Curtis Lee Ervin had not seen the moon in four decades. In November 1986 he was arrested, and from 1991 until about a year ago he lived inside San Quentin’s East Block, on Death Row. He was never supposed to see the moon again.
East Block is where California once held more than 700 condemned male prisoners. Many of them call it “The Row.” Today the building is empty, and approximately 80 of those prisoners from The Row are housed at California Health Care Facility in Stockton, Calif.
Ervin said his death sentence was recently vacated by the Alameda County Superior Court. He was resentenced for manslaughter and paroled on August 25.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Ervin, a 72-year-old African American. “I saw the moon for the first time in 38 years.”
On The Row, Ervin was confined to his cell about 18 to 20 hours each day. He was never allowed to mingle with prisoners in the general population, and anytime he left East Block he was handcuffed, shackled with a waist chain, and escorted by a correctional officer.
From all appearances, Ervin is in good physical shape, notwithstanding having a herniated disk in his back. He wears eyeglasses, has a full head of gray hair and a neatly shaped gray beard, and stands five-feet, nine inches. He’s also a practiced jazz guitar player.
Ervin mentioned a 20-year-old story about the judge in his case, published in The New York Times. All though he did not elaborate, it may well have contributed to his change in fortune.
Prosecutorial misconduct, involving race, had violated Ervin’s constitutional right to a fair trial, which led to the change in his sentence, he said.
In 2020, the California Legislature passed the Racial Justice Act. Among its uses, the law provides post-conviction relief to a prisoner who is able to demonstrate racial bias on the part of an important participant in his or her arrest, trial (jurors included), conviction, sentence, and any other phase of the preceding.
It was reported that Alameda County Deputy District Attorney John R. Quatman said he was called into Judge Stanley Golde’s chambers and advised to exclude Blacks and Jews from the jury in death penalty cases; “Especially Black women.”
“[A] federal judge ordered then-District Attorney Pamela Price to review the capital convictions of 34 people after the discovery of index cards in the file of Ernest Dykes, a Black man sentenced to death in 1995, showing that prosecutors struck Black and Jewish jurors from his trial based on their race and religion,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
“‘[No] Jew would vote to send a defendant to the gas chamber,’” Quatman stated Judge Golde advised him. Quatman revealed these statements in a sworn declaration, The Times reported.
Twenty years ago, there were 44 prisoners on The Row from Alameda County. Judge Golde had presided over more of those cases than any other judge.
In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on the death penalty. By the end of 2024, Ervin and all the other condemned prisoners were removed from The Row.
“It was a blessing,” said Ervin. “Especially after [President Bill] Clinton’s AEDPA” (Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act). “Peoples’ time was running out.”
“Ervin? I remember him,” the officer said. He used work in San Quentin’s transportation department. He recalled Ervin being a quiet and low-key individual. “I took him out on medical appointments.”
Upon Ervin’s arrival at CHCF last year, hands uncuffed and shackles removed, he said, “It felt like a country club, and it still feels that way.”
Society has changed over the last four decades, though, and Ervin experienced a glimpse of it when he returned to court for resentencing. He had to pass through the county jail system and said he was shocked to hear so many young Black men using the N-word. “Ninja, ninja, ninja” is how he described their conversations.
“What the heck is this?” Ervin asked himself as he listened and viewed strange new customs by so many Black men. He put that madness aside and focused on a familiar sight in the night sky at CHCF. That’s when Curtis Lee Ervin saw the moon again.