their advice. And most times I get the advice that I'm not looking for. But it's good to think about. There's certain guys that just weigh in when you do want them to. Yeah, but that would be my purpose to everyone jump into this. Please give my my mouth some stuff from going through. You jump in, man, you know, just just you know, yeah, hey man, more noise you make the better this is gonna feel, you know. I

think it helps for everybody. I think everyone has someone they call when you know, when the workplace is not doing treating him well, or when you know there's spouse problems or whatever. You know, there's someone that we always called, you know, um, And that's the same way here. You know. I'm grateful that I can bounce things off of certain people. And I really really think Tyler Tyler for his call.

I thought it was a good question. And often I get that question about how do I find some measure of peace and all this chaoffs, you know, and all this other stuff, and it's a constant practice and kind of made a really really great question. Hi. My name is Sophia. I grew up Catholic, and within my religious organization and affiliation, we have always been taught to be pro life. Presently, I have never made my own opinion

on whether I'm against or for the death penalty. But I was really moved by something Jarvis had said, and he said, um, I have technology, the fact that I have her people, and I was really moved by that that he was, I guess, taking accountability for whatever he has done. I have been researching Jervis's case and I find it very shocking that Jarvis ended up on death row. I see that there's so many questions of jarvis case, especially fact that he might not have participated in the

direct murder of a cop. How is it that we could can compare Jarvis's conviction to that of a serial killer? How does it feel to be put on death row with other people that have committed probably even more hain his crimes and at the end of the day, they are being given the same punishment despite having a completely different crime. So that's my question. I think, Um, I think sometimes when you're forced live with people, you're forced

to live with people. But you know, for me, I found it very interesting to just look at people, you know and see, wow, you know, there's Scott Peterson, there's this, and there's that, you know, and then I look for

the differences than me. For me, you know, what is the difference between this person and this person and a lot of the stuff that they're on death row for you tend to see, you know, it's very Remember I wrote a story about the guy, me and this guy playing chess, you know, and he always would try to trap me and but not just win the game, just trapped me in a corner. Um. Now that you know, I meet people like you know, you know, these serial killers. I I'm so glad in all honesty that I'm not there.

You know, that's where I walk away from. You know, Wow, I'm so glad I'm not there. You know, we're both on death road. But I don't know what is in his mind, you know, what's what's going on with him? You know. Me, I'm trying to write a book. Me, I'm trying to do this and it doesn't make me better or worse. I don't look at it that way.

It's just, wow, my sanity is something that really really need to protect, you know, in many ways, I'm very very scared about, you know, this place turning to me crazy. And if anything scares me more than is being uh, it was in my mind. You know, I'm so scared to lose my mind. And after so many years, you can't to believe that, you know, it might just happen. What do you think kept seeing all this time? That is a question that that's like a corn I don't know.

I don't know what it is. I know it's people like you. Is the support I have on the outside, is constantly being a communication with friends. But you know, this book is still hard to cell, is still small. I can stand up and touch the ceiling, you know. I can put my arms out and touch both walls. And I see a bar that gets locked beyond the locked door that cannot be opened unless the world have the keys. So I think, how you know? But to your question, I don't know what it is. I used

to say I'm crazy, because I'm not crazy. One thing I do know, and I think this goes really to the heart of her question is that a lot of people on death row, they're sick. And if there were more hospitals, if mental hospitals would still be, you know, as they used to be, you know, many of them, a lot of these guys would not be on death row, they would be at the hospitals, there would be mental hospitals. So, you know, sometimes I look at him and I just

noticed it. You know, their minds a just shot out. But you know, I get along with mostly everybody. You know, I'm just socially that way. You know, I'm wired up that way. You know, I can get in the conversation with somebody I think is totally out of his mind. But I just stayed there for two hours and talk to him. And I know that some of these people and I know they're sit I know they're tormented. It's the fact. This episode was written and produced by Donni

Fazzari and myself, Corny Cole. Our theme song sentenced is compliments of the band Stick Figure from their album Set in Stone. Stu Sternbach composed the original music. Nate Deft did the sound design. For more information on Jarvis and to find out how you can follow his case and support his cause, please visit free Jarvis dot org For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

favorite shows. In your mind, the first night that you're out, where you're stay, have you imagined that I'll probably stay outside outside? Yeah? Why? Because I haven't seen the dark outside these buildings for thirty forty years, maybe one time. So I want to stay outside in a tent. I don't know. I just want to be outside. Yeah, is that that simple? I just want to be outside where I am. I want to be outside. You have sixty seconds remaining? Wow, there something wrong with that? Not at all,

not at all. I guess it's just something that that I take for granted on the outside, and the fact that that's the first place you'd want to be. I would imagine shelter, But you want anything but shelter, right. I don't want to be in no once. I don't want to be inside anything but outside. Yes, that's the fact.