Jarvis and the Death Penalty

to be inflicted within the walls of sam Quentin. They said that I sharpened the weapon and sent it down to the guy who then made it into a toll and spirit to guard, at which point you shall be put to death. The reason why I end up in death row is because I didn't try to defend myself. You are remanded to the custody of the Warden of sam Quentin. Beyond the racial part. Who gets death and who doesn't is, as was called by the Supreme Court back in the Samities, a strike of lightning. I thought

that these guys are in trouble, not me. There was so much evidence that was kept from us that if he were tried now you know, they'd get an acquipbal. I wish they would have found that weapon, because that weapon would have been my way out of here. I really believe that they found that weapon, I would have not been charged from her. He should not be on death row. He shouldn't be in prison actually for this crime. It's really a tragedy. It's really unfair. No one knows

how long the day is. I've fucking with someone that doesn't know what a day feels like. Innocent on death row. They have no idea. May God have mercy on your soul. God have mercy on your soul. Imagine, through a series of random coincidences and professional ties, you're introduced to a renowned author who's as respected as he is beloved. His award winning essays have garnered international acclaim as a speak to the heart of the human condition, love and devotion.

His books are recommended reading in many high schools across the country, the students of which consider him to be their mentor. This is a man of deep faith and conviction who, decades ago, took the Buddhist vow to do no harm one step further, he vowed to do everything in his power to alleviate the suffering of others. All of this despite the fact that he was a victim of deeply flawed foster care system growing up in Long Beach,

California ghettos in the sixties and seventies. The abuse he endured at the hands of multiple foster parents is all but unspeakable. Born to a heroin addicted mother and a brutally violent father, It's difficult to fathom how any human would have the strength to overcome the kind of generational abuse that destroys lives, families, and entire communities. Others have been broken by a fraction of the horrors perpetrated on this man, but he has somehow managed to find joy, hope,

and even optimism through it all. Now imagine this paragon of compassion who has been lauded by luminaries from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Buddhist teacher Pema children and for whom theater troops have written stage plays, and realized that he has been languishing on San Quentin's death row for over thirty years. His name is Jarvis J. Masters and it was by way of professional happenstance that our paths crossed. My name is Cornicole. I'm a television and radio producer

by lottery of birth. I grew up not twenty miles from Jarvis, in a tony all white Republican enclave that is North Tuston. My parents picked this town because the neighborhood was safe in the public schools were some of the best in the state. Prior to meeting Jarvis, I hadn't had much occasion to think about the death penalty. Why would I. I never knew anyone who was in prison,

much less a condemned prisoner. I, like my father and his father before him, believe the death penalty was fair, effective, cost efficient way to rid society of the dredges of humanity, and never examined this conviction. I never had reason to. In getting to know Jarvis, reading his extensive body of work, talking for endless hours on the phone, I have been forced to look within and question what I held to

be true for so long. On this podcast, myself, along with the community of his supporters, want to introduce you and the Governor of California to the man who is Jarvis Masters. For one, we believe you will be a better person for knowing him, And for two, as we close in on the presidential elections, hopefully his story can be an impetus for some to explore their own surface level convictions and did deeper to understand why they believe what they believe and in turn make their vote all

that much more vital. While everyone seems to agree that the criminal justice system is in dire need of reform, capital punishment is the ultimate wedge issue, controversial and polar rising. It's about politics, it's about morality, and it splits our electorate almost down the middle. Despite the fact that US opposition to the death penalty is at its highest in decades, President Trump doubled down on his pro death penalty advocacy

by expanding the practice. A g Bill Bar now announcing the federal government will resume capital punishment first time since two thousand three, bar directing prison officials to schedule the executions of five death row inmates. There will be a strict timetable for judicial proceedings that will allow the imposition of the death sentence without undue to lay. In response to this edict, a group of a hundred and seventy five family members of people murdered wrote a letter to

a g Bar imploring him to change his mind. They wrote that the death penalty exacerbates the trauma of losing a loved one and creates yet another grieving family. It also wastes many millions of dollars that could be better invested in programs that actually reduce crime and violence and

that address the needs of families like ours. Also in response to Bar's pronouncement, Joe Biden, a longtime supporter of the death penalty, tweeted, because we can't ensure that we get these cases right every time, we must eliminate the death penalty. President Trump's d o J has not only reinstated the death penalty, but if he has his way, drug dealers will be put to death right alongside murderers. And China they have a very, very tough penalty for drugs.

