Oct. 30
CALIFORNIA:
3 former Cal governors oppose death-penalty repeal
3 former California governors are urging voters to reject a ballot proposal
next week that would abolish the state's death penalty.
Democrat Gray Davis and Republicans Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian joined
murder victims' families in Los Angeles Tuesday to warn that Proposition 34
would erase history and potentially free imprisoned killers.
There are more than 700 inmates on California's death row.
Davis calls the proposal on the Nov. 6 ballot a "horrible injustice" that would
reopen old wounds for victims' families.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other supporters say $4 billion has been
spent since 1978 housing condemned inmates and on lengthy court appeals. They
say that money could be used to investigate unsolved murder and rape cases.
(source: Associated Press)
*************************
California's Longest-Serving Death Row Inmate Wins in Ninth Circuit
A federal appeals court set aside the capital sentence of California's
longest-serving death row inmate on Monday. The ruling by the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit tracked that of a lower court, which found that a
lawyer for Douglas Ray Stankewitz failed to investigate circumstances leading
up to the murder of Theresa Greybeal - namely Mr. Stankewitz's abusive
childhood and long history of substance abuse.
Mr. Stankewitz, a Native American, has been on death row in California since
1978, when he was convicted in the kidnapping and murder of Ms. Greybeal. (He
was one of the first people sentenced to death after the state reinstated
capital punishment in 1978. 13 people have been executed since then.)
In a 2-1 decision Monday, the Ninth Circuit upheld a court order that Mr.
Stankewitz's death sentence be vacated unless California officials seek to
retry the capital phase of his case within 90 days or resentence him to life
without parole.
"We are faced, however, with a situation in which counsel's failure to
investigate and present mitigating evidence cannot be rationalized on any
tactical ground," Judge Raymond C. Fisher wrote in the opinion, saying Mr.
Stankewitz's lawyer at the time failed to conduct the "most basic
investigation" of his client's background.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain argued that the circuit
should have instead clarified the legal standard for evaluating Mr.
Stankewitz's claim that his former defense lawyer failed to present mitigating
evidence - that is, evidence that could have persuaded the jury to vote against
the death sentence. After establishing the standard, the Ninth Circuit should
have remanded the case to the lower court for further proceedings, he said.
"While I hesitate to remand this decades-old case once more, that is the
prudent course. In this capital case, the stakes are high enough to take the
long view, get circuit law right, and leave Stankewitz's particular case for
another day," Judge O'Scannlain wrote. "If that day were to come, we would have
the benefit of a better-grounded district court decision, and we could be
confident that we got this case right. We cannot be confident today. I
respectfully dissent."
The Ninth Circuit's decision comes as California residents are preparing to
vote on a ballot initiative that would ban the death penalty in that state and
replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Proponents
of the new law have argued that the appeals required in death penalty cases are
too costly and could be avoided by simply sentencing such persons to life
without parole.
"We are reviewing the decision," said Shum Preston, a spokesman for California
Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Mr. Stankewitz's current lawyer didn???t immediately return a phone call
seeking comment Monday.
(source: Wall Street Journal)
********************************
Death sentence of state's longest-serving death row inmate overturned
A federal appeals court Monday overturned the death sentence of California's
longest serving death row inmate on the grounds that his defense lawyer failed
to investigate and present mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of his
murder trial.
A 3-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decided 2-1 that
Douglas R. Stankewitz, convicted of murdering Theresa Greybeal in Fresno in
1978, should be re-sentenced to life without possibility of parole unless
prosecutors retry the penalty phase of his murder case.
Death penalty trials are divided into 2 parts. The jury 1st decides whether the
defendant is guilty or not guilty. If guilt is established, the jury then
decides whether to recommend a death sentence or life without parole.
The 9th Circuit majority said Stankewitz's lawyer presented only a "paltry"
amount of evidence in trying to persuade jurors against a death sentence,
ignoring extensive documentation of the defendant's "deprived and abusive
upbringing," potential mental illness, long history of substance abuse and use
of drugs leading up to the murder.
