San Quentin News

Written By Inmates - Advancing Social Justice

Death sentence overturned due to unreliable witness testimony

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Prosecution witness recants identification of defendant as the assailant

The death sentence has been overturned for a former deputy sheriff because of unreliable witness testimony at his penalty trial, the California Supreme Court ruled. The court did uphold his conviction of two murders.

David Keith Rogers, 72, was convicted of 1st degree murder in the death of Tracie Clark, and the 2nd degree murder of Janine Benintende some 30 years ago, according to bakersfield.com.

The death sentence was overturned July 15 due to the discredited testimony of Tambri Butler, a prosecution witness in the penalty phase of his trial.

Rogers, a former Kern County deputy sheriff, will now serve a sentence of life without the possibility of pa- role unless the prosecution decides to hold a new penalty trial.

“I am now more concerned than ever that I wrongly identified David Rogers as the man who attacked me,” Butler said in a Supreme Court declaration.

Butler’s credibility came into question in 2011, when she claimed she was sexually molested by Rogers multiple times while in custody. Rogers was arrested days after the Clark murder. He confessed, but denied any involvement in the murder of Benintende.

Rogers claimed his gun went off accidentally while he was threatening Clark to perform sex acts for $30.

At his trial his attorneys claimed he had been physically and sexually abused as a child. Mental health professionals testified that Rogers killed Clark while he was in an “impulsive, highly emotional state.”

CA court upholds death sentence in prison officer murder

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The California Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence for a man in the death of a prison guard, despite questionable testimony by prosecution witnesses.

The case involves Jarvis Masters, one of three Black Guerrilla Family members convicted in 1985 for the killing of Correctional Sgt. Dean Burchfield at San Quentin.

Andre Johnson was convicted of stabbing Burchfield to death. Lawrence Woodard was convicted of ordering the killing. And Masters was convicted of helping plan the killing, sharpening the knife used in the attack, and giving it to Johnson, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Aug. 14.

Prosecution witness Rufus Willis originally testified that Masters helped in the planning, sharpening the knife before giving it to Johnson. He said later that the prosecutor threatened him, saying he would be sent back to prison if he did not cooperate.

Willis reported he feared for his own life, because he was a known informant.

Three prosecution wit- nesses have recanted, saying they testified falsely at trial.

Bobby Evans also testified against Masters but did not disclose at the time of trial that he had been given a deal in a separate case in exchange for his testimony against Masters.

The court, upholding the conviction and death sentence in 2016, sent the new post- trial allegations for review to former Marin County Judge Lynn Duryee.

“Witnesses against Masters were ‘liars with highly unreliable and selective memories’ ”

After reviewing all the testimony, she concluded that the chief prosecution witnesses against Masters were “liars with highly unreliable and selective memories” as well as “career criminals and well-known snitches.”

The recantations were no more believable than their original testimony, the Chronicle article noted.

The court, upon hearing those findings, reaffirmed Masters’ conviction and sentence.

Justice Goodwin Liu wrote that Masters’ attorney had challenged the credibility of Willis at trial, and presented evidence that Evans had been an informant in other cases.

Having heard all the evidence, the jury still found Masters guilty. The additional evidence reviewed by Duryee would not have changed the outcome.

Justice Liu, joined by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, wrote in a second opinion that it was understandable that Masters found Duryee’s report unsettling due to the lies she attributed to the star witnesses.

Masters’ attorney Joseph Baxter called the ruling “absurd.”

“The court is saying, if the case is rotten to the core, it doesn’t matter, because the court can’t tell if you’re lying now or if you were lying then. Jarvis Masters has never had a fair trial.”

Masters, now 57, is from Los Angeles. He has become a Buddhist, counseling to ther inmates on Death Row.

He has written two books and gained the support of Sister Helen Prejean, a well- known death penalty opponent, and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

Divided opinion in San Quentin News’ Death Row survey

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A survey of all Death which resulted in the state about capital punishment, Row prisoners in California withdrawing its lethal injection last August, San Quentin produced a divided opinion protocol and closing News surveyed all 737 prisoners, including the women in Chowchilla.

