June 11, 2020 • 21 mins
In this episode we will hear details of the bloody murder of a corrections officer, the crime that landed Jarvis Masters on death row. You will hear Jarvis’s recollections of that fated night, along with the memories of the Head Warden who was in charge, and one of the attorneys that represented Jarvis at the murder trial in the late 1980’s. You will also learn the mind-blowing way in which Jarvis first learned that he was implicated in the conspiracy to commit murder.
Meet Michael Satris, a defense attorney that sat second chair on Jarvis’s murder trial and believes it a travesty that Jarvis is still in prison, much less on death row.
Theme song SENTENCED, is complements of the band Stick Figure, from their album “Set In Stone.”
Have a question for Jarvis that you’d like to hear him answer on the podcast, please leave a message on our hotline: 201-903-3575 or, AskJarvisMasters@Gmail.com
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dear Governor, is a production of I Heart Media and
three Months Media. Dear Governor Newsom, Dear Mr Governor Newsom,
this is an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom. Dear
Governor Newsom, the spiritful said been launched out of the
(00:25):
sale door and into the sergeant's heart. Jarvis Masters on
the prison murder of Sergeant hal Birchfield on June, the
crime for which he was convicted of conspiracy to commit
murder and sentenced to death row. The reason why I
end up getting death row is because I didn't try
(00:46):
to defend myself. I thought that these guys are in trouble,
not me, you know. Oh hell no, I won't try
to defend myself. I say it to my lawyers. You
could not say anything because this is to do with us.
Do don't have nothing to do with us because these
guys they already know I didn't do it, Parry, No
(01:07):
I did. Those don't worry about it. Then if I
if I get involved in their business, they don't get
mad at me, and they may try to do something
to me, you know. And these guys are telling modern
lawyers this is none of you guys business, this of us.
He knows. We know Jarleston doing everyone knows Jarvis wasn't involved.
I mean, we had no idea. The murder happened on
(01:30):
the second tier right below me. That with the south
block in C section on the fourth tier and sell
to light above the office area before tears up of
the guards. They said that I sharpened the weapon and
(01:51):
sent it down to the guy who then made it
into a poll and spared the guard. That's how they
explained my involvement in it. When they got the opportunity,
they had prepared what we referred to as they San
Quentin spear, which is a newspapers and magazines that are
(02:13):
rolled very very tightly into a shaft, so tight and
so heavy that if it hits you on the head,
it would leave a boat under head. Daniel Vasquez was
warden and chief executioner in charge of San Quentin Security
Housing Unit when Sergeant Birchfield was murdered in nineteen Here
he is reflecting on his memory of the crime. They
(02:36):
had saw it off. I don't know how they did that,
but they saw off a piece of the bunk and
they fashioned it into a spear spear point and they
attached it to this uh shaft, you know, magazines and newspapers,
and they stabbed him through the cell bars. They hit
him in the heart. Jervis's memory on the night of
(02:58):
the murder, I remember hearing the alarm. It's the alarming
side set. He was right there that we all heard
alarm in the morning, and um, it only was a
few more hours before daylight left thinking one I think
one guard came up. I was walking his tears and
(03:20):
they said he passed away. Have you known Sergeant brush
Field before he died? You know, I've seen him a lot.
You know what, I've seen him a lot. I don't
think I never we never got at you any words. No,
I he worked in that unit. And had you known
that that there was a conspiracy that was being coordinated
(03:42):
to kill him? Were you aware of that? No? I
wasn't a part of any of that. There was a
lot of violence. There was a lot of violence and
sad quitn at that time. Can you speak to the
Black Guerrilla Family because I know that they ultimately were
a signed with masterminding it. Who were they and what
(04:03):
was your association with them? I do not want to
speak about there, Okay, okay. According to court, documents. This
case involved a conspiracy by members of the prison gang
known as the Black Guerrilla Family to assault and kill
San Quentin prison staff and ultimately to foment war with
(04:25):
the other prison gangs. The conspiracy culminated in the murder
of Sergeant Birchfield, Black Guerrilla member, prison snitch and witness
for the state, Rufus Willis provided prosecutors with incriminating notes
also known as prison kites, confirmed to be in the
handwriting of Jarvis. Jarvis wrote the kite for Rufus, which
(04:46):
ultimately implicated him. Why do you think he did that?
