Righteous Anger

burglary and joy riding and stolen cars. At age fifteen, Jarvis was sentenced to the c y A in Stockton, California, a seven hour drive north from his Long Beach neighborhood. This was an ample distance from his homies and former life of crime to give him a new perspective on self worth and potential. It was in Stockton for several years that Jarvis earned his high school diploma and started

believing he may have a chance after all. But in time, the lure of family and the familiar became too much to bear, and little McCrae, once again a personal mentee of Jarvis and an actor the Truth Workers Theater Company, reading from Jarvis's autobiography that bird has My wings. I struggled with this feeling of wanting to be with my

family and knowing where it will lead. I wanted to return to who I was, to the life I knew well all his pitfalls Southern California felt more real than the life I was trying to create for myself at Stockton. My visit home had loosened my resolve and made me question all the good reasons I had sustained in Stockton and winning a new life. I was losing everything that

connected me to my identity. Angrily, my mind stumbled and said, of rational for letting go like a dolphine who makes up any excuse to just hang on the street corner looking for a fix. I just I could be at them, fool like the rest of them. To pay for a bus ride down to his old stomping grounds, Jarvis sold his most prized possession, his high school diploma, and he recommitted to a life of the damn fool behavior that eventually landed him in San Quentin Prison. Let's call, and

your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. I couldn't get it right, you know, I couldn't get it right, Jarvis Masters, I just couldn't get it right. I mean, I was frustrated. I didn't want to I didn't want to go back out to Los Angeles because I was placed a Paris doctor and when I went down there, losers to live. It was the worstest mistake I ever made, and I knew it, and I didn't do nothing about it.

So this night year old kids, you went around any more people that he hadn't seen for many, many years, and she walked away from a lot of things that he knew right off that that, you know, his minds me trained not to mess with, you know, guns and dope, and so I walked away from that. But then everywhere we went, it was right there at me. So I

started helping my brother out. You know, he was selling herouina at that time, and he showed me where where all the guns were, you know, and he gave me a few, and I never gave him back to him. Did you ever shoot anybody before? You know what? Yeah? I did. No, I shot at someone. Yeah, I shot at someone. But that's a story. And that bird has my wings. Where these guys coming back to me and another guy and we just got tired of being followed Chase,

so we came around the building with its blazy. The next day we learned that we fired bullets into the house. The car had been parked in front of There have been children in the house. Bullets had come closer, hitting while they slept. I thought, we're horrid about what almost done. I imagined the children in the house as my nephews asleep in their bedroom. I could have killed them. I've been given the miracle. I didn't have to live with the pain of having killed a child or anyone in

the car either. I couldn't name where I felt. It was beyond the great. At some point I was out of control. I got out of control and I kept doing these robbery things, and they kept going on and on and on until I eventually got caught and they convicted me for a whole bunch of robberies that I did within the span up two months. And that was just that anger, you know, and dealt with. There's a lot of anger I hadn't righteously dealt with, and I put myself in a position where I act out on it.

It was definitely not me, but I own it, you know. So at the time, did you feel any remorse for crimes or were you not even that awake to be able to know I didn't feel no remorse. Remorse was not something that I knew how to deal with, because when you talk about remorse, a lot of that comes up when you're alone, when there's no distractions where someone is telling you to feel that way, and someone's not

telling you to feel that way. I never had that kind of time to really sit with things like that. I was always around people who have done far worse, are far less. We judge each other because we all were doing something wrong. So no, I did not know what remorse meant. You know, I know I felt sad by the fears that I created on people's faces because I remember that then in many many ways, on many ways that we don't understand our life. In an ironic way, it helped me get to a place which had to

be here said, I found myself. I found detaining hurt, and I found what it was like to experience someone being robbed. You know, I got to the point where I was being robbed by something and it was scary. It was real scary. What was the initial sentence? Twenty one years twenty one years for sixteen Council of our robbery. Yeah, and they said we were sending you to Saint Quentin.

San Quentin State Prison, Maximum Security correctional facility for men, opened in eighteen fifty four, California's oldest prison, the state's only facility that conducts executions, is ironically situated overlooking the serene beauty that there's a San Francisco Bay. In the eighties, when Jarvis was first incarcerated, it was an extremely dangerous place to be. Violence was a daily ritual. A riot erupted in two that required more than twenty shotgun blasts

in order to subdue the revolt. Twenty two inmates and four corrections officers were seriously injured as a result. Is it as violent now as it was back in the eighties. No, not at all, not at all. It's not violence, No, not at all, not even close. I've been an observer that that that you know, this thing here, you know, and there's so many things that changes the culture. I honestly think someone in the Department of correct this is