Of the 715 men on Death Row in San Quentin, 68 responded to the survey and of the 22 women on Death Row in Chowchilla, 10 responded.

A sample of capital punishment supporters’ comments:

“Let’s start carrying out these executions!” said a 49-year-old man with 21 years on Death Row. “Governor Newsom had no business go- ing against the people’s will! What good is your vote/voice if people like Newsom will only silence your vote/voice? I guess the people don’t matter.”

A 67-year-old woman with 18 years on Death Row said, “The people voted for it! It should be upheld.”

A sample of capital punishment opponents’ comments:

“It is not a deterrent and is disproportionately used as a sentence against poor minorities as well as a scare tactic tool by politicians with an agenda other than public safety,” said a 45-year-old person with more than 20 years on Death Row. That person also said that the moratorium is “a positive step” and more needs to be done to end capital punishment.

The survey provided space for respondents to write “other” comments:

A majority of respondents (supporters of the death penalty and those in opposition) asked to change the living conditions on Death Row, e.g., better/hot food, more time out of cells, and self- help programs.

• Women’s average age: 54.3

• Women’s average years on Death Row: 20.6

• Men’s average age: 56.2

• Men’s average years on Death Row: 23.1

• Overall average age: 56.1

• Overall average time on Death Row: 22.7

As of April 1, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reports that California leads the nation with the number of condemned prisoners— about twice the number of the next closest state, Florida.

DPIC also reports that since 1978, California spent more than $4 billion on the death penalty after considering pre-trial and trial costs, costs of automatic appeals and state habeas corpus petitions, costs of federal habeas corpus appeals, and costs of incarceration on Death Row.

California rejected two initiatives to repeal the death penalty by a vote in 2012 and 2016; in 2016, it adopted another proposal to expedite the appeal process.

The anonymous survey asked:

• What is your opinion on capital punishment?
• Do you favor Gov. Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on capital punishment in CA • What is your age?
• How many years have you been on Death Row?
The survey gave participants five options on their opinion on the death penalty: Strongly agree that capital punishment ought to be a punishment
25% men 10% women 23.1% overall
Agree that capital punishment ought to be a punishment

20% men 30% women
No opinion about it
0% men 0% women
Disagree that capital punishment ought to be a punishment 7.35% men 10%women 6.4% overall

Strongly disagree that capital punishment ought to be a punishment 47.1% men 60% women 48.7 overall
Regarding the moratorium, the survey asked:
Strongly agree capital punishment ought to be ended in California 52.2% men 60%women 53.2 overall

Agree that capital punishment ought to be ended in California 1.5% men 10% women 2.6 overall
No opinion about it
3% men 0% women 2.6 overall

Disagree capital punishment ought to be ended in California
16.4% men 20% women 16.9 overall
Strongly disagree capital punishment ought to be ended in California

21.8% overall 0% overall

CA court upholds death sentence in prison officer murder

26.9% men

10% women

24.7 overal

Governor's moratorium on death penalty has not stop capital sentences

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By Alfred King Journalism Guild Writer

The governor’s moratorium on executions has not stopped some California district attorneys from seeking the death penalty in new cases they prosecute.

District attorneys “across the state have continued to pursue capital charges against defendants,” the Sacramento Bee reported July 17.

Lawyers working on behalf of Cleamon Johnson asked the state Supreme Court on July 1 to halt such prosecutions, the newspaper said.

Johnson is a Los Angeles manaccusedofkillingfive people.

“In light of this paradigm shift, a California jury in a capital case cannot be expected to provide a fair and reasoned penalty-phase de- termination,’ lawyers argued in a petition to the high court.

The court in a similar case halted the death penalty trial, the story said. Those actions indicate the court is taking the argument seriously, said

Robert Sanger one of Johnson’s attorneys.

Prosecutors in their response to the court wrote any concerns about the governor’s moratorium can be handled during jury selection.

“Jurors are routinely asked to set aside these types of things in order to reach a just verdict based on the evidence and the law,” prosecutors claimed.