Do you have a theory? I don't know that he did.
Jeffrey Rockline, lead defense attorney for Jarvis's murder trial. That
was a big issue during during the trial. Weren't certain
about that. I think we took a position at the
trial that he wrote it, but he was asked basically
to copy somebody else's information onto what they call a kite,
(05:12):
you know, a note. Jarvis on his involvement in the
prison kite. What got me in trouble was the fact
that I copy a note what we call a kite
a prison for someone who was involved in the in
(05:32):
the murder. He was deeply involved. He was one of
the ones who made a deal with law enforcement, and
law enforcement said, hey, if you go down there and
you get something in Master's hand, right, we will promise
you that you know another dame prison. So he says
(05:54):
me a no, and he says, I need you to
copy this because us I don't want it in my handwriting.
And two things hit me before I said yes. The
first thing was that I was not in good standing
with the group because toldy against what they were thinking about,
(06:15):
and I was just for sure what they decided what
they were thinking about, you know. Secondly, the online signed
it was because I wanted to know what it said.
I was just plenty four year okay or something like that,
and a guard had just been killed and he's given
me the right to copy something. Now. To me, that
(06:36):
was a privilege to me, and my way of thinking
that was like, Wow, he trusts me to do this,
He trusts me to all this stuff, and for me
to keep my mouth shit about it. I thought it
was a privilege. I thought it was a good idea.
I thought he he chose me because he trusted me
more than anyone else. What did he have me right.
(06:58):
It was the full toil of everything that happened. Four
detail is everything that happened, from the way it was decided,
from the planning, from the weapon being moved from one
place to another, the whole BBC all the way up
to the DEATHO Sergeant first Field up next Jarvis on
(07:22):
what would compel him to copy the kites of another inmate.
Marine County Superior Court Judge Lynn Drury was appointed as
referee to review questions raised in jarvis Master's habeas petition.
At the thirteen day hearing, the referee heard expert testimony
(07:43):
from a prominent and esteemed forensic linguist, Dr Robert Leonard,
who argued that the kites that had been used against
Jarvis had been authored by someone other than Jarvis. He said,
quote the language of the kites, admittedly copied by Jarvis,
were not congruent with spelling and laying which he used
in numerous other notes and letters at the time. In
(08:03):
other words, they were copied by Jarvis verbatim from the
actual author. After hearing Dr Leonard's expert testimony, the referee
conceded that his evidence was compelling. Jarvis maintains that copying
kites in prison was commonplace for inmates back then. So
I asked warden Vasquez, is it common practice that that
(08:24):
inmate copy kites for other inmates copy kites? Yes, and
and also passed them to the other inmates. It could
be It could be either way. Either the the inmate
who originator of the kite, you know, would have it
uh delivered to the inmate he intended to have it
delivered too, or you know, sometimes uh an inmate would
(08:46):
copy it. How did they pass the kite? How does
one kite get from one cell to another? It's usually
done by what they call a fish line. You know,
they'll they'll have a way of you know, swinging through
the seal bar and and having it sitched out to
the next inmate. Is that why it's called the kite
(09:07):
because it has a fish line? No, No, it's just
it's just called the kite because it's a it's an
unofficial communication between inmates, and for some reason, they've always
called it a kite. What our copy was that? Um?
He said that I was a good member of the game.
And when I read that then I thought, wow, he
(09:29):
really trust me, because he said I lived up to
my part and you know, I was thinking straight up,
good soldier. And you know, when I read that part,
I just felt like, Wow, he's really supporting, he's really
caring about me. I honestly thought that the reason why
he asked me to copy it was because he trusts me.
(09:51):
And the comments he wrote in there was He even said,
when you read this, you'll see that I'm giving you
major props. So that shows you how much I care about,
how much I like you. I'm giving you major problems.
