June 25, 2020 • 31 mins
This verdict is in. And despite all of the compelling new evidence that bolsters Jarvis’s innocence, the California Supreme Court chose confirm his death sentence. You will hear Jarvis’s reaction to the courts decision, and what this means for the future of his life. The vast majority of the legal insights into Jarvis’s substantial claims of innocence were published in the article: “Unrequited Innocence in U.S. Capital Cases: Unintended Consequences of the Fourth Kind” by Rob Warden and John Seasly
The late Geronimo Pratt was imprisoned at San Quentin for 27 years for a murder he did not commit and awarded 4.5 Million Dollars from federal and local governments as settlement in a wrongful-imprisonment suit. While at San Quentin, he befriended Jarvis.
Hear him bearing witness to his young friend, at the launch party for Jarvis’s first book, “Finding Freedom, Writings from 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. After the California Supreme Court, here's a habeas
(00:23):
corpus appeal for a capital crime. They have nine d
days with which to file their opinion. We had already
surpassed the nine week mark following Jarvis Master's appeal, so
we knew the decision was impending, soon to be delivered
to our inboxes. Anyone can stay apprized of ongoing Supreme
Court cases by signing up at Courts dot c A
dot gov. At the sixty six day mark, we all
(00:46):
received an email with a subject line Supreme Court of
California Case Notifications for s one three zero four nine five,
the body of which read notice of forthcoming opinion to
be filed in three days and three days later, twenty
one days before their deadline, the eagerly anticipated email read
(01:09):
the Supreme Court of California Opinion available online and then
in parentheses concurrence. I lost the English unanimously. That heard
it real bad, you know, but I mean just you know,
sucked it up for a while. I did a lot
of meditation and a lot of sitting in, a lot
(01:30):
of thinking, and one thing I was very very confident
in months out of this decision was that I will
try to feel in the same place ready to accept
whatever outcome that is. Jarvis's lawyers had filed his habeas
petition in two thousand five. It took the California Supreme
(01:51):
Court fourteen excruciatingly long years to address the petition and
then sixty nine short days to reaffirm what they had
already decided. Had the court moved with any sense of
urgency or a bare minimum respect for the goal of
a speedy trial, there's a possibility, however remote, it might
have been, that Jarvis could have already moved through the
(02:12):
Federal appeals, a far less politically fraught system, and inhaled
the wonders of freedom. When I heard about the decision,
my immediate reaction was I was crushed. I felt crushed
to the ball. Yeah. I was hoping that no one
(02:34):
asked me these questions about what it felt like, you know,
because to me, it would have been like I was
a specive than a subject card, uh, something to look
at you. I any want to be that way mm hmmm.
I described it as having just had your wisdom keeeth
(02:57):
pulled out and someone's trying to hold a conversation with you.
You know, it hurt it in that way. So that
was my first you know, That's how I responded to it,
and over the next ten fifteen hours, and so I
had to straighten up, you know, I had to figure
(03:18):
out how to straighten up off this, you know. And
when it comes down to your freedom, epis so long,
you really, deep down inside you know, want this. You
want to win this. And they caught up to me
that the idea of losing is one more long, long
(03:39):
time of being in prison for zero, for nothing, and
no one knew how. And I was saying this to myself,
No one knows how long a day is. I'm fucking
with someone that doesn't know what a day feels like,
innocent on the death throw. They have no idea. Then
they get upset because I'm upset. You know, what world
(04:02):
are you guys living in? Concerns that were key in
the two thousand five petition included, but we're not limited
to prosecutorial misconduct. Newly discovered evidence and ineffective counsel. His
appellate attorneys at the time wrote that his death sentence
rested on evidence that the prosecution had known or should
have known was quote inflammatory, unreliable, untrue, and or misleading.
(04:28):
In so many words, I had now hold everybody up.