It's called the death penalty. And I said to President Sheets, so you have one point four billion people and you don't have a drug problem. I said, what do you attribute that to death penalty? Quick trial? Following this zealous defensive capital punishment, Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayana Pressley unveiled House Resolution four zero five to, also known as the People's Justice Guarantee.

It would quote prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for any violation of federal law and for other purposes. Of the approximately thirty cosponts or Michigan Representative Justin Amash is the only non Democrat who signed on. From an ABC News interview, sister Helen pru John, author of dead Man Walking In an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. This is the first presidential campaign where you have well most, if not all, of the Democratic candidates calling for an

end to the death penalty. We've never had as a venture candidate before, even Obama. There's a huge shift happening in the country about the death penalty. It was only his reason It's sixteen that the Democrats formally opposed the death penalty in its party platform. But if politics isn't the arbiter of what's important at this moment in time,

look no further than Hollywood and popular culture. Kim Kardashian has become an outspoken advocate for the condemned after realizing just how broken the system is, and earlier this year, the film Just Mercy, starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Fox was released. It follows the true story of attorney Brian Stevenson, who made it his life's mission to fight for the wrongfully condemned. You only know what you enter

down here in Alabama from the moment you're ball. Earlier in the year, movie director Edwards Wick released Trial by Fire, starring Laura Dern. It tells the true story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas for allegedly killing his three daughters after scientific evidence and expert testimony that bolstered his claims of innocence were suppressed. You are guilty of capital murder by order of the State of Texas.

You are sentenced to death. Oprah Winfrey's recent book club pick was Anthony ray Hinton's memoir The Sun Does Shine. How I found life and freedom on death Row after a case of mistaken identity sent him there. On March thirteenth of this year, Governor Gavin Newsom held a press conference in which he announced that death penalty executions in California would be halted under his administration and during his

time in office. It was a National Academy of Science report that came out that estimates one out of every twenty five people on death row is innocent. If that's the case, that means if we move forward, executing seven thirty seven people in California, we will have executed roughly thirty people that are innocent in that same pressure. Governor Newsom made a call to our better angels because he said, when you know better, you do better. There are innocent

people on death row. I cannot sign off on executing hundreds and hundreds of human beings knowing knowing that among them will be innocent human beings. My name is Jarvis Masters. I have been an inmate at Quentin Institute for a most thirty years. Forty years. Cool ships has a long time. Sometimes you just want to let that self go right, and you want to keep the low. You know, you want to like you know, you don't want you know what it is, you just say something different all the day.

I have been an inmate at San Quentin Prison for almost fourteen years. I am certainly guilty of the crimes that brought me here, and I owe the mistakes I made, and I've paid my dues, but I'm not guilty of the crime that put me here on death row for the last thirty years. I hope you take time to listen to my story, and I hope you have the heart to recognize the unjust reality of capital punishment, so many guilty mans have to be put to death to

justify the execution of one innocent man. Dear Governor Newsom, do you, Mr Governor Newsom? This is an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom. Dear Governor Newsom, myself, along with a group of your constituents, wants to introduce you to an exceptional human being, one of the seven hundred and thirty seven souls currently on California's death rows lost my dear mind. I know, I think I'm most provider something or someone can survive so long, long long I think

that I am. I'm lucky. Our group spans the political spectrum. Some are pro death penalty, while others are outspoken advocates for the abolition of the death penalty the California State programce san Quentin, California, Jo, You're lucky. You don't like to say that, because I'm in a place where you know, how How the hell can you be lucky on death row liminar and nine right four so for forty years? How how do you make sense out of that? You know, this is the story of one man, but this is

not one man's story. I am so lucky that I have my spanity. I have people to motivate me, to keep me going. That's that's that's how no that you know, I'm in a good place. I mean inside internally, I'm in a really really good place. A man who found grace in an unjust system, a system so broken that justice is not color blind nor free from social bias.