And I felt, wow, you know, I mean I was
I was like, I was like the happiest guy to
be join this for someone who had all the information
(10:15):
of what just happened. He could have given it anybody
to you know, it was not like, you know, it
was a food for me to copy. Anybody would copy
that thing because everybody wanted to know exactly what happened.
Everyone wanted to know the details, and he gave me
a chance to earn the details. Anyway. I didn't know
(10:36):
he had already made a deal with law enforcement and
they sent him up there to get a note copy
from me, a detailed note. He was smart enough to
write the note, write the detail, and get me to
copy it. Because I copied it. I copied it, and
he turns it in to the law enforcement, and that's
(10:58):
the physical effidence they have against me. I was stupid.
I didn't know. I was totally on a whole another
different page than what his intentions were. I had no
idea what was happening. But that said, that said, everybody
who was accused thought of rumored about. We're taken out
(11:23):
of that unit and placed in solitary confinement and the
adjustment center. And when the adjustment center was filled up,
they sent them to Folsom State Prison to isolate them.
They took a hole tire everybody in that area, anyone
they thought was involved in it. They took out of
(11:43):
that building and placed them in solitary confinement, deep in
the whole. Some places, they were so deep you can
barely hear the other guy. It was hollowed. He was
behind not just one door, but another door and then
another door. You were isolated completely. They took everyone out,
(12:05):
but they left me there. The man who posts had
a sharpened the weapon. The guy who posts they had
assented down to Johnson, the guy who's supposed to have
wrote a plan, a detailed plan of everything that happened,
everything that happened from A to Z in my handwriting,
(12:26):
and left me in that same cell. They left me
in that self for six months. And this guy supposed
to be the bad dude keep sposed to be the
one that start thempments, who were ready to kill guards,
who was ready to attack guards any minute now. They
yet they left me in that same sound. They let
(12:49):
me go to the yard that in that note that
they said it was planning that. They let me go
to the commissary, They let me get my visits, They
let me walk among the guards, They let me shower
on a cheer. In fact, they did nothing that they
didn't give to the rest of the population. Two people,
three hundred people in that building. I was among everybody.
(13:12):
I went to the yard with everybody. Their whole response
to that type that I copied to them believing that
I shop in the weapon that Joe the guard, And
who's to say that I was going to sharpen more
weapons to kill more guards. They put in their guards
in jeopardy to think that I even sharpen the weapon,
(13:32):
to believe our sharpen the weapon. Why do you think
it took six months for them too? Because They knew
that was the guy who told me that to copy
the note. They knew it was a copy not They
had no intentions on charging me. They had no intentions
of putting me involved in that. They had none if
(13:54):
they had one eye, Oh, the intentions of believing that
those knights that I sharpened and I don't blow in
that July, I'll belong in a dungeon. I am just
as Jukie asked the guy who did it. Jarvis said
that for six months following the death of Sergeant haliburch Field,
(14:16):
he had zero reason to believe or even consider that
he was under suspicion for participating in the conspiracy to
commit murder. I asked how it was that he finally
found out that the powers that be intended to prosecute him.
When he finally fell charges, I was watching t V
and my face appeared on television. I said, oh shit,
(14:37):
you know, you know, we interrupt this program to say
we are charging you know, and I'm looking at me
and me looking at I. It was not a good thing. Wow. Yeah,
So that's how I know. I mean, I never I
was never part of the dragnet. You know. I was
(14:58):
never part of the interviews. I was never were part
of being transferred to another unit, being suspect for another unit,
and myself searched as if I was. You know, you
you're accusing the sharpen the weapon, and they don't search yourself.
They don't send you trthology confinement right they did any
more else. I knew those guys is in a lot
(15:19):
of trouble. You know. I feel sorry for them, you know,
I feel sorry for the old scene and next ago,
I'm looking at me on TV and I'm saying, Wow,
what the hill's going on? When that morning they came
and got me and threw me in a dungeon. Sergeant
Perchfield was stabbed in the heart in the hallway of
(15:41):
the second tier of the Carson Section of San Quentin.