“The real goal of this petition is to turn Governor Newsom’s moratorium, which is nominally a reprieve, into a judicial abolition of the death penalty in California,” prosecutors wrote.

USSC denies stay of execution because of constitutional issues

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Over the last three months, six executions in the United States have been stayed or rescheduled because of constitutional issues regarding the method of execution or who can be present in the death chamber, according to Reuters.

At the helm of this controversy is the state of Alabama, according to recent articles featured in Reuters and Mother Jones.

Christopher Price was scheduled to be executed at the beginning of April. Price filed an appeal when he found out that he was to be lethally injected. He wants to die by lethal gas. The lower courts granted him a 60-day stay of execution. The state of Alabama appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

After some last minute arguing, the court decided 5-4 along ideological lines, with a conservative majority voting to proceed with the execution. The decision, which was issued at 3 a.m., was too late. The death warrant had expired. Alabama will have to set a new execution date.

The Alabama ruling comes at a time when the justices have been clashing over capital punishment. Conservative justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that an eleventh-hour stay of execution should be an “extreme exception.” It appears that the case of Christopher Price did not rise to that standard. The issue for the state of Alabama was the timing.

The state contends that Price and his lawyers had ample time to alert the state and let them know how Price wanted to be executed.

The liberal side of the high court maintained that the hasty decision made in the middle of the night undermined the criminal justice system. Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the liberal justices, called the litigation an example of arbitrary administration of the death penalty. He wrote that Price’s claim failed because of a minor oversight by his lawyer when filing evidence to support his argument.

“To proceed in this way calls into question the basic principles of fairness that should underlie our criminal justice system,” Breyer wrote.

Price, who was convicted of killing a minister, has no objection to dying. He con- tends that the three-drug protocol would cause him severe pain, and that nitrogen hypoxia would reduce that risk.

In a similar case, Russell Bucklew, a convicted murderer, sought to die by lethal gas. He has a rare medical condition that he claims could make his execution by lethal injection “gruesome.” He requested that the execution be delayed 60 days so he could proceed with his request to be executed by lethal gas. The Supreme Court, however, was not persuaded. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the Constitution does not guarantee a condemned prisoner “a painless death.”

The uplifting experience of Good Friday at San Quentin

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Watson Allison, who spent more than 30 years on San Quentin’s Death Row, was one of many in awe of sunset ser- vices for Good Friday — the day Jesus Christ was crucified.

Allison stood inside the Protestant Chapel as light filtered through its blue-tinted windows, dusk approached and men-in-blue mingled. Listening to Raul Higgins slapped the congas, Albert Flagg’s fingers danced on the piano while Greg Dixon rang out his piping organ. Dixon switched to a Fender guitar, adding a new dynamic to the drumming of Sincere Carter over Leonard “Funky Len” Walker’s bass guitar.

Edward Dewayne Brooks stood stage left, clapping and rocking in conversation with fellow ushers, choir members and the Worship Team.

As he listened, Allison said that he felt like he’s on the right path.

“I have a lot of support from people checking-in with me,” he said. “People come over to me just to see how I’m doing. That’s enriching to the soul.”

Nine long, fresh palm branches sat on the chapel stage. They shared the stage with the cross at the center. The palms stretched, nearly touching the chapel ceiling. A lone branch lay sideways on the stage’s steps.

Chaplin Mardi Ralph Jackson stood at the rear of the chapel as 34-year-old Carrington Russelle took the stage to share his addition to the sermon.

“She spends more time with us than she does with her family,” Russelle said about Chaplin Jackson. He encouraged the men-in-blue to take advantage of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice.

“We made some poor choices to get into this blue attire,” Russelle said. “Now you can make the best decision of your life by accepting Jesus.”

He emphasized that Jesus Christ was not murdered–he sacrificed his life to save us.

Vadim Zakharchenko, 32, gave a tearful sermon that brought attending men-in-blue to their feet. Zakharchenko said that, in the past, he came to church only semi-committed to Jesus Christ. He became tired of living that way, and after a conversation with his mother, he became fully committed to Jesus Christ.

George E. Moss, 49, shared his experience in administrative segregation in isolation after catching the flu. The experience restored his faith, and helped him understand God’s wisdom.