Stankewitz was born into a filthy, poverty-stricken home without running water
or electricity to an intellectually impaired alcoholic mother and an abusive,
alcoholic father, the court said. By the age of 6, Stankewitz already was
severely emotionally damaged, the court said.
Judge Raymond C. Fisher, writing for the court, said the jury might have opted
for a life sentence had it learned of Stankewitz's life story and his heavy use
of drugs in the hours before the murder. Stankewitz's defense lawyer "did not
obtain a psychological examination of Stankewitz, despite his belief that
Stankewitz was not mentally competent, and did not pursue any of the evidence
of Stankewitz's history of drug and alcohol abuse," wrote Fisher, a Clinton
appointee.
The ruling upheld a decision by a district court judge who examined the case.
Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, a Reagan appointee, dissented. O'Scannlain
contended the lower court applied the wrong legal standard and argued that the
case should have been returned to the district court for reconsideration under
a different standard.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
***************************
Anti-Death Penalty Proposition 34: Gaining Ground But Still Behind; Proponents
of the ballot measure say the death penalty is too expensive. But Californians
have long supported capital punishment.
The latest effort to abolish the death penalty in California is gaining ground
with star power and money.
Recent polls show that Proposition 34, which proposes to replace capital
punishment with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, has
considerably more support in the state now than it did even just a few weeks
ago.
But trying to abolish the death penalty isn't a new effort in California, and
it's not yet clear whether the late surge will translate to success at the
polls.
This time, advocates are trying to wield a financial argument in addition to
the more familiar questions about the morality of putting people to death, or
the risk of wrongly executing the innocent.
Advocates argue that the lengthy appeals process provided to death row inmates
costs the state millions each year, yet results in the actual execution of very
few.
"We've spent $100 million to execute 13 people from 1978 to 2006," said
Proposition 34 advocate LaDoris Cordell, a retired Santa Clara County Superior
Court judge who serves as Independent Police Auditor in San Jose. "That just
makes no sense."
Supporters of the measure include the League of Women Voters, the retired
California Death Row prison warden, former Los Angeles County District Attorney
Gil Garcetti, the ACLU and others.
"Even people who believe in the death penalty are for this," said Cordell, who
is an official ballot sponsor of the proposition. "It's because the system is
broken beyond repair."
The proposition would apply retroactively to the nearly 725 people now on death
row in the state. Prop. 34 also would draw $100 million from the general fund
for police agencies to help solve more homicide and rape cases.
Opponents of Prop. 34 say that putting people behind bars for life instead of
executing them, is cruel to victims' families.
And they also doubt the cost and studies anti-death penalty advocates are
relying on.
"Their whole argument is cooked out of a so-called study - a biased study,"
said Mark Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter Polly was kidnapped and killed in
Petaluma in 1993. "It's estimates. It could be off by tens of millions of
dollars."
Klaas, an official opponent of the proposition, said he believes in capital
punishment for people like Richard Allen Davis, who was convicted of murdering
Polly and is still on death row.
Plus, Klaas said, he simply doesn't believe that all murderers will stay in
prison for the rest of their lives.
Along with Klaas, opponents to the proposition include California State
Sheriff's Association, former governors Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian, the
California District Attorneys Association the California Police Chiefs
Association.
2 recent studies appear to show that the gap is narrowing between the yes and
no votes.
A USC Dornlife/Los Angeles Times poll released Oct. 26 showed that opponents of
repealing the death penalty had just a 3% edge against supporters, the
newspaper reported last week. That was a significant change from the prior
month, when people who said they were against abolishing the death penalty
outnumbered those in favor by about 13%.
A Pepperdine University study showed that as of the end of September about 50 %
of those polled would vote no for Prop. 34 and 43 % would vote yes. That gap
had narrowed from August, where at one point, nearly 60 % said they would vote
no and 40 % would vote yes.
As of Oct. 7, supporters of Prop. 34 had raised nearly $7 million. Much of the
money came from big names, including Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and new Yahoo
CEO Marissa Mayer. That amount dwarfs the $300,000 that opponents raised.
If the measure passes, California would join 17 other states that have
abolished the death penalty.