The so called c Section. Court papers say this occurred
two stories beneath Jarvis, a cell, right outside the cell
of Andre Johnson, the man accused of the actual murder.
The weapon, the metal shift that the investigator said was
constructed from the bedpost, was never recovered. I wish they
(16:02):
would have found that weapon because that weapon would have
been my way out of here. I really believe if
they found that weapon, I would not been charged from her.
It's because they did not find it. They got me
in trouble. I that's my belief. If they found the
actual weapon, then they would have known somehow, fingerprints, something, anything,
(16:27):
would have said that it was not me that sharpen anything,
because you're sharpen it on the floor if you're going
sharpen it. And why didn't they go in myself and
see if myself had any scrapes on it. Well, here's
the thing, this is my always felt if they would
have found that weapon, they could have took the grooves
(16:49):
off that weapon and compared it to whatever group that
they may have seen me scratching it our sharpen it
on the floor. M I mean, that was my way
out because I knew that was not going to happen
that way. But they don't know where it's at. And now.
An open letter to Governor Newsom from Michael Satras, one
(17:11):
of the attorneys that represented Jarvis in the late nineteen
eighties throughout the murder trial that sent him to death row.
Dear Governor Newsom, You're moratorium on executions in California reflects
the reality that there is no right person for the
state to kill but Jarvis is inestimably the wrong person,
(17:34):
singled out among the many charged defendants and uncharged co
conspirators to avenge the murder of Sergeant Birchfield in the
bowels of San Quentin. Jarvis was a pawn in the game,
even under the prosecution's theory of his guilt, neither the
actual killer nor the shot caller. Most ironic is that
(17:56):
at the time the judgment of death was pronounced upon him,
Jarvis was also the only one who had demonstrably reformed
and changed himself, maturing from a sullen and angry young
revolutionary gang member into a thoughtful and caring individual who
had gained insight into himself and the world around him,
(18:17):
as well as a measure of peace and understanding. I
know this because I was appointed as his counsel shortly
after the capital charges were lodged against him, and literally
stood at his side more than three years later in June,
when the judge imposed the death penalty upon him, encouraging
(18:39):
him to express himself in writing, develop his spirituality, and
examine and reflect upon himself at the world around him,
his eyes and years and soul open to the world
both within him and without him, he soaked up all
that positive and expansive outflow like a sponge, so that
(19:01):
in the most unlikely circumstances of fighting for his life
from the deepest hole in which the state could bury him,
his humanity flowered. I have kept in touch with Jarvis
over the many years since then, periodically seeing him and
reading his books and talking to his supporters, and know
(19:22):
that he has steadfastly maintained and enlarged upon his rehabilitation
and pro social ways to become the remarkable human being
that he is today. One can only wonder who Jarvis
would have become had the state not used all its
resources to imprison him as a teenager and thereafter employed
(19:43):
the machinery of death against him, but instead had deployed
those resources in the name of his life at the outset,
addressing all the childhood trauma, deprivation, violence, oppression, and neglect
that was his unique experience growing up. Unquestionably, Jarvis is
(20:04):
the wrong person to execute, as the doubt of his
guilt that lingered at the time of judgment has only
gathered and grown stronger over the decades as exonerating evidence
and recantations accumulated. Ultimately the evidence is too uncertain and
changeable to support the weight of a judgment as certain
(20:26):
and final as death, and has grown irresistibly stronger in
favor of life every day of the thirty five years
I have known Jarvis, respectfully submitted Michael Sattris next week
an epic five year trial that would end in the
death conviction for Jarvis and why he thinks he got
(20:49):
the death sentence when the other two inmates, also accused
in the conspiracy, were given life without the possibility of pearl.
Today's episode is written and produced by Donna Fazzari and
myself Corny Cole. Our theme song sentenced as complements of
the band stick Figure from that album Set in Stone.