I had now played the role of don't worry about this, okay,
blah blah blah. You know that was just that was
role playing because I knew no one would understand where
I was really at. You know, silence for me was
the biggest hug I could have gotten, just so like
(04:50):
every time someone talked to me, I was able to
call somebody I had. I had to explain people were
calling you, but you felt like you had to comfort
them all the time. It just feels like I was
the strongest shoulder for people to lean on. And if
(05:11):
I was fillion upset, they were phillips. So Mynes, who
was not the shill upset because I knew it would
create a lot of unhealthy ways for me personally. The
star witness against Jarvis was a black guerrilla family member
by the name of Rufus Willis, who testified under grant
of immunity from prosecution at the trial that he had
(05:34):
been in the prison yard when the b GF gang
were planning the assassination of Officer Birchfield, where it was
agreed he said that Jarvis would provide the tip of
the spear. In the preliminary hearing, Rufus Willis described Jarvis
as standing five seven, chubby, with a stomach, wearing glasses,
clean shaven, and free of tattoos. Note in fact that
(05:57):
Jarvis masters is six ft one, slender, didn't wear any glasses,
had a mustache and goatee with a tattoo on his
left cheek. An inmate named Harold Richardson, however, confessed to
playing the role in the crime that Rufus had attributed
to Jarvis, and fit the physical description Rufus had articulated
to a t seems like a slam dunk for reasonable doubt.
(06:21):
Right just have him testified before the jury. Not so fast.
Harold Richardson refused to testify, citing his right against self incrimination.
Jervis's council pleaded with the judge to grant immunity for prosecution,
but for whatever reason, the judge refused. Jervis's council also
pleaded with the judge to allow expert testimony regarding the
(06:43):
unreliability of jail house informants, and for whatever reason, she
refused that plea as well, do you feel like you're
losing hope? You know what? And there you're talking about, Well,
can you hear the Buddhist here? I'll I don't want
to get into what hope post to do for me
(07:04):
right now, you know, I don't. I don't think hope
is gonna that's gonna help me resolve where I'm that.
I just don't think hope is a necessary thing to
have right now. I think it's really unhealthy. I think
it has no real value to it. Yeah, I think
(07:26):
that I'll be chasing something that you know, I don't
know where it would go one way to other, and
Hope is not going to be responsible for that. I
would not let that be my response. I would not
give Hope that responsibility. In other words, I really don't
(07:49):
want to put hope o front street, you know so,
I think that is a very very Buddhist way of saying,
you know, hope is not an issue that you should
put everything into. Okay, what do you want to put
on street? If not hope? The idea of not expecting anything.
(08:11):
Work with that? Why do I need to spend time
trying to effect one outcome from the other. To not
be that smart to know and to live in that
space of unknown, not knowing. That's a very comfortable space
if you can control it, if it can be maintained.
(08:32):
How do you do that? Oh man, I don't really know.
You know, I know what the practice is. I really
don't know how to do that. I can give you
the basic instruction, but I don't I don't know how
it works. And that's what they call it. What a
practice is. You get better at it, you discover more,
(08:54):
it becomes more of a way of thinking. It supposed
to create balance in your life. H Quit trying to
tell yourself what you don't know. I mean, that's just
the way I see it in prison. On me, I
I cheech this kind of stuff to people. So I
mean my way of saying it to a lot of
(09:15):
guys in here is, you know, quick trying to tell
you know yourself you know something. When you don't, all
you're gonna do is fall asleep and want some bit
once some timely lost because of it, leave it alone.
Trying to be in the best place when it happened.