But according to Larry Gerston, a San Jose State political-science professor
and an NBC political analyst, those against repealing the death penalty still
have a better chance of winning.
A similar effort in 2004 went down to significant defeat - despite polls that
showed a close race as the election neared, he said.
Moreover, Gerston said, voters tend to vote "no" on items when they don't
understand an issue.
"California's political culture is pro-capital punishment and it has been as
far back as I can remember," he said.
(source: NBC San Diego)
***************************
Fiscal conservatives should oppose death penalty
Fiscal conservatives are likely voting "No" on Propositions 30 and 38 - the 2
education initiatives on the ballot - and no on Proposition 34, the measure to
repeal California's death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life
without parole.
If you do that, however, you're not a fiscal conservative, you're a FCINO: Not
a Starbucks drink; a Fiscal Conservative In Name Only. Almost nobody is a
fiscal conservative because almost everybody has some government program where
they want money spent, even when proven wasteful in the face of more
cost-effective alternatives. If anything is a money-waster in California, it's
the death penalty. Yet conservatives, who generally pride themselves as these
great deficit hawks, are among its biggest supporters.
The oft-cited 2011 study by a federal judge and a Loyola law professor found
that since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1978, California has spent $4
billion on our capital punishment system. Divided by the 13 inmates we've
executed over those 4-plus decades, we've spent $308 million per execution.
The study was updated just last month. California now spends $184 million
annually on the death penalty and the authors say that based on data over the
past year, maintaining it for another four decades will cost taxpayers as much
as $7 billion.
That's just to fund the current model, sans reforms. Spending an additional $96
million annually, as a 2008 state panel noted, would sufficiently fund the
courts to assure death row inmates every available constitutionally protected
resource to expedite the appeals process, but that would cost taxpayers another
$4 billion atop the $7 billion projected for sustaining our current system
through 2050.
Yet that same panel found that life without parole would cost taxpayers just
$11.5 million a year.
Versus $96 million? Even liberal spendthrifts would have difficulty resisting
that deal.
The updated Loyola study also projects that over the next 40 years our current
model would add about 740 more inmates to death row and carry out just 14 more
executions, while more than 500 death row inmates would die of old age or other
causes before the state executed them.
Even the American Law Institute, which 50 years ago created the intellectual
framework in defense of the modern capital justice system, in 2010 declared
capital punishment a failure, ineffective as a deterrent and far more expensive
than life without parole. No recent study has refuted either conclusion. Even
in Texas, capital cases are 3 times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single
cell at the highest level for 40 years. No true fiscal conservative would
insist on spending multiple times the cost of life without parole in favor of
capital punishment.
Some argue that by eliminating capital punishment, we'll be stuck providing
medical care for death row inmates for the rest of their lives. We already do
that. Death row inmates get the same medical care as anyone else in our state
prisons.
What we don't do is let them out when they're on their deathbeds.
In 2008, "Manson family" killer Susan Atkins had terminal brain cancer, was
paralyzed from the neck down and her left leg had been amputated. Her treatment
cost a fortune, as did the armed guards required during her hospitalization -
apparently a quadriplegic with one leg and terminal brain cancer is a flight
risk. Yet when she petitioned for release, she was denied.
Last year, though dying of prostate cancer and given 6 months to live, Onion
Field killer Gregory Powell also was denied.
This month, Brian Brewer, with cancer of the lungs, bones and lymph nodes,
petitioned for release and was denied. He's not even in for murder but for
charges related to a robbery with a "3rd-strike" enhancement.
Crafted in 1997, the major thrust of California's so-called compassionate
release law was to save the state from incurring enormously expensive
end-of-life treatment for dying inmates. Yet we choose to be tough on crime,
and wasteful, right to the end. True, outside prison walls, freed inmates often
still require government-sponsored medical care, but the state saves the cost
of guarding and housing them.
Nor can this be just about the victim. If the cost of the capital model is
unaffordable -and it is -is it fair to victimize all taxpayers, who are also
law-abiding citizens, just to satisfy someone's sense of retribution?