(21:10):
Stu Sternboch Is composed the original music. Nate Defort did
the sound design. Visit Free Jarvis dot org to find
out more about Jarvis's case and to sign your name
to our Dear Governor Newsom petition and if you have
questions for Jarvis, please leave a message on our hotline
at two zero one nine zero three thirty five seventy five.
(21:31):
That's two zero one nine zero three thirty five seventy five.
Dear Governor Newsom is a production of i heart Media
and three Months Media. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Dear Governor, is a production of I Heart Media and
three Months Media. Dear Governor Newsom, Dear Mr Governor Newsom,
this is an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom. Dear
Governor Newsom, the spiritful said been launched out of the
(00:25):
sale door and into the sergeant's heart. Jarvis Masters on
the prison murder of Sergeant hal Birchfield on June, the
crime for which he was convicted of conspiracy to commit
murder and sentenced to death row. The reason why I
end up getting death row is because I didn't try
(00:46):
to defend myself. I thought that these guys are in trouble,
not me, you know. Oh hell no, I won't try
to defend myself. I say it to my lawyers. You
could not say anything because this is to do with us.
Do don't have nothing to do with us because these
guys they already know I didn't do it, Parry, No
(01:07):
I did. Those don't worry about it. Then if I
if I get involved in their business, they don't get
mad at me, and they may try to do something
to me, you know. And these guys are telling modern
lawyers this is none of you guys business, this of us.
He knows. We know Jarleston doing everyone knows Jarvis wasn't involved.
I mean, we had no idea. The murder happened on
(01:30):
the second tier right below me. That with the south
block in C section on the fourth tier and sell
to light above the office area before tears up of
the guards. They said that I sharpened the weapon and
(01:51):
sent it down to the guy who then made it
into a poll and spared the guard. That's how they
explained my involvement in it. When they got the opportunity,
they had prepared what we referred to as they San
Quentin spear, which is a newspapers and magazines that are
(02:13):
rolled very very tightly into a shaft, so tight and
so heavy that if it hits you on the head,
it would leave a boat under head. Daniel Vasquez was
warden and chief executioner in charge of San Quentin Security
Housing Unit when Sergeant Birchfield was murdered in nineteen Here
he is reflecting on his memory of the crime. They
(02:36):
had saw it off. I don't know how they did that,
but they saw off a piece of the bunk and
they fashioned it into a spear spear point and they
attached it to this uh shaft, you know, magazines and newspapers,
and they stabbed him through the cell bars. They hit
him in the heart. Jervis's memory on the night of
(02:58):
the murder, I remember hearing the alarm. It's the alarming
side set. He was right there that we all heard
alarm in the morning, and um, it only was a
few more hours before daylight left thinking one I think
one guard came up. I was walking his tears and
(03:20):
they said he passed away. Have you known Sergeant brush
Field before he died? You know, I've seen him a lot.
You know what, I've seen him a lot. I don't
think I never we never got at you any words. No,
I he worked in that unit. And had you known
that that there was a conspiracy that was being coordinated
(03:42):
to kill him? Were you aware of that? No? I
wasn't a part of any of that. There was a
lot of violence. There was a lot of violence and
sad quitn at that time. Can you speak to the
Black Guerrilla Family because I know that they ultimately were
a signed with masterminding it. Who were they and what
(04:03):
was your association with them? I do not want to
speak about there, Okay, okay. According to court, documents. This
case involved a conspiracy by members of the prison gang
known as the Black Guerrilla Family to assault and kill
San Quentin prison staff and ultimately to foment war with
(04:25):
the other prison gangs. The conspiracy culminated in the murder
of Sergeant Birchfield, Black Guerrilla member, prison snitch and witness
for the state, Rufus Willis provided prosecutors with incriminating notes
also known as prison kites, confirmed to be in the
handwriting of Jarvis. Jarvis wrote the kite for Rufus, which
(04:46):
ultimately implicated him. Why do you think he did that?
Do you have a theory? I don't know that he did.
