Sentenced to Death, Again

to our inboxes. Anyone can stay apprized of ongoing Supreme Court cases by signing up at Courts dot c A

dot gov. At the sixty six day mark, we all received an email with a subject line Supreme Court of California Case Notifications for s one three zero four nine five, the body of which read notice of forthcoming opinion to be filed in three days and three days later, twenty one days before their deadline, the eagerly anticipated email read the Supreme Court of California Opinion available online and then

in parentheses concurrence. I lost the English unanimously. That heard it real bad, you know, but I mean just you know, sucked it up for a while. I did a lot of meditation and a lot of sitting in, a lot of thinking, and one thing I was very very confident in months out of this decision was that I will try to feel in the same place ready to accept whatever outcome that is. Jarvis's lawyers had filed his habeas

petition in two thousand five. It took the California Supreme Court fourteen excruciatingly long years to address the petition and then sixty nine short days to reaffirm what they had already decided. Had the court moved with any sense of urgency or a bare minimum respect for the goal of a speedy trial, there's a possibility, however remote, it might have been, that Jarvis could have already moved through the Federal appeals, a far less politically fraught system, and inhaled

the wonders of freedom. When I heard about the decision, my immediate reaction was I was crushed. I felt crushed to the ball. Yeah. I was hoping that no one asked me these questions about what it felt like, you know, because to me, it would have been like I was a specive than a subject card, uh, something to look at you. I any want to be that way mm hmmm. I described it as having just had your wisdom keeeth pulled out and someone's trying to hold a conversation with you.

You know, it hurt it in that way. So that was my first you know, That's how I responded to it, and over the next ten fifteen hours, and so I had to straighten up, you know, I had to figure out how to straighten up off this, you know. And when it comes down to your freedom, epis so long, you really, deep down inside you know, want this. You want to win this. And they caught up to me that the idea of losing is one more long, long time of being in prison for zero, for nothing, and

no one knew how. And I was saying this to myself, No one knows how long a day is. I'm fucking with someone that doesn't know what a day feels like, innocent on the death throw. They have no idea. Then they get upset because I'm upset. You know, what world are you guys living in? Concerns that were key in the two thousand five petition included, but we're not limited

to prosecutorial misconduct. Newly discovered evidence and ineffective counsel. His appellate attorneys at the time wrote that his death sentence rested on evidence that the prosecution had known or should have known was quote inflammatory, unreliable, untrue, and or misleading. In so many words, I had now hold everybody up. I had now played the role of don't worry about this, okay, blah blah blah. You know that was just that was role playing because I knew no one would understand where

I was really at. You know, silence for me was the biggest hug I could have gotten, just so like every time someone talked to me, I was able to call somebody I had. I had to explain people were calling you, but you felt like you had to comfort them all the time. It just feels like I was the strongest shoulder for people to lean on. And if I was fillion upset, they were phillips. So Mynes, who was not the shill upset because I knew it would

create a lot of unhealthy ways for me personally. The star witness against Jarvis was a black guerrilla family member by the name of Rufus Willis, who testified under grant of immunity from prosecution at the trial that he had been in the prison yard when the b GF gang were planning the assassination of Officer Birchfield, where it was agreed he said that Jarvis would provide the tip of

the spear. In the preliminary hearing, Rufus Willis described Jarvis as standing five seven, chubby, with a stomach, wearing glasses, clean shaven, and free of tattoos. Note in fact that Jarvis masters is six ft one, slender, didn't wear any glasses, had a mustache and goatee with a tattoo on his

left cheek. An inmate named Harold Richardson, however, confessed to playing the role in the crime that Rufus had attributed to Jarvis, and fit the physical description Rufus had articulated to a t seems like a slam dunk for reasonable doubt. Right just have him testified before the jury. Not so fast. Harold Richardson refused to testify, citing his right against self incrimination. Jervis's council pleaded with the judge to grant immunity for prosecution,

but for whatever reason, the judge refused. Jervis's council also pleaded with the judge to allow expert testimony regarding the unreliability of jail house informants, and for whatever reason, she refused that plea as well, do you feel like you're losing hope? You know what? And there you're talking about, Well, can you hear the Buddhist here? I'll I don't want to get into what hope post to do for me

right now, you know, I don't. I don't think hope is gonna that's gonna help me resolve where I'm that. I just don't think hope is a necessary thing to have right now. I think it's really unhealthy. I think it has no real value to it. Yeah, I think that I'll be chasing something that you know, I don't know where it would go one way to other, and Hope is not going to be responsible for that. I would not let that be my response. I would not