The primary function of prison is to keep dangerous individuals as far away
from society as possible for as long as necessary. Death does that, but life
without parole does it for less. If we're not executing prisoners on death row
in a manner that is cost-effective to the taxpayer, let alone affordable, it's
not worth keeping.
Maybe if Proposition 34 called for a tax increase to pay for our wasteful death
penalty system, fiscal conservatives would finally get the message.
(source: Sacramento Bee)
***********************
Death Penalty: Divided
With the November election looming, the fight to repeal the death penalty in
California has gotten a lot closer, according to the latest USC Dornsife/Los
Angeles Times Poll.
In a 10-point swing since last month, 42 % of voters now support repealing the
death penalty and 45 % oppose it. The survey respondents were read a brief
statement describing Proposition 34, a ballot measure that would ban the death
penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole.
In September, 38 % of voters supported Proposition 34, and 51 % opposed it.
"There's no question that there has been a sharp shift in favor of a ban on the
death penalty, which seems to have resulted from the fact that the initiative's
supporters have been able to fund a much larger advertising campaign than the
opposition," says Dan Schnur, director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times
Poll and director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. "The Proposition
34 campaign has been on the air and making up ground, but it is historically
difficult to pass a ballot measure after it's been below 50 %."
Support for banning the death penalty increased even further when voters were
read the ballot language for Proposition 34, rather than a brief statement. The
ballot language includes an explanation of the fiscal impact of the measure,
with estimated savings from trials and appeals of $100 million in the first few
years, growing to $130 million annually after that; it also states that people
found guilty of murder must work while in prison, with their wages applied to
victim restitution.
When read the ballot language, including fiscal impact, a plurality of voters
support repealing the death penalty: 45 percent of voters support Proposition
34 and 42 % oppose it, with 11 % undecided.
When read the ballot language, white voters were evenly split on repealing the
death penalty, 43-43. 47 % of minority voters support repealing the death
penalty, including 50 % of black voters and 48 % of Latino voters. 41 % of
minority voters oppose Proposition 34, including 35 percent of black voters and
39 % of Latino voters.
Older voters were also evenly split on repealing the death penalty when read
the ballot language. 44 % of voters over age 50 support Proposition 34, and 44
% oppose it. Among voters aged 18-49, 46 % support Proposition 34, and 40 %
oppose it.
California Voters Support Revising "3 Strikes" Law
In addition, California voters are overwhelmingly in favor of Proposition 36,
which would revise the state's "3 strikes" law and impose life sentences only
when the 3rd felony conviction is "serious or violent."
More than 2/3 of registered Democratic voters and voters with no party
preference are in favor of Proposition 36. Among Democratic voters, Proposition
36 is ahead 70-18; among voters with no party preference, the measure is ahead
68-19. The proposition also has majority support among California's registered
Republicans, with 53 % supporting a revision to the "3 strikes" law and 35 %
opposed.
"This is what happens when tough-on-crime conservatism meets fiscal
conservatism in an era of tight budgets," Schnur says. "Unless the opposition
can convince voters that the criminals being affected by this are still
dangerous, Proposition 36 looks pretty safe."
Overall, 64 % of California voters support Proposition 36 after being read the
ballot language, and 24 % oppose it. With relatively low levels of advertising
spending, voter opinion on the ballot initiative has remained steady since the
USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll conducted in September, when 67 % of voters
supported Proposition 36 and 18 % opposed it.
(source: Election 2012 is a resource for journalists and others interested in
politics, created by University of Southern California Media Relations)
***********************
Eliminate death penalty
It seems everyone agrees that our death penalty laws in California do not work.
The anti-34 group says so, the pro-34 group says so. Well apparently no one is
able to fix it, so do away with it.
We will save millions of dollars annually, some of the savings funneled towards
solving the 46 % of murders that go unsolved. We have more than 700 inmates on
death row now and are adding to that continually. Then, of course, we have the
more than 100 inmates nationally that have been found innocent (some already
executed), and that should be a problem for us.
There are district attorneys, judges, the League of Women Voters and many plain
folk who just feel it is time to quit spending millions of dollars in a
seemingly bottomless pit and maybe use this money for good such as our schools
and police officers, which actually may have an effect on our crime rates.