Jeffrey Rockline, lead defense attorney for Jarvis's murder trial. That
was a big issue during during the trial. Weren't certain
about that. I think we took a position at the
trial that he wrote it, but he was asked basically
to copy somebody else's information onto what they call a kite,
(05:12):
you know, a note. Jarvis on his involvement in the
prison kite. What got me in trouble was the fact
that I copy a note what we call a kite
a prison for someone who was involved in the in
(05:32):
the murder. He was deeply involved. He was one of
the ones who made a deal with law enforcement, and
law enforcement said, hey, if you go down there and
you get something in Master's hand, right, we will promise
you that you know another dame prison. So he says
(05:54):
me a no, and he says, I need you to
copy this because us I don't want it in my handwriting.
And two things hit me before I said yes. The
first thing was that I was not in good standing
with the group because toldy against what they were thinking about,
(06:15):
and I was just for sure what they decided what
they were thinking about, you know. Secondly, the online signed
it was because I wanted to know what it said.
I was just plenty four year okay or something like that,
and a guard had just been killed and he's given
me the right to copy something. Now. To me, that
(06:36):
was a privilege to me, and my way of thinking
that was like, Wow, he trusts me to do this,
He trusts me to all this stuff, and for me
to keep my mouth shit about it. I thought it
was a privilege. I thought it was a good idea.
I thought he he chose me because he trusted me
more than anyone else. What did he have me right.
(06:58):
It was the full toil of everything that happened. Four
detail is everything that happened, from the way it was decided,
from the planning, from the weapon being moved from one
place to another, the whole BBC all the way up
to the DEATHO Sergeant first Field up next Jarvis on
(07:22):
what would compel him to copy the kites of another inmate.
Marine County Superior Court Judge Lynn Drury was appointed as
referee to review questions raised in jarvis Master's habeas petition.
At the thirteen day hearing, the referee heard expert testimony
(07:43):
from a prominent and esteemed forensic linguist, Dr Robert Leonard,
who argued that the kites that had been used against
Jarvis had been authored by someone other than Jarvis. He said,
quote the language of the kites, admittedly copied by Jarvis,
were not congruent with spelling and laying which he used
in numerous other notes and letters at the time. In
(08:03):
other words, they were copied by Jarvis verbatim from the
actual author. After hearing Dr Leonard's expert testimony, the referee
conceded that his evidence was compelling. Jarvis maintains that copying
kites in prison was commonplace for inmates back then. So
I asked warden Vasquez, is it common practice that that
(08:24):
inmate copy kites for other inmates copy kites? Yes, and
and also passed them to the other inmates. It could
be It could be either way. Either the the inmate
who originator of the kite, you know, would have it
uh delivered to the inmate he intended to have it
delivered too, or you know, sometimes uh an inmate would
(08:46):
copy it. How did they pass the kite? How does
one kite get from one cell to another? It's usually
done by what they call a fish line. You know,
they'll they'll have a way of you know, swinging through
the seal bar and and having it sitched out to
the next inmate. Is that why it's called the kite
(09:07):
because it has a fish line? No, No, it's just
it's just called the kite because it's a it's an
unofficial communication between inmates, and for some reason, they've always
called it a kite. What our copy was that? Um?
He said that I was a good member of the game.
And when I read that then I thought, wow, he
(09:29):
really trust me, because he said I lived up to
my part and you know, I was thinking straight up,
good soldier. And you know, when I read that part,
I just felt like, Wow, he's really supporting, he's really
caring about me. I honestly thought that the reason why
he asked me to copy it was because he trusts me.
(09:51):
And the comments he wrote in there was He even said,
when you read this, you'll see that I'm giving you
major props. So that shows you how much I care about,
how much I like you. I'm giving you major problems.
And I felt, wow, you know, I mean I was
I was like, I was like the happiest guy to
be join this for someone who had all the information
(10:15):
of what just happened. He could have given it anybody
to you know, it was not like, you know, it
was a food for me to copy. Anybody would copy
that thing because everybody wanted to know exactly what happened.