in a state of shots. See how giving it makes the ability to communicate with their families and ways that are conducive to that families life schedule. Being there to see their kids and their grandkids born or you know, at graduations. And you know, I'm talking about what I'm basically talking about access to phones, cell phones, regular phones. I mean that day you didn't have that, you know, and right now you have that. And you know, you're

not finding weapons, you finding cell phones. You're not finding a lot of drugs, you finding cell phones, You're not finding a lot of fights, You're not finding none of those things because people are reconnecting to their life, you know, to the life they left and to the life they have now. Currently in California, it costs a dollar twenty three to make a five minute call from prison, and

that's a medium cost compared to other states. The Prison Policy Initiative recommends reducing phone costs or making calls altogether free to help inmates keep in touch with their families, one of the most effective factors when it comes to eliminating recidivism. Guy says, you know, what do you want to do? You want to go out there for you spend time with your daughter and your new grass, and do you want to go out there and have this thing going down on a lower yard somewhere. Everybody's gonna

want to speak with their families. And to use that as a restriction was always a wrong love. But to use it as a way of an alternative was the right move. And I think they turn that right and uh, the right way. There's not so much fall privileges. It's

fall and access. For example, the phone wheel and right now, the one we're talking on right now, it is very expensive to talk for five minutes, especially for a family who doesn't have that kind of money, and old are the families that are usually have with someone in prison, obviously, to give that person access to talk into his family, you know, uh, to provide him with an opportunity to do that in ways where you know, it's like you

can speak generations of your family nowadays. That's special. You know. I don't think they really really understand how special that is. Sister Helen Prejeon, author of dead Man Walking Rights. Jarvis j. Masters was set on a dangerous course which eventually brought him to death Row. Somehow, within those walls, he now demonstrates divine grace in his daily life and by the cautionary tales he shares. I asked Jarvis, after a lifetime of what he called damn fool behavior, what was the

impetus for him to change? I started reading these books about masculinity and where's the man and the boy? The boy and the man? How do we find ourselves? And you know, the environments we live in and what we do to imitate being with a mass supposed to be based on what we've been told. So I was reading a lot of these books, and a lot of these books were both Ferry. They were all sort of had

a spiritual net on them. I started reading these books and they were really good books for me to read because they really started to tear away what I thought I should look like sound I can be like, how did you think you should be back when you were nineteen twenty? Oh? Man, I don't post picture from nobody. I do my own thing, you know, and I post too, be a glass of I define what my man is to me, you know. I don't care about standards are there what people might think that I need to be.

And then there was a whole prison culture thing where there's certain obligations you have just by what we say our man who's being threatened. I had a chair down a lot of that stuff, and that was a very scary part because those were all layers of shields that I had created, fashion may, personalize, customize that kept me

from showing my true self. So I was pulling away those layers, man, becoming more vulnerable to this and valuing the idea that I can cry, learning how to openly have more appreciation for things that that I never thought I should have given some value to. You know that that that authentic human being that there's a lot more layers to me than to get there, you know, see right, each layer gives a different shade of sun. But yeah, I I was trying to really find where I fit in.

When you're young and vulnerable like that, you want to know where you fit in. You want to fit in with the tough guys, but then there's something that doesn't fit with the tough guys, and you don't want to fit with the guys who not tough because there's something they'll fit with that. So you have to find where you are. For me, I had wherever I was. I had to learn how to respect that as a starting point. So what else I wanted to do with that? So I had a lot of restarts, man, you know, that's

what I used to call them, restarts. Let's do this all over again, make it yours. You're given a response to something you have six you know, you only respond because this is how everybody else responds. How would you really want to say that? Because there's the things that you know. For me, they were like sort of like how assisitions that are conversations that are built around matress sort of you know, they were like asking me to repeat something to hear get over again to know that

you know what was you really trying to stay with it? Hi? Yeah, I mean I speak with Jeffrey rot Linke's Hello. Hi Jeffrey. Yes, Hi, my name is Corny Cole, and we're creating a podcast that is focusing on the life of Jarvis Masters. Yes, and I'm expecting your phone call. Wonderful. I've been a practicing attorney for about a little over forty five years, a long time. My main area of interest has been criminal defense, murders and capital murders, you know, like Jarvis's case.