So many things in my life I'm thankful for, you know, and I think what happens to me accorded that when you learn how to start thinking thanking people for for the person you make yourself to be are, You're just you're just full of you, humble yourself in front of people who you know that's doing things for you in ways where you can't help or feel thankful, you know, because you come from a place where these things never happened, and to see them happening, it's like, you know, it's

one of those whiles, you know. So yeah, I think about a lot of people who helped me along the way. Soon after the pandemic brought our world to a screeching halt, Jarvis reached out to me to share how dramatically things have changed for him and his buddies on the East Block.

San Quentin thus far has remained relative of the infection free when you compare it to other prisons from across the country, because social distancing in jails and prisons is all but impossible and sanitizers forbidden, infection rates are exponentially higher than that of the general public. The New York Times aptly labeled jails is the petree dishes for the virus. What's it like in there? Like, on the outside, it's

been crazy out here. It feels completely dystopian, all sorts of shutdowns and nobody's going to work and everybody's staying at home in the streets are empty. So what does it feel like on the inside? From my fancis point, is like all being done up there. I mean, it's a real SII Fi movie. If you look out there, you see people and their reactions to this disease. It is really really scary, you know, and we all think about our families and for instance, loved ones, and just

like everyone else would. What is the biggest story is that at any time so it's sick, instead of putting them in the hospital, they put them in solitary confinement the whole And for someone to say I got a fever and I'm not filling. Will say they're gonna put you there. I guess not to me. People canna raise their head when they are honest sick, they're not going to do it. So there is no real serious motive to raise your hand when you're really, really sick. Are

you gonna do it? You know, say, okay, I'm sick. Listen me to the whole where I could barely breathe and no one ever see me. No, I'm not going to be putting isolation from fine where I cannot use the phone. Well, I can't inform my family how I'm doing or find out what they're up to. That's a bad, bad plan that quldn't half of this problem. Is there any testing that's being done to them and they just get sent down to the hole? No, there's no chest

kits here. You've got a temperature in that temperatures stayed at the high level for a couple of days, and they don't you and hope there's guy's coughing all around because it's the flu season. You can't really determine put that cost actually means. I know that yesterday a guy went to the whole because he had a high fever.

So that's how that goes. But other than that, everyone's watching TV, and everyone's watching the news, and everyone's listening to the radio, and everyone doesn't understand what Trump does. But this is the West Coast, this is California. But I think a lot of people don't see him as being in control of this. They see local government's being more in control of it. For me, I follow the money. The money would kill me. How seriously, everything he is

out there, stop mons crash. There's a serious problem. When they lose in eight nine, ten trillion dollars. A think that's a serious problem. Anything that generates money, if it's shut down, it tells me it is a serious problem. But one gives me more anything is when people say to me Jovers, you know, I understand what it feels like to be in prison now. And I say really, I mean, all right, I get it. I get that.

I get that, I get that. Okay, I don't even want to burst the bubble, you know, I just let them feel that. You know, when I'm on the phone, a lot of people are it's very sympathetic to me being locked up, based on there are three weeks out of work, and at home with their spouse that much to be a lot. But if they're fineess in that place of confinement. Really it is true that they feel locked up. They can't go outside for their walks, and when they can't do the things they normally would do,

to suddenly test that off is a real problem. I can sort of get it in one way, you know, I can get it, because you cut off from the routine of life and you will feel crummy. You have to even if you can pay for not working. You to still see the National Guards homework down the street passing me where you're going? That is really unusual. Guard tells me all the time, where is you going? They

do not have a quicker response thank you? Do? You, on the other hand, have a very hard time for understanding it, you know, and you don't know where it's coming from. Brif property, jobs, employment, the way the world is is suddenly you can turn it upside down, and I understand that up next. It's difficult enough for a healthy adult mind to bear witness to this tragedy, but imagine how much more terrifying it is for a death