Everyone wanted to know the details, and he gave me
a chance to earn the details. Anyway. I didn't know
(10:36):
he had already made a deal with law enforcement and
they sent him up there to get a note copy
from me, a detailed note. He was smart enough to
write the note, write the detail, and get me to
copy it. Because I copied it. I copied it, and
he turns it in to the law enforcement, and that's
(10:58):
the physical effidence they have against me. I was stupid.
I didn't know. I was totally on a whole another
different page than what his intentions were. I had no
idea what was happening. But that said, that said, everybody
who was accused thought of rumored about. We're taken out
(11:23):
of that unit and placed in solitary confinement and the
adjustment center. And when the adjustment center was filled up,
they sent them to Folsom State Prison to isolate them.
They took a hole tire everybody in that area, anyone
they thought was involved in it. They took out of
(11:43):
that building and placed them in solitary confinement, deep in
the whole. Some places, they were so deep you can
barely hear the other guy. It was hollowed. He was
behind not just one door, but another door and then
another door. You were isolated completely. They took everyone out,
(12:05):
but they left me there. The man who posts had
a sharpened the weapon. The guy who posts they had
assented down to Johnson, the guy who's supposed to have
wrote a plan, a detailed plan of everything that happened,
everything that happened from A to Z in my handwriting,
(12:26):
and left me in that same cell. They left me
in that self for six months. And this guy supposed
to be the bad dude keep sposed to be the
one that start thempments, who were ready to kill guards,
who was ready to attack guards any minute now. They
yet they left me in that same sound. They let
(12:49):
me go to the yard that in that note that
they said it was planning that. They let me go
to the commissary, They let me get my visits, They
let me walk among the guards, They let me shower
on a cheer. In fact, they did nothing that they
didn't give to the rest of the population. Two people,
three hundred people in that building. I was among everybody.
(13:12):
I went to the yard with everybody. Their whole response
to that type that I copied to them believing that
I shop in the weapon that Joe the guard, And
who's to say that I was going to sharpen more
weapons to kill more guards. They put in their guards
in jeopardy to think that I even sharpen the weapon,
(13:32):
to believe our sharpen the weapon. Why do you think
it took six months for them too? Because They knew
that was the guy who told me that to copy
the note. They knew it was a copy not They
had no intentions on charging me. They had no intentions
of putting me involved in that. They had none if
(13:54):
they had one eye, Oh, the intentions of believing that
those knights that I sharpened and I don't blow in
that July, I'll belong in a dungeon. I am just
as Jukie asked the guy who did it. Jarvis said
that for six months following the death of Sergeant haliburch Field,
(14:16):
he had zero reason to believe or even consider that
he was under suspicion for participating in the conspiracy to
commit murder. I asked how it was that he finally
found out that the powers that be intended to prosecute him.
When he finally fell charges, I was watching t V
and my face appeared on television. I said, oh shit,
(14:37):
you know, you know, we interrupt this program to say
we are charging you know, and I'm looking at me
and me looking at I. It was not a good thing. Wow. Yeah,
So that's how I know. I mean, I never I
was never part of the dragnet. You know. I was
(14:58):
never part of the interviews. I was never were part
of being transferred to another unit, being suspect for another unit,
and myself searched as if I was. You know, you
you're accusing the sharpen the weapon, and they don't search yourself.
They don't send you trthology confinement right they did any
more else. I knew those guys is in a lot
(15:19):
of trouble. You know. I feel sorry for them, you know,
I feel sorry for the old scene and next ago,
I'm looking at me on TV and I'm saying, Wow,
what the hill's going on? When that morning they came
and got me and threw me in a dungeon. Sergeant
Perchfield was stabbed in the heart in the hallway of
(15:41):
the second tier of the Carson Section of San Quentin.
The so called c Section. Court papers say this occurred
two stories beneath Jarvis, a cell, right outside the cell
of Andre Johnson, the man accused of the actual murder.
The weapon, the metal shift that the investigator said was
constructed from the bedpost, was never recovered. I wish they
(16:02):
would have found that weapon because that weapon would have
been my way out of here. I really believe if
they found that weapon, I would not been charged from her.