I am not an attorney. I don't belong to the ACLU. I am just a citizen who
thinks we need to move on and join the many states and countries who no longer
kill. The threat of a death penalty decision does not deter, just look at our
prisons.
Robert Holaway, Ventura
(source: Letter to the Editor, Ventura County Star)
*******************************
Nancy Mullane walks death row at San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin State Prison has four massive cell blocks, each identified by their
cardinal direction: north, south, east, and west. Of the 4, only one houses
inmates sentenced to death. None of the cell blocks have been visited by a
reporter since 2007.
KALW's Nancy Mullane asked Matthew Cate, the secretary of the California
Department of Corrections, for press access to death row. Eventually, Cate
agreed to allow Mullane to go inside all 3 of San Quentin's death rows. Last
week we visited the adjustment center, where new death row inmates begin their
sentence and where the most violent are kept indefinitely.
Today, we go to East Block, which houses 537 men facing execution in the state.
Into the East Block
Before entering East Block, public information officer Sam Robinson and I first
have to pass through a walled sally port. Inside the entrance to the cellblock,
there's a large rotunda with high arched windows.
Robinson leads me through two ancient-looking steel doors toward a set of black
gates. An officer unlocks the gate to the left and we head for the tiers of
cells. As we approach the cells, we pass a table piled up with opened and
unopened letters that have been sent to the inmates. Mail sent to prisoners is
read and reviewed before it is delivered. A sign on the wall in bright red
letters warns prisoners that feeding the birds will result in a CDC 116, or
disciplinary write up. There are no birdmen on death row.
Robinson tells me all condemned inmates at San Quentin are evaluated and
classified in 1 of 2 categories.
"Here on death row, we classify them as grade A and grade B," he says. "Grade A
are individuals who are programming and follow our rules, for the most part.
Grade B are the individuals who are the opposite of that, who are
non-programmers or gang affiliates or whatever the case may be."
Robinson says that all inmates on east block are grade A. As he talks, we make
our way around the end of the block to see what looks like endless rows of
cells. There are 57 on each tier and the double sided block is 5 tiers high,
making a total of more than 500 cells. Looking down the 1st tier, a half dozen
wheelchairs are parked on the polished cement walkway, waiting.
"East Block structurally mirrors the majority of our housing units at San
Quentin," he explains, "They're all 5 stories high and the dimensions of the
cells are 4 1/2 feet by 10 feet, 8 inches."
That means each cell is 48 square feet and seven feet, seven inches tall ???
about the size of a walk-in closet. From inside their individual cells, the
inmates can look out through a row of black bars, a sheet of perforated metal,
a railing and forty feet of open space to a wall of windows that fill the
cavernous space with natural light and air.
"Here in East Block, these guys are confined to their cells for the most part
of the day with the exception of the five hours a day they are allowed for
recreation yard activities," Robinson says.
"500 people have recreation access 5 hours a day?" I ask.
He told me they did.
"Showers?" I ask.
"They shower every other day," he says - and not in a community shower but a
single shower.
"For the most part, your neighbor may not be compatible with you," he tells me.
"The guys we house next to each other could be, in theory, mortal enemies and
so we may not be able to put them in the same space together and so their
showers are individualized showers also."
While I'm standing listening to Robinson, I watch as white sheets of paper fly
up in the air from a 1st floor cell to one on the 2nd defying gravity. These
messages passed from one inmate to another are called 'kites,' and they're
considered contraband by prison authorities.
"See there goes another one! It's really like kites, see there it goes!" I
point.
"There it goes," Robinson says.
We walk down toward the cells. Pushed up against some of the cell doors are
shoulder high, A-frame metal structures with telephones attached.
Robinson tells me, "Because these guys can't exit their cells freely, we
actually have a phone apparatus on wheels as we say and we push it in front of
the individual cell, we leave his food port open and he is allowed to extend
his hand out, grab the receiver and place a call."
I ask Robinson if I can interview the inmates in their cells. He says I can
interview any inmate willing to talk to me...