row inmate who suffers from mental illness or schizophrenia. Another thing I want to talk about was this is something I'm starting to observe just because I look for things to look at psychiatry. There's a lot of people for death Roy. It isn't especially Thankwich who's taking psychmanty For one reason, that is whether paranoia rather's anxiety. To have this thing going on right here, if you're creating a whole new different kind of fear, that fears be concentrated

five six gay times, it would be meeting you. So you can take a guy who's chest anxiety problems, are schizophrenic or whatever it is. You can really see the difference at him. You really can't. I mean, this is very clear, and it can only get worse. Because I'd one guy, She's a good friend of mine. He says, I don't think I could take three more weeks? Is I cannot take three more weeks of this? And I'm thinking one of the for the last fifteen years is

at the boiling point. Why did you tell him? I just told him in either way, you don't know what three weeks might feel like. You may become a chess player. You don't know what some of you doing it three weeks. I told him. Also but if you can't take it to the point where I think you can't take it, then you'll be going by your damn self, because I'm not going with you. Man. He thought that was really

really funny and just trying it at him. Though. What got me corny was this when he said, I don't think I can take three more weeks of this had told me a whole lot. It's almost like he's repeating what he's watching. Yes, he takes it more serious than the people he's looking at. Yeah, like he's feeling the

anxiety of the world through an exponential amount. Right. But the problem is he's in the cell of death road and there's already many readers to steel hopeless you can cast some money and trying to figure out how can you whole school your kids or whatever? His freed of doom. They're just doomed, persisted by my arch is it broken? Sick? I'm leaving silence, hartnesss plex me. I don't know me. Can you help me, Dear Governor Newsome. My name is Samara.

I'm founder and artistic director of Truth Worker Theater Company, where a social justice based hip hop theater company for young people who are directly impacted by mass incarceration with loved ones who are currently or formally incarcerated, and we create original cutting edge theater can never tell me, incorporating music and movement and dance and lyricism and testimony, creating visions for change around the prison system and all of

its ricocheting impacts on our communities. Jervis, but there you are, Javis, probably looking all over. I first met Jarvis over ten years ago after I had survived a violent crime at the hands of a young man who was now serving multiple lifetimes in prison. This was not an easy thing for me. Despite my survival and despite experiencing violence, I still understand that hurt people hurt people, and prison is not a solution to create healed communities that are accountable

to one another. Jarvis was family and dear friend and mentor to one of my closest friends, and she put us in contact with one another, knowing that I was committed to really exploring healing and justice, and also that I work in New York's at a public schools and particularly in transfer schools that are specifically geared towards servicing young people who are overaged and undercredited, which often means gang affiliated, formally incarcerated, pregnant and parenting, or impacted by

foster care. Jarvis spending his boyhood in and out of foster homes and being awarded the state from such a young age, incarcerated while still a juvenile and unjustly sentenced to death, then serving twenty three consecutive years in solidary confinement, was committed to mentorship on his own path to liberation.

Despite confinement, Jarvis had made clear to my friend that he wanted to be directly connected to other young people who were navigating systems that perpetuated oppression, marginalization, and would disproportionately targeting young black and brown people. God am I forgiven for my sins. I'm gonna talk behind these walls are night. I'm gonna be killed with something that I didn't do. God have I forgiving foods usigerating? Do you know how many people are on the outside faring for you? Love?

You may not be able to climb those walls. We're gonna make it a disappear. Almost thirty years into his death sentence, and Jarvis's habeas corpus oral arguments are finally on the docket next week, as he anxiously awaits those arguments before the California Supreme Court. Jarvis will share his perspective on this untenable waiting game, and I'll report back from the courthouse. This episode was written and produced by Donna Fazzari and myself. Corny Cole Stu Sternbuck composed original music.

Nate Dufort did the sound design. Special thanks to Samara Gayev and the cast and the crew at the Truth Worker Theater Company, who provided us with clips and music from their original hip hop musical Boxed In and Blacked Out in America. Visit free Jarvis dot org to find out more about Jarvis's case and to sign your name to our dear Governor Newsom petition. And if you have questions for Jarvis, please leave a message on our hotline at two zero one nine zero three thirty five seventy five.

That's to zero one nine zero three thirty five seventy five. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.