Governor Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on state executions in 2018, when he got into office. He even had the old gas chamber dismantled. It was all over the news, and the nation witnessed the famous State of California gas chamber chair leaving San Quentin State Prison; where the lives of close to 800 prisoners hang in the balance of the State of California justice appeal system, which for some has taken over three decades of appeals.
When the executions were placed on hold, it brought out different opinions in a lot of people. Some people were upset. A lot of the victims’ families who had lost their loved ones to men and women on Death Row wanted vengeance and so-called justice. Other people were happy that their loved ones on Death Row wouldn’t be executed by the State anytime soon on Governor Newsom’s watch. He stated in a news conference that there would be no State-sanctioned executions while he was Governor of California. Some prisoners were happy that they wouldn’t be killed, and others were upset that their appeals would most likely be on hold, and they would have to endure more years of sitting on Death Row.
San Quentin State Prison was built in 1852 by the State, using the labor of prisoners. It is one of the oldest prisons in California. Unlike a lot of the newer prisons that look like blocks stuck out in deserts, with bars and fences surrounding them, San Quentin sits on some of the most prime and beautiful real estate in the Bay Area. It is a dungeon surrounded by the natural beauty of the Bay Area waters, sitting right across the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge. It is a contrast to the beauty of all the horrific things that have happened inside the prison – at one time it was the most dangerous prison in the state – including prisoners and prison guards being stabbed and killed. But today, San Quentin is most famous for the largest population of Death Row prisoners, including some of the most notorious murderers and serial killers in the State of California.
In the years since the death penalty was reinstated in California in 1978, the State has executed thirteen Death Row prisoners. The last execution being in 2006.
In May of 2020, a group of scientists and health experts from the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley offered free COVID-19 testing to prisoners and staff at San Quentin because there was an outbreak at Chino State Prison where about fourteen prisoners died, and several hundred came down with the COVID-19 virus. San Quentin turned down the scientists and health experts twice, stating that they had the matter under control and could handle any such problem. At that time, San Quentin had no known cases of COVID-19, period. All this changed when the Federal District Court ruled that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) needed to set up space in several prisons where they could house COVID-19 prisoners. This decision was made by Federal District Court Judge Jon Tigar after the Judge himself took a trip to Vacaville State Prison, which houses a lot of prisoners who need medical care, and saw the living conditions and set up of the prison. He told CDCR they needed to release some prisoners who were vulnerable to COVID-19, including older prisoners who are no longer a threat to society and have been discipline-free, and to set up better living conditions to house COVID-19 positive prisoners where they could be quarantined throughout several prisons in California. In response to this court order, CDCR moved 121 prisoners from Chino State Prison – where there was a COVID-19 outbreak – to San Quentin. CDCR did not wait to see if any of these prisoners were COVID-19 positive, they just moved them to San Quentin, bringing the virus with them. This caused a major outbreak at San Quentin that left 27 prisoners dead, more than 2,200 prisoners (including myself) and 244 prison employees infected, and one correction staff sergeant dead.
Many of us – society, families, lawyers, and prisoners – ask the question, “Was this a plan to execute Death Row prisoners with germ warfare in the form of COVID-19 in response to the moratorium the Governor placed on executions?” In San Quentin, Death Row prisoners are kept in only five locations: East Block, Donner Section, North-Seg, Adjustment Center, and the hospital on the fourth floor. The majority of Death Row prisoners are kept in East Block where there are 540 cells. There are five tiers on each side of the building going up six stories, with fifty-four cells on each tier. From a class action lawsuit filed by prisoners years ago about East Block living conditions, it is fairly clean. At one time, there were birds living in the East Block ventilation systems up by the pipes, pigeons, cats were getting in the building through open doors, and there were roaches, rats and mice. East Block was cleaned out of the birds, cats, roaches, and the running shower water that drained from the old pipes and onto the floors. But there are still mice and rats in East Block – animals, and in human form.
The Adjustment Center is another part of San Quentin where Death Row prisoners are kept. The Adjustment Center is actually known as “Solitary Confinement”, “The Hole”, and “SHU” (Security Housing Unit). There are 106 cells in the Adjustment Center. The building has three floors with seventeen cells on each floor on both sides of the building. The Adjustment Center keeps Death Row prisoners over there for punishment – Rule 115 violations – as well as other prisoners who are not on Death Row but are called “Ad-Seg” (Administrative Segregation). These are prisoners who may have been prison gang members, had a fight in another part of the prison, a stabbing, masturbating, contraband – drugs, knives, razors, cell phones – and the list goes on. They are in “The Hole” if they are in the Adjustment Center.