Below are the 3 interviews that Mullane conducted in the East Block region of
San Quentin.
Walter Cook. In 1994, a jury convicted him of three counts of murder and
sentenced him to death.
NANCY MULLANE: So you have a phone in front of your cell. Why?
WALTER COOK: To make legal calls. Talk to family. Friends.
MULLANE: How often do you have access to the phone?
COOK: We get the phone every other day. Once in the morning and once at night.
MULLANE: And how long have you been here?
COOK: 20 years.
MULLANE: 20 years? In this cell?
COOK: Not in this cell. Different cells.
MULLANE: But all here at Quentin?
COOK: Yep.
MULLANE: So you were sentenced in... what would that be?
COOK: 92.
MULLANE: That's a long time. What's it like?
COOK: Well, I can tell you this. We don't get no free cable, like, or we get
all these extravagant meals. We get regular meals like everybody else in the
mainline. Nothing special. We get everything everybody else gets. And you know
we pay more in here for TV than they do on the street. A 13-inch TV for us cost
like $250.
[Cook offers to lift his TV to show me. I try to take a photograph through the
little holes in the sheet of metal covering his cell.]
San Quentin State Prison inmate Walter Cook is sentenced to the death penalty.
MULLANE: So let's see, where's the best hole. The holes are all the same. Ok.
Right there.
[There isn't enough light in his cell to take a photograph.]
MULLANE: Do you have any more light in there? That's it?
[He flips the switch on the fluorescent wall light to high.]
MULLANE: Okay, hold it down so I can see your face.
COOK: 250 dollars and it's not even name brand.
MULLANE: What name brand would you have wanted?
COOK: Sony or something if I'm going to pay $250.
MULLANE: Do you have family?
COOK: Yep.
MULLANE: Do you have children?
COOK: Yeah.
MULLANE: How many?
COOK: 2 MULLANE: How old are they?
COOK: 221.
MULLANE: So do they come visit you?
COOK: Yep
MULLANE: How often?
COOK: Probably like once every other week.
MULLANE: So you actually have contact?
COOK: Yep.
MULLANE: Is that important to you?
COOK: Yeah. You got to have contact with your family. If you don't have contact
with your family, you don't have nothing. You got to have something to keep
your sanity. We're not like people portray us on the movies as crazy, deranged
people. I get the impression from TV, you know, everybody is a child molester,
rapist. Seem like that's the stereotype for everybody here - that's what they
are. Even people that's innocent. If you're here, you got to be guilty, that's
not true.
MULLANE: Are you?
COOK: No. I'm not guilty.
MULLANE: You're not guilty?
COOK: I'm not guilty.
MULLANE: You're innocent.
COOK: Yeah.
MULLANE: You didn't do it.
COOK: No.
MULLANE: Are you sure?
COOK: I'm positive.
MULLANE: Ok. So you have a good attorney?
COOK: Yeah.
MULLANE: And you've been in here 20 years, so how far has your appeal gotten?
COOK: It's still in state court. That's another thing that's a misperception -
that we're delaying the process when it's the courts delaying the process. They
give the Attorney General all these extensions and extensions. When you want to
move your case forward, it's not on us. They want to tell the public they're
dragging their case, it's not us. It's the courts and the attorneys general
that's dragging it along.
MULLANE: I see. So how has it changed the time that you're doing a death
sentence from when you were sentenced to now?
COOK: There's more programs, education, like, and mental health programs for
the people who really do need it. And it's more cleaner in here than it used to
be when they had birds flying around and big old rats and stuff.
[Mullane asks Cook about proposition 34, the statewide initiative that would
convert death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.]
COOK: Really it doesn't matter to me one way or another because my whole
purpose is to get all the way out of here, but some people that would give us
life without - I don't have nothing against that - but that's not what I'm
striving for. But for people - that's their only shot - I feel that they should
get that. That's what all they can get.
MULLANE: So, if you were voting, how would you vote?
COOK: I wouldn't vote for any death penalty because I wouldn't put this on my
worst enemy or anybody because you have a whole lot of people, every single
day, they turn around and find this person is innocent, through DNA and such.
