Since 2007, members of the press have not been allowed access in any of the three Death Row buildings at San Quentin State Prison. However, recently Nancy Mullane was granted permission by then-prisons chief Matthew Cate to visit Death Row.
Mullane, an independent reporter/producer for National Public Radio and KQED-TV, interviewed three inmates in East Block, which houses 537 of the more than 700 men facing execution.
Lt. Sam Robinson, San Quentin’s public information officer, said Death Row inmates begin their sentence in the Adjustment Center, where they are classified as either Grade A or Grade B. “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,” says Robinson.
Robinson led Mullane on a tour of East Block, where she was allowed to interview the inmates in their cells, as long as they were willing to talk with her.
One such inmate was Walter Cook, who has been on Death Row for 20 years. Cook explained how important family communication is to him:
“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. Seems 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.”
Cook claims that he is innocent. Although he is appealing his conviction, the appeal process is much slower for condemned inmates and some have been waiting in the courts for up to 30 years.
When Mullane asked Cook about Proposition 34, the statewide initiative rejected by voters that would have converted death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole, he said:
“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.”
Demetrius Howard was another inmate on Death Row who was interviewed by Mullane. A jury convicted Howard for the 1992 murder and attempted murder of a woman in San Bernardino and sentenced him to death. He has been on Death Row now for 17 years. He, like Cook, maintains that he is innocent. When asked about Proposition 34, he said:
“I’m constantly fighting for my freedom. You know, my innocence. I don’t feel it’s to a lot of individuals benefit, because then they’ll be without attorneys and being able to address their issues of being wrongly convicted. So it will be devastating in a lot of ways 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.”
The last inmate Mullane interviewed was Justin Helzer. Helzer was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of five people, including the daughter of guitarist Elvin Bishop. He told Mullane he did not want to talk about his case. While suffering from several medical issues, Helzer is now blind and partially paralyzed from an attempted suicide in which he stuck two five-inch pens into his brain through his eye sockets.
Regarding Proposition 34, Helzer said: “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.”