When the 121 prisoners were brought to San Quentin from Chino, they were first placed in Badger Section, also known as B Section, which is a unit that houses prisoners with sentences of ten years or more, those who are waiting to be transferred to other prisons, or lifers that are waiting to go to mainline here at San Quentin. Some of the Chino prisoners were placed in the Adjustment Center in the same building with Death Row prisoners.
The Adjustment Center does not have group yard programs, having stopped letting prisoners go to group yards around 2013, I think. So, all of the prisoners in the Adjustment Center go outside to dog cages for exercise. I say dog cages because that’s what they are. They are like the dog cages you would see at your city’s dog pound, which is a wire cage of about ten-feet-long and eight-feet-wide. There is a toilet with a sick attached to it, and a five-foot bar running diagonal in the corner of the cage from one side to the other that is used as a pull-up bar.
Some of the 121 prisoners brought from Chino Prison were infected with the COVID-19 virus. They were using some of the same showers as Death Row prisoners, reading some of the same books, using the same hair trimmers, using the same breakfast and dinner trays, being handcuffed by the guards using the same handcuffs, and breathing the same air as Death Row prisoners in the Adjustment Center with a poor ventilation system. The guards in the Adjustment Center work around all the same prisoners and feed them. Most don’t use any utensils to pick up the bread, taco shells or things like that, they just grab them with glove-covered hands. (That’s why I never accept food in that form, period!) With the guards feeding this way, and all the other factors I mentioned, COVID-19 spread like a California wildfire, with hundred miles per hour wind blowing.
Some of the prisoners on Death Row who had done their “Hole” time would be sent back to East Block and Donner Section, where about fifty Death Row prisoners are kept on the bottom first two tiers. Some of these Death Row prisoners were leaving the Adjustment Center not knowing they were infected with COVID-19 and would be placed right back into the Death Row population on the group yards, spreading the virus.
Some of the guards would work in the Adjustment Center one shift, and then be in East Block, Donner Section, or North Seg, where about forty other Death Row prisoners are housed in the building of North Block on the top floor, the next. North Seg is “supposedly” the privileged section for Death Row prisoners to live. They come out of their cells not handcuffed in North Seg, and could have their cell doors open when it was group yard time, and they had more privileges. The other sections where Death Row prisoners are housed do not have this luxury. We are cuffed anytime we are let out of our cells. So, with guards working all around Death Row prisoners after a shift of working in the Adjustment Center, COVID-19 was on the move like a train without breaks. Amongst the Death Row population in East Block, we were already talking about the danger of some of us dying if COVID-19 got on Death Row. This conversation started because of what we were seeing on the news around the world. And, sure enough, COVID-19 got on Death Row.
Though we are on Death Row, we still live with hope of getting off Death Row and going back to our families in society. Most people believe that once a person is sentenced to death by a jury, that person goes to Death Row and he/she will be executed. But, the conviction is just the beginning of a long fight, and many levels and years of appealing the conviction. An example is me. I was sentenced to death in 1993, and so far I have had only one appeal in 27½ years. I’m still in court on my second appeal called the habeas corpus. I’m waiting on a ruling as I write this article.
Once the COVID-19 virus was in East Block, North Seg, the Adjustment Center, Donner Section, and the whole San Quentin State Prison in general, we all started getting sick. A lot of the guards were even upset at having to work around COVID-19 prisoners, and scared of taking it home to their families. Some of the guards slept in their cars and went to motels, just to prevent taking COVID-19 home. But Death Row prisoners didn’t have any escape – we were stuck here.