So if you can't really say whether this person did it or not you going to kill
the person. You can't come back from that.
MULLANE: So you would change it to life without even though you would lose some
of your...
COOK: I don't see playing God and having anybody get killed. You gotta
understand they didn't kill nobody -they just racking up more and more money
and they canceling schools, medical programs for the handicapped people, death
penalty not doing nobody no good. I look at it like this: if you close the
schools, you're going have people commit crimes cause they're not going to have
no education. It's defeating the whole purpose.
MULLANE: But at the same time, if they do change to life without parole, if the
voters pass that initiative, then some of that money that???s paying for your
appeal would be given to the schools, that's theoretical, but you would support
that?
COOK: Yeah.
MULLANE: Even if it means you would lose?
COOK: Kids need education. I mean, I don't want to see nobody here.
MULLANE: Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.
COOK: All right. No problem.
As we walk away from Cook's cell, I ask Robinson how he's going to vote on
Proposition 34.
Robinson telss me: "Unfortunately, I'm not able to be freely open with you and
tell you how I'm going to vote. As a department we don't take a stand either
way on the initiative as it is."
We continue on and stop at Demetrius Howard's cell. A jury convicted Howard for
the 1992 murder and attempted murder of a woman in San Bernardino and sentenced
him to death
Inside his cell, Howard has covered the fluorescent light with colored paper,
giving the dark space a warm glow. He's also turned the surface of his bed into
a desk and today, it's covered with some pencil sketches he's working on.
Something emanating from the cell smells sweet.
Demetrius Howard.
NANCY MULLANE: Wow, you have nice incense. Is that incense?
DEMETRIUS HOWARD: No, it's just oils.
MULLANE: That's nice.
HOWARD: You know, you can't let yourself lose your sense of your spiritualness
and staying clean and staying fresh and keeping your spirit vibrant.
MULLANE: And that's how you do it?
HOWARD: That's part of it.
MULLANE: Essential oils.
HOWARD: Yeah.
MULLANE: How do you get them?
HOWARD: We're allowed to order them. They allow us to order them through the
different religious programs they have set up, so it's something to keep you
still connected to the world because you in an environment where you closed in
and senses all kind of a variety of senses, so it's good to keep a balance.
MULLANE: How long have you been here?
HOWARD: I've been here 17 years.
MULLANE: Have you always been in East Block?
HOWARD: No, I've been back and forth to the Adjustment Center over the years.
But I've been in east block primarily. The majority of my time.
MULLANE: So how does the Adjustment Center compare to East Block?
HOWARD: It compares very different. More freedoms over here, you know like
phone calls, contact with your family, being able to have a variety of hobby
programs, being able to hobby shop, you know, draw. Just being able to go out
to the yard daily, having contact visits with your attorneys, family. It's a
big difference to your mind, your spirit.
MULLANE: So how are you feeling about the initiative that's up before the
voters in November the one that would change death sentences to life without
parole?
HOWARD: Me? I'm constantly fighting for my freedom. You know my innocence.
MULLANE: You feel you're innocent?
HOWARD: I know I'm innocent. It's not something I feel. It's factual.
[Howard says the appeals process is slow, tedious, and strenuous, but he
remains confident that eventually he will be found innocent. And if Proposition
34 passes he says the following will happen.]
HOWARD: I don't feel it's to a lot of individuals benefit, because then they'll
be out without attorneys and being able to address their issues of being
wrongly convicted. So it will be devastating in a lot of ways.
MULLANE: To go to life without.
HOWARD: Yeah. Because many of us have been here over decades -and that in
itself is already a life sentence. It's already a life, just being here for
many years. So to go to another situation of a life sentence.
MULLANE: But you would have more freedoms. You'd be out on main yard, walking
the yard, see the trees, the sky and the moon.
HOWARD: Yeah, but you still incarcerated. For me, to computer it in my mind for
my certain situations, that's like not even acceptable. My goals and objectives
are beyond these walls, period. But I'm curious and interested to see what's
going to happen about the voters because I know that the death penalty is
political.