Armando R. Gonzalez’s sermon grappled with where true power comes from and why Jesus Christ sacrificed himself.

Two California Supreme Court justices against capital punishment

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Two California Supreme Court justices have joined the debate against capital punishment.

“California’s death penalty is an expensive and dysfunctional system that does not deliver justice or closure in a timely manner, if at all,” Justice Goodwin Liu wrote in a published opinion.

The opinion upheld the death sentence of Thomas Potts, convicted of two murders in 1998. Liu’s opinion was cosigned by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, the San Francisco Chronicle reported March 28.

Liu noted the California execution moratorium imposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and said it should be a signal for a renewed examination of capital punishment.

Justice Goodwin Liu wrote that he has voted to affirm many death sentences and would “continue to do so when the law requires,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

Liu wrote,” I express no view here on the morality or constitutionality of the death penalty,” then derided “the promise of justice in our death penalty system” as “a promise that California has been unable to keep.” He also said the 2016 Proposition 66 initiative aimed at speeding up executions “promised more than the system can deliver.”

Proposition 66, upheld by the courts, limited prisoner appeals and prohibition on regulatory review of one- drug lethal injections. But then the courts rejected its five-year deadline for deciding appeals in state court as being unfeasible and unconstitutional. Liu said the ballot measure’s goal could not be met unless California devotes “considerable additional resources to its judicial branch.”

The opinions were challenged by Kent Scheidegger, a death penalty advocate and legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento. He said other states handle death penalty appeals faster and less expensively, California could follow their example by limiting successive appeals.

Pending in the state Legislature is a measure that would place another death penalty repeal on the November 2020 ballot. A poll by the Public Policy Institute found 62 % of adults surveyed said they would prefer a life-without-parole sentence instead of death for first-degree murder.

Former Chief Justice Ronald George said in his 2013 memoir that the death penalty system “places the ad- ministration of justice… in a very bad light” because of its costs, delays and overall ineffectiveness.

After the governor of Washington declared a moratorium on executions, the state’s Supreme Court struck down Washington’s death penalty law on the grounds it was used in an arbitrary and racially discriminatory manner.

Gov. Mike DeWine halts executions in Ohio

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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has halted capital punishment in his state until a constitutional method is developed for executions.

“As long as the status quo remains where we don’t have a protocol that has been found to be OK, we certainly cannot have any executions in Ohio,” DeWine told reporters at an Associated Press forum. “That would not be right, at least in my opinion.”

DeWine ordered a review of Ohio’s method of execution in January. He acted after a federal judge ruled that Ohio could execute Warren Henness, because Henness had failed to provide an available alternative method of execution that would avoid needless suffering, by Ohio’s current method of execution.

The governor delayed Henness’ execution while the review is under way, cleveland.com reported.

Earlier this year death penalty opponents and drug manufactures challenged the constitutionality of similar methods of execution in Nevada. shedding light on the length that some states will go through to execute people, reported The New York Times.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom placed an indefinite moratorium on executions in his state.

“California’s death penalty system is unfair, un- just, wasteful protracted and does not make our state safe,” Newsome said. ‘Innocent people have been sentenced to death in California. Moreover, the National Academy of Sciences estimates that as many as one in 25 people sentenced to death in the United States is likely innocent.”

Henness was convicted of murdering his drug-abuse counselor in 1982 but maintain his innocence.

Some prisoners suffer another form of death penalty

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An alarming number, 80 prisoners, died in Texas jails in a nine month period between Oct. 1, 2017 and July 1, 2018, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics, in an article published by Prison Legal News.

The Texas Commission of Jail Standards (TCJS) is an agency that sets the standards for Texas jails to follow. They perform annual inspections of local jails and prisons. TCJS is also responsible for investigating the deaths in the jails and prisons.

“We shouldn’t look to the TCJS to do what they were never intended to do. We’re putting all our eggs in one basket” said Michele Deitch, lecturer at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Texas. Deitch is in favor of a statewide ombudsman for the prisons, jails and families, according to the article.