It's because they did not find it. They got me
in trouble. I that's my belief. If they found the
actual weapon, then they would have known somehow, fingerprints, something, anything,
(16:27):
would have said that it was not me that sharpen anything,
because you're sharpen it on the floor if you're going
sharpen it. And why didn't they go in myself and
see if myself had any scrapes on it. Well, here's
the thing, this is my always felt if they would
have found that weapon, they could have took the grooves
(16:49):
off that weapon and compared it to whatever group that
they may have seen me scratching it our sharpen it
on the floor. M I mean, that was my way
out because I knew that was not going to happen
that way. But they don't know where it's at. And now.
An open letter to Governor Newsom from Michael Satras, one
(17:11):
of the attorneys that represented Jarvis in the late nineteen
eighties throughout the murder trial that sent him to death row.
Dear Governor Newsom, You're moratorium on executions in California reflects
the reality that there is no right person for the
state to kill but Jarvis is inestimably the wrong person,
(17:34):
singled out among the many charged defendants and uncharged co
conspirators to avenge the murder of Sergeant Birchfield in the
bowels of San Quentin. Jarvis was a pawn in the game,
even under the prosecution's theory of his guilt, neither the
actual killer nor the shot caller. Most ironic is that
(17:56):
at the time the judgment of death was pronounced upon him,
Jarvis was also the only one who had demonstrably reformed
and changed himself, maturing from a sullen and angry young
revolutionary gang member into a thoughtful and caring individual who
had gained insight into himself and the world around him,
(18:17):
as well as a measure of peace and understanding. I
know this because I was appointed as his counsel shortly
after the capital charges were lodged against him, and literally
stood at his side more than three years later in June,
when the judge imposed the death penalty upon him, encouraging
(18:39):
him to express himself in writing, develop his spirituality, and
examine and reflect upon himself at the world around him,
his eyes and years and soul open to the world
both within him and without him, he soaked up all
that positive and expansive outflow like a sponge, so that
(19:01):
in the most unlikely circumstances of fighting for his life
from the deepest hole in which the state could bury him,
his humanity flowered. I have kept in touch with Jarvis
over the many years since then, periodically seeing him and
reading his books and talking to his supporters, and know
(19:22):
that he has steadfastly maintained and enlarged upon his rehabilitation
and pro social ways to become the remarkable human being
that he is today. One can only wonder who Jarvis
would have become had the state not used all its
resources to imprison him as a teenager and thereafter employed
(19:43):
the machinery of death against him, but instead had deployed
those resources in the name of his life at the outset,
addressing all the childhood trauma, deprivation, violence, oppression, and neglect
that was his unique experience growing up. Unquestionably, Jarvis is
(20:04):
the wrong person to execute, as the doubt of his
guilt that lingered at the time of judgment has only
gathered and grown stronger over the decades as exonerating evidence
and recantations accumulated. Ultimately the evidence is too uncertain and
changeable to support the weight of a judgment as certain
(20:26):
and final as death, and has grown irresistibly stronger in
favor of life every day of the thirty five years
I have known Jarvis, respectfully submitted Michael Sattris next week
an epic five year trial that would end in the
death conviction for Jarvis and why he thinks he got
(20:49):
the death sentence when the other two inmates, also accused
in the conspiracy, were given life without the possibility of pearl.
Today's episode is written and produced by Donna Fazzari and
myself Corny Cole. Our theme song sentenced as complements of
the band stick Figure from that album Set in Stone.
(21:10):
Stu Sternboch Is composed the original music. Nate Defort did
the sound design. Visit Free Jarvis dot org to find
out more about Jarvis's case and to sign your name
to our Dear Governor Newsom petition and if you have
questions for Jarvis, please leave a message on our hotline
at two zero one nine zero three thirty five seventy five.
(21:31):
That's two zero one nine zero three thirty five seventy five.
Dear Governor Newsom is a production of i heart Media
and three Months Media. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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