[Losing his right to a state funded appeal won't be the only adjustment Howard
and other condemned inmates will face if the initiative passes. Instead of
having a cell to themselves, they will have to share.]
HOWARD: That will be a big adjustment having a cellie!
MULLANE: But they say you adjust to what you have to adjust to.
HOWARD: With anything in life, you have to adapt to circumstances that you're
placed in whether by choice, or by force.
Justin Helzer. 7 years ago he was convicted and sentenced to death for the
murder of 5 people, including the daughter of guitarist Elvin Bishop. A pink
sign is attached to the gate of the last cell. It identifies the inmate as
visually impaired. His name is Justin Helzer.
MULLANE: Hello
HELZER: I have a lot of medical problems.
MULLANE: I'm just doing a story on conditions on death row. What do you think
about conditions on death row?
HELZER: Well, just speaking from a medical standpoint, it's hard to see the
doctor. For instance, I only see a doctor once every 2 or 3 months. Unless it's
a visible problem then the nurse will schedule an appointment prior to my
scheduled rotation.
MULLANE: How long have you been here?
HELZER: I've been here since 2005, but I was arrested since 2000, so I was
fighting my case in county jail for 5 years.
MULLANE: Are you guilty?
HELZER: Yes. I killed people.
MULLANE: You did kill people?
HELZER: Yes, I killed 2 people. The point is, I'm not - I wrote a letter of
apology to the family members of the deceased. I apologized. It was so
misdirected. I'm so sorry. It's like a past life. I'm so not that person
anymore. So, I don't have a problem admitting what I did. I've taken
responsibility for it. I'm not proud of it. To say it was a mistake is a huge
understatement. I can't express how sorry I am. It was so unnecessary, but I
don't want to talk about my case, I don't want to talk about my case.
MULLANE: So you are vision impaired?
HELZER: I'm totally blind. What it was was it was a suicide attempt. I stuck 2
5-inch pens into my brain through my eye sockets. It didn???t kill me.
MULLANE: When did you do that?
HELZER: About a year and a half ago. And so it left me blind and partially
paralyzed.
MULLANE: But before that you were fine?
HELZER: I had perfect vision, yes. I was tired of death row. It was a failed
suicide attempt. And so I was left with paralysis, partial paralysis and
complete blindness which they call vision impaired. So that's me.
MULLANE: How do you feel now that you've done that and now you're living?
HELZER: Terrible. I'm not interested in committing suicide anymore. That was a
year and a half ago. I embrace my situation. I'm more okay with the way things
are now. I've learned to accept the way things are now. But the conditions on
death row are such that it can lead one to attempt to commit suicide or to
attempt to do whatever. They're not good here.
MULLANE: How does it compare not having sight to having sight on death row?
HELZER: Well, sight was much better.
[Unlike other cells, Helzer's cell is void of personal effects. While we talk,
he sits on the edge of his bunk and turns his face toward the cell door.
Mullane asks him for his thoughts on Proposition 34, which could change his
death sentence to life in prison without parole.]
HELZER: I look forward to it. I think it's the next step of a society that
wakes up and realizes this is so unnecessary. It's all politics. And right now
the people are buying into the political story. Oh, death row - tough on crime.
It's not a deterrent. The death penalty is not a deterrent. Because I'll tell
you why. One, when people do commit crimes, they are not thinking, 'Oh my gosh,
I might get the death penalty if I do this.' They're in the moment. They want
what they want. They have short-sighted...They don't foresee the consequences
of their actions because they're impulsive. They do whatever they do. Whatever
crime it is. They're not thinking about the ramifications. The notion that the
death penalty is somehow a deterrent is a false premise. It's what people want
to be true. Not true.
MULLANE: What if people say they want the death penalty because they just want
people punished.
HELZER: Let me tell you...[laughter] you can punish people plenty by giving
them Life without the possibility of parole. Besides, there are people here on
death row 30, 40 years and they haven't gotten killed and they have so many
more appeals left to them. So no one's getting killed. No one's getting
executed.
MULLANE: How do you see the rest of your life?
HELZER: I don't know. I just take 1 day at a time. One day at a time.
(source: KALW News)
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