Although the TCJS is responsible for investigating the deaths that occur in Texas jails, no jail was found at fault for any of the 80 deaths. TCJS performs procedures such as: video evidence and documentation review to see if any standards were violated, according to the article.

The investigations can be troublesome. Kenneth Paxton Jr. of the Office of the Attorney General had to order Sheriff Sally Hernandez to comply with record requests. The sheriff’s office had made claims that to provide such information would threaten the security of the guards and its jails.

The sheriff utilized a Texas law loophole that prevents any information, even in death, being released on a person not convicted of a crime, according to the article. Legislation has introduced a bill to prevent this tactic being used in the future.

In 2015, Sandra Bland committed suicide in the Waller County jail. The jail settled with a $1.9 million settlement resulting from her death. The county also created a new law called the Sandra Bland Act, which created policies and procedures for dealing with people with mental health issues.

In 2015, three LaSalle Correction guards in McLennan County were arrested for changing jail logs to appear as if they were in compliance with the mandatory head counts every 30 minutes.

Michael Crittenden, Christopher Simpson and Milton Walker were the guards alleged in the tampering of documents. The charges were prompted by the suicide death of Michael Angelo Martinez on Nov. 1, 2015.

The video from the prison showed the aforementioned guards logged in headcounts they did not perform, reported the Prison Legal News.

“We weren’t checked every hour or every half hour. At maximum we would see the jailers twice a day,” said Barbara Nixon, a nursing student housed at the Anderson County Jail. Adding, “They’d come at the beginning and the end of their shifts. We’d also see them when they brought meals, but that was about it.”

The TCJS standards had recent violations with the Harris County Jail, in which four detainees were left and locked in a transport van overnight in April, 2017. This was followed by the December, 2017 suicide of Maytham Alsaedy, who was scheduled for a guilty plea on capital murder charges.

Debora Lyons committed suicide in August ,2018. In 2019, Evan Parker hanged himself at the Waller County Jail. One month prior to his death, the prison was found to be in non-compliance of several operating standards.

This is the same facility where Sandra Bland committed suicide four years earlier and where the Sandra Bland Act began.

Some attributed the prison deaths to low pay and under- staffing. The commission later was asked for a pay increase by Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor, who hoped to recruit more guards to remedy understaffing.

The annual pay was in- creased from $27,000 to $30,000, which is still around $3,000 below the state average pay.

An interview with former Death Row prisoner Alfred Sandoval, from Pelican Bay’s Newsletter “The Pelican”

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SQ_Lethal_Injection_Room

K: Thank you for sitting down with me and for agreeing to do this interview. If I remember correctly, you said you’ve been in prison for about two-thirds of your life? That… is a long time.

S: Trust me, it’s been very long. From the boy’s home to death row – I came into the system in ’79.

K: Has it been hard?

S: No. It’s life. It’s survival. Out there, in the streets, you have to deal with everything – bills, jobs, boss, kids. In prison it’s the same. Life. It doesn’t mean it’s easy or hard. It’s just part of living.

K: So what have you learned from doing all of this time?

S: That there’s always a tomorrow. At the time, you don’t always realize how you get through things but there are moments when you wake up and it almost surprises you!

K: It sounds like you’ve come to accept your situation.

S: Well. Yeah. I knew what I was doing when I did what I did. So I can’t come in here and not accept it like I wasn’t supposed to be here. It’s, as I like to call it, an “occupational hazard”. Just like the risk that you will hurt yourself on the job, our life- style comes with the risk of going to prison.

K: That sounds like a wise perspective. Why do you think a lot of youngsters come in here and have such a hard time?

S: I think these kids can’t accept responsibility. it’s never their fault. I mean everyone I meet is innocent now-a-days. (We share a laugh at this)

S: They act like they’re the victims, always blaming everybody but themselves. You see, with me, I always make my own decisions. I’m in here and I’m living with my choices. Now I’m surviving. Living. To progress is a choice.

K:I see you going to a lot of programs – when did you make the decision to “calm down”? I’m assuming you haven’t always been like this.

S: What’s that supposed to mean?!