So just be in the place of not knowing what
you what you really don't suppost and know anything about,
(09:37):
and be smart enough to think that you don't need
to know what you're not gonna be told to you
until it happens. Lawrence Woodard, the man who was accused
of masterminding the murder of Sergeant Birchfield, was sentenced to
life without possibility of parole. Andre Johnson, the man who
(10:01):
was accused of a single stab wound that severed Sergeant
Birchfield's pulmonary artery, was sentenced to life without the possibility
of parole. Jarvis Masters, accused of manufacturing the tip of
the spear, was sentenced to death after a penalty phase
hearing at which a prisoner named Johnny Hose, a member
of the Black Guerrilla Family, testified that Jarvis had bragged
(10:23):
about murdering a San Quentin prisoner in nine four, though
this case had never been adjudicated. Subsequent to the trials
and sentencing, all three States witnesses Rufus Willis, Bobby Evans,
and Johnny Hose have recanted and sworn statements saying that
they had lied at the trial in hopes of obtaining
(10:44):
favorable treatment for themselves. The rufus Willis statement also said
that he had coerced Jarvis, out of fear for his
own safety, to write the incriminating kites, which Masters copied
from the writings of Willis and Woodard. Finally, Andre Johnson,
Jarvis's co defendant convicted of actually stabbing Birchfield to death,
(11:04):
provided a sworn statement saying that Masters had no role
in the murder. Were you surprised when they came back
with the death penalty? Yes, Jeffrey Rockline, lead defense counsel
for Jarvis Masters from nineteen eighty six to nineteen Jarvis
testified and he was very compelling, very believable, very likable,
(11:28):
very human, very warm, sympathetic. You know, he told a
story about his life that was, you know, really sad,
very upsetting, and you know, he testified to the jury,
I thought, in a very communicative way. And then we
had other experts on the stand about you know, his background,
(11:49):
Craig Haney was was excellent. So yeah, I was surprised
that they came back with death, very very surprised. Do
you remember talking to Jarvis about it after? Oh? Sure,
Oh yeah, how was that to him? Well, it was hard,
So yeah, it was difficult thinking with him. But you know,
he Jarvis is a is a tough, strong guy, you know,
(12:13):
and he's a real fighter. And I really grew to
like Jarvis, you know, and like him very much like
him and feel for him and have sympathy for him
and as as a human being, as a person who
was able to actually pull himself out of you know,
that whole gang prison culture and the criminal culture. Um.
(12:35):
So I have a great deal of respect for him.
And number one number two, there was so much evidence
that was kept from us. Um, there's so much of
the bad evidence that has flipped over, has reversed that.
You know, if he were tried now, whether I would
handle it or another defense lawyer would handle it, you know,
they'd get an acquibble. I think there's this overwhelming reasonable
(12:57):
doubt that Jarvis was was guilty of the crimes. That's
what I feel. So I'm glad you're doing this work.
It's very important. He should not be on death row.
He shouldn't be in prison actually for this crime. You know,
it's really a tragedy. Um, it really is. You know,
it's really unfair. How do you hear the decision? Who
told you? How did you find out? Art from at
(13:20):
least a dozen people, you know, they were coming at
me from all over the place, and what I noticed
about most of them was they wanted a response. They
wanted to know my first reaction, and they wanted to
know it in a way that it's so really really
sickening to me. It's almost like people are looking right
down you, right down your throat and wanting to know
(13:43):
what aposted to feel like, you know, how does it
feel for that to happen? I'm sorry, but I really
want to know how you're dealing with this. I wanted
to look in your eyes and see something you know
that that all, yeah, I can see, I mean that
kind of stuff. So I think what happened was I
dealt with it by trying to fear show I was
(14:10):
not defeated, you know, and I was ready to take
it to the next level that it's not as bad
as it was supposed to be. You know, the court
basically preached us with some really good issues, and that
was the issue by Blue and the other justice speak
(14:34):
the two issues that really we can really really build
on the two issues that Jarvis is referencing that may
help as he navigates the federal appeals process. Written by
California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin lou in his concurring opinion
on Jarvis's habeas corpus petition, he writes, we have no
(14:55):
occasion in this posture to consider whether, in light of
the trial evidence, as well as the reference hearing and findings,
we can be confident of the verdict beyond a reasonable
doubt and to quote, nor do we have occasion here
to consider whether, in light of all of the relevant circumstances,
the fact that Masters was sentenced to death while his
(15:16):
co defendants were not maybe indicative of arbitrary nous in
the application of the death penalty. I had the last
god I killed executed was on my watch with my
client in two thousand and six. And that's another thing
that makes me so sick death. I'll tell you when
(15:39):
you have that kind of direct experience of it, as
well as the experience of standing up there next to
my client, Jarvis, and having the judge condemned him to death.