So tell me what you remember when you first met Jarvis. I think I met him probably in the latter part of or the early part of ninety eight, and he was up at San Quentin Prison and he was very closed very kind of steeped in the in the prison gang culture, noncommunicative with with me, with us. He was in a very different kind of lifestyle and culser um. That's what I remember when I when I first met him, he saw his demeanor change. Tell me how how he changed. Well,

he began to open up. He became much more communicative, He became softer and more self confident, much more friendly with with the defense team, Michael Satris and the other people investigators and experts and so on that we had retained. While he was doing that in the same process of kind of um, you know, leaving behind or getting out of the gang, the prison gang culture um. And by the time we got the trial, he was he was almost like a different person. This is an open letter

to Governor Gavin Newsom from Marty Krasny of Saslito. Dear Governor Newsom, first off, thank you and congratulations for your courageous and admirable decision to establish a moratorium on the death penalty in California. It's in that context that I am writing now with particular attention to the case of Jarvis Masters. I can always to pendle Marty. You know,

he he got my back. That's one thing at all the people I know, Marity has my back, There's no doubt about it, and I have some much respect for him. A condemned inmate at San Quentin State Prison whom I believe was wrongly convicted as an accessory to a murderer at San Quentin, in which he had refused to participate the gang perpetrated slaying of Sergeant Howell Birchfield, two tiers

away from where Jarvis was locked in his cell. I've known Jarvis masters for more than twenty years since his conversion to Buddhism while he was housed in the adjustment center at San Quentin following the murder conviction. We have been in my life. Marty is one of the smartest people after ever. Ever, I didn't even think people like Marty exists. Is always depended on him to tell me

the truth. My wife, Pamela Krasnye, a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner for the last forty years of her life, a long time social justice activist and a member from its inception of the board of Naruropa, the Buddhist inspired university in both To, Colorado, initially met Jarvis through our friend, the revered American born Buddhist nun and writer Pama Children. Subsequently, Pamela visited Jarvis at least twice monthly until her death in June, and she became like a surrogant mother to him.

Basically said, I have a friend that you really really was going to like and she's been my friend for many, many years. Her name is Pamela, and she wants to come see I say, cool, I can always get another visit. Wow, get me out of myself. And we start talking and she said, I'm gonna bring my son, Parker to come see you. And she had a lot of good stories

about Parker. Our son. Parker Krasnye, who has worked for the last five years on criminal justice policy in the Office of the Mayor of New York City, has known and advocated for Jarvis since high school. Parker is one of those people that you know, it's always going to be your best friend no matter where he's at, and he's I've always thought of him that way, even though we don't communicate as often. He's always going to be

the best friend. That's someone who uh will always be universedy and what happens to me ain't care about me

in that very way. You will likely hear from other supporters of Jarvis about his transformation from an angry and aggressive young street criminal who was justifiably convicted for robbery and served his time for it, to a model prison resident to whom both prisoners and guards turned for wisdom and perspective, and the author of two highly regarded autobiographical books used in high school and college curriculous throughout the

United States. Since Jarvis's trial, fellow gang member inmates who falsely witnessed against him under the threat of violent retribution haveverson did their testimony, and one of the world's leading forensic linguists has stated that he is virtually on certain that the kites introduced as evidence of Jarvis's complicity are not his diction and were similarly dictated to him by gang enforcers. None of that would hold sway if Jarvis were guilty of the death of Sergeant Birchfield, but he isn't.

Quite Simply, I believe that the conviction resulted from a perfect storm conversions involving a media fan public fear of African American criminality in predominantly white nineteen eighties Marin County, a dishonest prisons snitch, corrupt enforcement officers and gang leaders seeking to enforce the chain of command and control against an independent and recalcitant young member who had somehow found his moral compass. You and I, Gavin, have met over

the years. I chaired the Democratic Committee in Marin and Sonoma County, then Assembly District four for a number of years at the beginning of the century, and I have been active and geo executive and corporate manager in the Bay Area, including service on various philanthropic and educational boards.

It would be a bold move to Exonera H. R. Vis Masters, and it would not give him back the decades that he has lived at San Quentin after a grave miscarriage of justice and a flawed conviction, but it would be the right thing to do, and it would enable this innocent man approaching age sixty to spend the rest of his life in freedom, working productively for social benefit. Thank you for considering it, with admiration, gratitude, and warm regards,

Marty Krasny. As we continue to anxiously await the California Supreme Court opinion on Jarvis's final state appeal, will he finally be exonerated or will they confirm the death penalty sentence. Next week, Jarvis will open up about his very personal opinion on capital punishment and what that feels like from the inside of death row. In addition, we'll hear from the esteemed Buddhist teacher and best selling author Pema Chodren.

Today's episode was written and produced by Donni Fazzari and myself, Corny Cole. Our theme song sentenced his compliments of the band Stick Figure from their album Set in Stone. Excerpts from Jarvis's memoir That Bird Has My Wings, a Harper One publication, were read by m Little McCrae, a member of the Truth Worker Theater Company. To learn more about the outstanding work they do, please visit truth Worker dot com. Stu Sternbach composed the original music. Nate Defort did the

sound design. Visit Free Jarvis dot org to find out more about Jarvis's case. 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 five seventy five. That's to zero one nine zero three thirty five seventy five. Dear Governor. Newsom is a production of I Heart Media and three

Months Media. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,