give Hope that responsibility. In other words, I really don't want to put hope o front street, you know so, I think that is a very very Buddhist way of saying, you know, hope is not an issue that you should put everything into. Okay, what do you want to put on street? If not hope? The idea of not expecting anything. Work with that? Why do I need to spend time trying to effect one outcome from the other. To not be that smart to know and to live in that

space of unknown, not knowing. That's a very comfortable space if you can control it, if it can be maintained. How do you do that? Oh man, I don't really know. You know, I know what the practice is. I really don't know how to do that. I can give you the basic instruction, but I don't I don't know how it works. And that's what they call it. What a practice is. You get better at it, you discover more, it becomes more of a way of thinking. It supposed

to create balance in your life. H Quit trying to tell yourself what you don't know. I mean, that's just the way I see it in prison. On me, I I cheech this kind of stuff to people. So I mean my way of saying it to a lot of guys in here is, you know, quick trying to tell you know yourself you know something. When you don't, all you're gonna do is fall asleep and want some bit once some timely lost because of it, leave it alone. Trying to be in the best place when it happened.

So just be in the place of not knowing what you what you really don't suppost and know anything about, and be smart enough to think that you don't need to know what you're not gonna be told to you until it happens. Lawrence Woodard, the man who was accused of masterminding the murder of Sergeant Birchfield, was sentenced to

life without possibility of parole. Andre Johnson, the man who was accused of a single stab wound that severed Sergeant Birchfield's pulmonary artery, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Jarvis Masters, accused of manufacturing the tip of the spear, was sentenced to death after a penalty phase hearing at which a prisoner named Johnny Hose, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family, testified that Jarvis had bragged about murdering a San Quentin prisoner in nine four, though

this case had never been adjudicated. Subsequent to the trials and sentencing, all three States witnesses Rufus Willis, Bobby Evans, and Johnny Hose have recanted and sworn statements saying that they had lied at the trial in hopes of obtaining favorable treatment for themselves. The rufus Willis statement also said that he had coerced Jarvis, out of fear for his own safety, to write the incriminating kites, which Masters copied

from the writings of Willis and Woodard. Finally, Andre Johnson, Jarvis's co defendant convicted of actually stabbing Birchfield to death, provided a sworn statement saying that Masters had no role in the murder. Were you surprised when they came back with the death penalty? Yes, Jeffrey Rockline, lead defense counsel for Jarvis Masters from nineteen eighty six to nineteen Jarvis testified and he was very compelling, very believable, very likable,

very human, very warm, sympathetic. You know, he told a story about his life that was, you know, really sad, very upsetting, and you know, he testified to the jury, I thought, in a very communicative way. And then we had other experts on the stand about you know, his background, Craig Haney was was excellent. So yeah, I was surprised that they came back with death, very very surprised. Do you remember talking to Jarvis about it after? Oh? Sure, Oh yeah, how was that to him? Well, it was hard,

So yeah, it was difficult thinking with him. But you know, he Jarvis is a is a tough, strong guy, you know, and he's a real fighter. And I really grew to like Jarvis, you know, and like him very much like him and feel for him and have sympathy for him and as as a human being, as a person who was able to actually pull himself out of you know, that whole gang prison culture and the criminal culture. Um. So I have a great deal of respect for him.

And number one number two, there was so much evidence that was kept from us. Um, there's so much of the bad evidence that has flipped over, has reversed that. You know, if he were tried now, whether I would handle it or another defense lawyer would handle it, you know, they'd get an acquibble. I think there's this overwhelming reasonable doubt that Jarvis was was guilty of the crimes. That's what I feel. So I'm glad you're doing this work. It's very important. He should not be on death row.

He shouldn't be in prison actually for this crime. You know, it's really a tragedy. Um, it really is. You know, it's really unfair. How do you hear the decision? Who told you? How did you find out? Art from at least a dozen people, you know, they were coming at me from all over the place, and what I noticed about most of them was they wanted a response. They wanted to know my first reaction, and they wanted to know it in a way that it's so really really

sickening to me. It's almost like people are looking right down you, right down your throat and wanting to know what aposted to feel like, you know, how does it feel for that to happen? I'm sorry, but I really want to know how you're dealing with this. I wanted to look in your eyes and see something you know that that all, yeah, I can see, I mean that

kind of stuff. So I think what happened was I dealt with it by trying to fear show I was not defeated, you know, and I was ready to take it to the next level that it's not as bad as it was supposed to be. You know, the court basically preached us with some really good issues, and that was the issue by Blue and the other justice speak the two issues that really we can really really build on the two issues that Jarvis is referencing that may

help as he navigates the federal appeals process. Written by California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin lou in his concurring opinion on Jarvis's habeas corpus petition, he writes, we have no occasion in this posture to consider whether, in light of the trial evidence, as well as the reference hearing and findings, we can be confident of the verdict beyond a reasonable doubt and to quote, nor do we have occasion here to consider whether, in light of all of the relevant circumstances,

the fact that Masters was sentenced to death while his co defendants were not maybe indicative of arbitrary nous in the application of the death penalty. I had the last god I killed executed was on my watch with my client in two thousand and six. And that's another thing that makes me so sick death. I'll tell you when you have that kind of direct experience of it, as well as the experience of standing up there next to my client, Jarvis, and having the judge condemned him to death.