K: Uhh…

S: I’m just messing with you youngster. Somewhere along the way I got old. (He laughs) But it started in ’94. I was 5 days away from execution-

K: 5 days? How did you feel about that?

S: I was ready. Like I said, it’s an occupational hazard. I had this saying on my wall “Life is but the sleep from which death awakes the soul”. It’s a Native American saying. It’s always stuck with me. The first few days felt like Russian roulette. But after seeing something called the ‘many faces of death’, my only goal was to show my kids that the system didn’t break me – the ‘many faces of death’ was a collection of mug shots of all the people they had executed. Everyone in those pictures looked mad or sad or de- pressed. I wasn’t going to be that, so in every photo I had a big smile on my face.

K: What happened to the… execution?

S: My lawyer filed some paperwork and had it stopped. 5 years later, I got a reversal and they gave me life without. During those 5 years, a friend of mine taught me how to meditate. I had way too much energy. Iwasinmy40’sandhad to deal with my inner self. Things happen in life and you have to learn from them, move forward. There’s this saying, “A fool will lose tomorrow looking back on yesterday”. Once I calmed down, I started to want to be better for myself. That’s the key. It’s not about doing programs because they look good on paper, but because you want to be better for yourself.

K: With all of these pro- grams, have the people changed? Is it better? Worse?

S: No. It’s still the same type of people. The way I see it, it’s just evolution. Things change. Not everything has to be good or bad. It’s just life. Survival.

K: You use that word a lot. Survival. Why?

S: Well, back when we didn’t have so many pro- grams, we had two types of convicts. We had the hustlers and we had the survivors. The hustlers were the ones who always tried to get over…

“I think these kids can’t accept responsibility. it’s never their fault. I mean everyone I meet is innocent now-a-days”

K: What do you mean when you say ‘hustler’?

S: I mean the types of people who would steal a bar of state soap even though they had a locker full of personal soap. The types of people who had no respect for the well-being of oth- ers and who always tried to game the system. The sur- vivors just wanted to live , and every once in a while maneuver within the system. We had respect and thought about everyone who would be affected by our actions. This was our community. This was where we lived. So we treated everyone and our environment with care The hustlers thought that they could get away with everything and didn’t care if they put others at risk. I re- member when I first came to prison. I was at Old Folsom. They put us on Fish Row. At night, after 9, some of the new guys were still being loud on the tier. When one of the homies called down to them to keep it down so the other people could sleep, the guy who was making all the noise said, “F$!& you. I’ll do what I want”. The next day, one of the older homies was schooling me. I had my fish kit in my hands, and right as he was telling me about the importance of respect and how to be mindful of others – even to c/o’s and other races – here comes the guy that was making all the noise the night before, with a knife in his back. (laughs) That’s how it was back then. You learned fast.

K: You mentioned some- thing about c/o’s?

S: Why bring heat to yourself and make life hard- er? It was the same for c/o’s back then. They handled their own, too. It was so violent back then that they didn’t want to have to come to work worrying about their safety. Respect , youngster, that’s what it’s all about. At the end of the day, we are all humans, trying to make it through the day smoothly as possible. They had a job to do, and so did we.
K: It kind of seems like that’s been lost, or at least isn’t as prevalent now as it was back then. There are a lot of ‘hustlers’, today. What do you think happened?

S: Too many youngsters, and not enough old-timers to school them. Back then, the older homies sat us down, taught us manners, the do’s and don’ts, how to live and how not to live. They taught us how to carry ourselves because they actually cared.

K: Why do you think youngsters come in here so wild?

S: They didn’t have proper role models in their lives.

K: You think having a male figure is important to a child’s development?

S: Yeah. Strong women can do it, too. Kids need structure. There are a lot of kids in here, now. It’s our job to teach them. We’ve lost our sense of unity and com- munity. It takes a village. We’re all in this together, you know?

K: I know we’re in prison, but our community, this environment, can still be a place where we can grow, right?

S: Right.

K: Thank you for all of your insight. I think some guys can really learn from this interview.

S: They can and will, if they want to. That if, that’s the problem we have to fix.