Attorney Michael Satras sat second chair on Jarvis's defense team
from nineteen through nineteen nine, and his death penalty sentence.
(16:00):
I've always been against that penalty. I get a add
taste in my mouth from it, and every experience that
I have of it to me, just shows how wrong
and arbitrary and capricious it is. And for Jarvis to
end up with the death penalty when wood or jury
(16:21):
hangs on the issue, which is the same jury we had.
Woodard is the he's the true believer. If anybody is
in participation in the gang, he is indisputably the leader
of those three. So the jury hangs on him and
then comes back with the death penalty for Jarvis. And
(16:44):
then you have Johnson, the actual killer, who gets the
death penalty by his jury, and the judge modifies it
because it is kind of arbitrary. He's sort of a
fall guy in some ways from Woodard and the higher
(17:06):
ups picking him as as the good soldier who wants
to make his bones and whatever to commit the killing.
But he's kind of just this not very bright, innocent
young man. And so the judge, to me, that was
a very good move on her part. And then we
(17:29):
come up for pronouncement of judgment, and by all rights,
by all signs of justice and whatever should have been modified.
In reference to the three States witnesses recanting their testimony,
the California Supreme Court wrote that while Jarvis had demonstrated
(17:49):
them to be generally liars, he does not offer any
persuasive reason to credit their recantations over their trial testimony.
In other words, we know that prison snitches are prison snitches.
We know that prison snitches lie when it benefits them.
We know that there was a chance that they were
lying in the original trial, and there's an equal chance
(18:11):
that they lied in their recantations, and because of that,
we unanimously endorse the execution of a man because you know,
we really don't know in this prison context. Yeah, I mean,
you're accurate in observing that these people, many of them,
the snitches, are unreliable. They tell different stories. Jeffrey Rotwine,
(18:34):
again lead defense counsel for Jarvis during his murder trial.
We attacked Ruvius Willis. We attack you know, Johnny Hoes,
Bobby Evans, the people that were, you know, cooperating with
the government. And typically there's a whole history of cooperation,
you know, and and and requests for leniency or money
(18:54):
or reduction and sentences or dismissal of cases, and you
have to kind rely on the institution, the district attorney
and the you know, the prison and the Department of Corrections,
you know, to disclose and and produce all the records
and information varying on that person's character and background and
motives for testifying. I asked Larry Marshall, a professor of
(19:25):
law at Stanford who happens to be consulting on Jarvis's case.
Now that the habeas corpus opinion has been rendered on
the state level, what is next for Jarvis? So the
next step, after one goes through the state system of
the direct appeal and then the habeas is we give
a defendant capital or otherwise the right to go into
(19:50):
federal court. And two show that the state court was
unreasonable in rejecting his or her ca institutional claims. So
it's not enough to convince a federal judge that my
rights have been violated and that I should have been
(20:10):
given relief. You have to show, and this is since
since the anti terrorism and effective death penalty app you
have to show that the state court was reasonable, that
it unreasonably applied settled law, Settled Supreme Court, United States
Supreme Court precedent. So it's a very high burden. But
(20:33):
on the other hand, it's a burden that has met
at times in outrageous cases. And it also has to
be the claims have to be federal constitutional claims, and
this is a very This federal habeas is a very
odd bird in the structure of our court system because
(20:53):
it kind of puts it does put a federal district
court judge and then a federal Court of Appeals in
the role of reviewing the reasonableness of what the state
supreme court has done. We don't do that in civil cases.