Attorney Michael Satras sat second chair on Jarvis's defense team from nineteen through nineteen nine, and his death penalty sentence. I've always been against that penalty. I get a add taste in my mouth from it, and every experience that I have of it to me, just shows how wrong and arbitrary and capricious it is. And for Jarvis to end up with the death penalty when wood or jury hangs on the issue, which is the same jury we had.

Woodard is the he's the true believer. If anybody is in participation in the gang, he is indisputably the leader of those three. So the jury hangs on him and then comes back with the death penalty for Jarvis. And then you have Johnson, the actual killer, who gets the death penalty by his jury, and the judge modifies it

because it is kind of arbitrary. He's sort of a fall guy in some ways from Woodard and the higher ups picking him as as the good soldier who wants to make his bones and whatever to commit the killing. But he's kind of just this not very bright, innocent young man. And so the judge, to me, that was a very good move on her part. And then we come up for pronouncement of judgment, and by all rights, by all signs of justice and whatever should have been modified.

In reference to the three States witnesses recanting their testimony, the California Supreme Court wrote that while Jarvis had demonstrated them to be generally liars, he does not offer any persuasive reason to credit their recantations over their trial testimony. In other words, we know that prison snitches are prison snitches. We know that prison snitches lie when it benefits them.

We know that there was a chance that they were lying in the original trial, and there's an equal chance that they lied in their recantations, and because of that, we unanimously endorse the execution of a man because you know, we really don't know in this prison context. Yeah, I mean, you're accurate in observing that these people, many of them, the snitches, are unreliable. They tell different stories. Jeffrey Rotwine, again lead defense counsel for Jarvis during his murder trial.

We attacked Ruvius Willis. We attack you know, Johnny Hoes, Bobby Evans, the people that were, you know, cooperating with

the government. And typically there's a whole history of cooperation, you know, and and and requests for leniency or money or reduction and sentences or dismissal of cases, and you have to kind rely on the institution, the district attorney and the you know, the prison and the Department of Corrections, you know, to disclose and and produce all the records and information varying on that person's character and background and

motives for testifying. I asked Larry Marshall, a professor of law at Stanford who happens to be consulting on Jarvis's case. Now that the habeas corpus opinion has been rendered on the state level, what is next for Jarvis? So the next step, after one goes through the state system of the direct appeal and then the habeas is we give a defendant capital or otherwise the right to go into federal court. And two show that the state court was

unreasonable in rejecting his or her ca institutional claims. So it's not enough to convince a federal judge that my rights have been violated and that I should have been given relief. You have to show, and this is since since the anti terrorism and effective death penalty app you have to show that the state court was reasonable, that it unreasonably applied settled law, Settled Supreme Court, United States

Supreme Court precedent. So it's a very high burden. But on the other hand, it's a burden that has met at times in outrageous cases. And it also has to be the claims have to be federal constitutional claims, and this is a very This federal habeas is a very odd bird in the structure of our court system because it kind of puts it does put a federal district court judge and then a federal Court of Appeals in the role of reviewing the reasonableness of what the state

supreme court has done. We don't do that in civil cases. And civil cases, if there's a federal issue, you go straight to the Supreme Court. You don't get to go into federal court and have a judge sort of second guess at some level what the state court has done. But again, because we do recognize that constitutional rights in the criminal setting are particularly cherished, we do provide we

do provide this remedy. And just as an historical note, it was born in large part over the fact that, let's say, during reconstruction, a lot of states in the South, we're not respecting the constitutional rights of black defendants. Congress had a mechanism, they had those defendants had a mechanism of going into court um and saying to the federal court book, our constitutional rights are being violated, and there was a sense that the federal courts would be more

independent and more willing to recognize those constitutional rights. I've told Jarvis that I will work very hard to help put together a terrific team of the lawyers pro bono lawyers who will take on his representation in federal court.