In the weeks following the outbreak, the prison security alarm that the guards have on their belt buckle, was going off at least five times a day here in East Block for COVID-19 sick prisoners. Prisoners would be hollering at the top of their lungs and voices, “Man down! Man down!”, and calling out the cell number of the prisoner in distress. I watched with fear for my life, as they pulled prisoners out of their cells. Some of the prisoners left their cells in wheelchairs and would never return. Some were found dead already in their cells. Then, my fear became reality. I started getting the symptoms and knew I was infected. I knew if the guards or medical staff found out I had the symptoms of COVID-19, I would be moved to the Adjustment Center (and solitary confinement) for 21-days. I had just gotten out of solitary confinement four months prior, where I did nine months on an eighteen-month SHU program. During that time, I was assaulted by guards in the Adjustment Center, and a lot of my legal work related to my capital case was thrown away by the guards. (I am filing a lawsuit at this time on that incident.) I didn’t get along with the rogue guards they have working over there. So I wasn’t looking forward to going right back over there, where I could possibly die, especially given how I’m over-50, and have asthma and high blood pressure. So, I hid my illness. I started getting body aches first: my back, arms, legs, and stomach, then my throat, and kidneys. Then I lost my sense of taste and smell. I started getting congested with my throat, nose, and chest. I was using my asthma inhaler a lot. I got night sweats and was burning up a lot. One night, it got so bad, sweat was pouring off me like rainwater in a storm. I had to get out of bed a couple of nights and change my sheets and the clothing I slept in (boxer shorts and t-shirt). This was from me having such a high temperature. I lost my appetite; it was all bad. And my neighbors and others around me were sick too.
The whole prison was on lockdown and we were confined to our cells. Every time the doctors and nurses came around to check for temperature and oxygen levels, I would refuse and lie, saying I was good and had no symptoms. I knew I had it, but I didn’t want to be sent to quarantine in the Adjustment Center, where I thought I would surely die. Once so many Death Row and general population prisoners filled up the 106 cells in the Adjustment Center, and so many of us were sick in East Block, they stopped moving us. I took the COVID-19 test on June 18, 2020, and it came back positive. I went through two asthma inhalers to fight off my lungs getting full with the fluid from COVID-19. My sickness lasted about two weeks before I started to feel a little better, getting my senses of smell and taste back.
I started to get my appetite back, too. But, as I got better, other prisoners were still dying. Behind so many of the kitchen prisoner workers and staff getting sick, we were getting three bag lunches a day, which was bad. It would be peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, salami sandwich, three crackers, small bag of pretzels and an apple for lunch and dinner. This went on for the first month of the outbreak. It was bad! It was like we were being punished even more for the COVID-19 outbreak, now they were starving us, too. Fortunately, for me, I had canteen food in my cell to eat. I had two cases of beef-flavored Top Ramen soups, rice, oysters, beef sticks, pouches of roast beef, mackerel, chili beans, quarter pounder patties, etc. But a lot of prisoners weren’t as fortunate. I shared some of my food with a few guys around me that I associate with. (I don’t interact with everyone on Death Row, by choice.)
A lot of prisoners on the mainline and Death Row were filing 602 grievances about the way we were being fed, and some took photos with cell phones on the mainline and sent the pictures out to the media and their families to show how we were being fed. Finally, San Quentin got an outside catering company to fix us meals for about a month. Truth be told, it was the best food we have ever had here since I’ve been on Death Row; even though the portions were small. We got chicken with rice, and mushroom gravy, cookies, corn, pastrami, pasta salad, roast beef, real bacon and eggs, steak and rice, real turkey with tomato, cheese, lettuce, etc. It was alright for a month of this.
As of this writing, four months after the COVID-19 outbreak, we are still not back to normal programs. There is still no visiting period in the prison for attorneys or family. Only one side of the East Block building goes out for yard at least twice a week. There are 540 cells over here and 508 prisoners in East Block at this time. Some of the prisoners on our yards are housed in the adjusted building of East Block, Donner Section; we go to the yard on our days together.
A lot of prisoners who didn’t take a COVID-19 test at all are confined to their cells until they do and it comes back negative. The prisoners who tested negative have to be tested for COVID-19 every week in order to keep their yard privileges. As of right now, the guys like myself, who tested positive, don’t have to test anymore, and can go to the yard on the days our side goes out. However, we do have to wear the N-95 masks that they pass out and exchange them weekly. And, since the COVID-19 outbreak, the staff has taken two of our yard days from Death Row prisoners: Monday for COVID-19 testing, and Wednesday for a down day of cleaning.
Hopefully, the world will be COVID-19-free as countries race to find a vaccine to cure this deadly disease.
No Comments