That I will be more than willing to consult with those lawyers as they as they as they work through the case and to the you know, part of the team in that sense, um, in an informal in an informal way, but I do believe they play that he needs to get some lawyers who are both passionate and brilliant and and very eager to get involved in a

in an injustice like this. I asked Larry what he believes that we as a society oh to those who have languished on death row and in prison in general, only to be found innocent years, if not decades later after their incarceration. I believe that and this might sound corny, um, which I guess is appropriate, but I'm pumped there you go. I I believe that the main thing we owe them

is to learn from our mistakes. Is the main thing we owe them is that their pain have not been in vain and that um other people will not suffer because of what they went through and what we've learned. Now, that's not all that we were. We owe them, We owe them, we need to make them whole as best we can really can't. Part of the way we do that is through money, uh, and judgments and the ability to try to rebuild or build a life. Um and

I think those are vital as well. But it does seem to me as a society that if we go through that with an individual, we learned that the individual was wrongly convicted, and then we nonetheless just go back to business as usual. That is just this massive slap in the face to the person who has been exonerated and two people coming down the pike. The late Geronimo Pratt served two tours in Vietnam, where he earned two

bronze stars, a silver star, and two purple stars. When he returned to the States, he became a high ranking member of the Black Panther Party and was eventually imprisoned in San Quentin for twenty seven years for a murder he did not commit, and was awarded four point five million dollars from federal and local governments as settlement in

a wrongful imprisonment suit. Here we have Geronimo on tape decades ago bearing witness to his friend Jarvis J. Masters, at the launch party for Jarvis's first book, Finding Freedom, Writings from Death Row. Hey, UM, met Jarvis Masters in prison while we were in the hole in San Quentin's adjustment center, shortly after he was charged with the murder of Sergeant Burstville. No, I should say, wrongfully charge. And um, he's a very beautiful brother. I kind of two did

like I do with Uh. I did, but most youngsters kind of took him under my way for a minute the brief time we were together, and uh I noticed that specialness about him that made him stand apart from most youngsters his age. And uh later on when I learned that he had written a book and that he had continued just practices and to his disciplines that we had been trying to promote as older prisoners, and I

was very proud of that. And then when I got the book and read it, and I knew he was there, and so uh, even though he sits on death row and facing death, I was also up there for eighteen months, but I was not facing officially the death. I know what it's like. But now that I know, he has reached this nirvana at this level, and I'm sure that the Jarvis is this in a safe place, even though he still physically needs our help to get him off

of death row. And hopefully through these methods and channels now we'll we'll be able to generate enough support, enough funds or whatever to effect his release from uh the gallows. And I want to encourage all of you to get this book. Read it. You will find a lot of knowledge and a lot of freedom in this book. And it might sounds fames that you will find freedom from a guy locked up, but take my word from it. Read this book. You will find a lot of freedom.

Where do we find our freedom? I describe situations where someone has a very very beautiful home or two door garage right off the beach, great job, a trained dog, and how their lives are so miserable. At the same time, their life is so miserable, and every time they pull

out the parking lot, they don't. There's a stretch of beach that they never get to see going to work and coming back, and to think that you have all these proper tilities two find your own freedom, to be blessed, to be fortunate to not have that, but always with a sense of being on death row is doesn't have to be in prison, you know you can't. Don't do that. Don't learn just from people in prison on death row

in San Quentin. We'll learn from the misery that you see other people have when they when they're alcoholics, when they are dope finds are very abusive to their spouse, where Vinus is right in the next door, not necessary on the streets. You know, just because you're out doesn't mean that they're free. That's a myth. That's a very very clear myth to me. And I learned that they beat me in the Buddhist I really did that. There's something that I can directly relate to. Having exhausted his

state appeals, Jarvis now heads to the federal courts. Brian Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative introduced Jarvis to Stanford professor Larry Marshall, who in turn introduced Jarvis to the prestigious international law firm Kirkland and Ellis. They have recently committed to represent Jarvis pro bono and his federal habeas

proceedings and other post conviction proceedings. His lead attorney, William F. Williams, said, after decades of litigation in the California state courts, we now have the opportunity to raise in federal courts the serious constitutional issues that deprived Jarvis of a fair trial, and we look forward to presenting his claims to a

federal judge. We will continue to support Jarvis and help tell his story far and wide as the riveting details unfold, and we remain optimistic that Governor Gavin Newsom will hear our open letter and revisit the unjust case of Jarvis

j Masters. The vast majority of legal insights into Jarvis's substantial claims of innocence were published in the article Unrequited Innocence in US Capital Cases Unintended Consequences of the Fourth Kind by Rob Warden and John Seasley, published in the Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy in the spring of twenty nineteen. Not only does this fascinating read profile Jarvis's case, but the cases involving twenty four more condemned men and women whom the authors believed to be innocent

as well. We linked to the article in our show notes. Special thanks to Alan Sinaki for providing legal insights into Jarvis's case as well. Today's episode was written and produced by Donna Fazzari and myself, Corny Cole. Our theme song sentenced is compliments of the band's stick figure from their albums Set in Stone. Stu Sternbach has composed the original music. Nate Defort did the sound design. 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 two 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.