And civil cases, if there's a federal issue, you go
straight to the Supreme Court. You don't get to go
(21:15):
into federal court and have a judge sort of second
guess at some level what the state court has done.
But again, because we do recognize that constitutional rights in
the criminal setting are particularly cherished, we do provide we
do provide this remedy. And just as an historical note,
(21:36):
it was born in large part over the fact that,
let's say, during reconstruction, a lot of states in the South,
we're not respecting the constitutional rights of black defendants. Congress
had a mechanism, they had those defendants had a mechanism
of going into court um and saying to the federal
(21:59):
court book, our constitutional rights are being violated, and there
was a sense that the federal courts would be more
independent and more willing to recognize those constitutional rights. I've
told Jarvis that I will work very hard to help
put together a terrific team of the lawyers pro bono
lawyers who will take on his representation in federal court.
(22:23):
That I will be more than willing to consult with
those lawyers as they as they as they work through
the case and to the you know, part of the
team in that sense, um, in an informal in an
informal way, but I do believe they play that he
needs to get some lawyers who are both passionate and
(22:47):
brilliant and and very eager to get involved in a
in an injustice like this. I asked Larry what he
believes that we as a society oh to those who
have languished on death row and in prison in general,
only to be found innocent years, if not decades later
(23:07):
after their incarceration. I believe that and this might sound corny, um,
which I guess is appropriate, but I'm pumped there you go.
I I believe that the main thing we owe them
(23:28):
is to learn from our mistakes. Is the main thing
we owe them is that their pain have not been
in vain and that um other people will not suffer
because of what they went through and what we've learned. Now,
that's not all that we were. We owe them, We
(23:49):
owe them, we need to make them whole as best
we can really can't. Part of the way we do
that is through money, uh, and judgments and the ability
to try to rebuild or build a life. Um and
I think those are vital as well. But it does
(24:09):
seem to me as a society that if we go
through that with an individual, we learned that the individual
was wrongly convicted, and then we nonetheless just go back
to business as usual. That is just this massive slap
in the face to the person who has been exonerated
(24:31):
and two people coming down the pike. The late Geronimo
Pratt served two tours in Vietnam, where he earned two
bronze stars, a silver star, and two purple stars. When
he returned to the States, he became a high ranking
member of the Black Panther Party and was eventually imprisoned
in San Quentin for twenty seven years for a murder
he did not commit, and was awarded four point five
(24:54):
million dollars from federal and local governments as settlement in
a wrongful imprisonment suit. Here we have Geronimo on tape
decades ago bearing witness to his friend Jarvis J. Masters,
at the launch party for Jarvis's first book, Finding Freedom,
Writings from Death Row. Hey, UM, met Jarvis Masters in
(25:17):
prison while we were in the hole in San Quentin's
adjustment center, shortly after he was charged with the murder
of Sergeant Burstville. No, I should say, wrongfully charge. And um,
he's a very beautiful brother. I kind of two did
(25:39):
like I do with Uh. I did, but most youngsters
kind of took him under my way for a minute
the brief time we were together, and uh I noticed
that specialness about him that made him stand apart from
most youngsters his age. And uh later on when I
(26:00):
learned that he had written a book and that he
had continued just practices and to his disciplines that we
had been trying to promote as older prisoners, and I
was very proud of that. And then when I got
the book and read it, and I knew he was there,
and so uh, even though he sits on death row
(26:22):
and facing death, I was also up there for eighteen months,
but I was not facing officially the death. I know
what it's like. But now that I know, he has
reached this nirvana at this level, and I'm sure that
the Jarvis is this in a safe place, even though
he still physically needs our help to get him off
(26:43):
of death row. And hopefully through these methods and channels
now we'll we'll be able to generate enough support, enough
funds or whatever to effect his release from uh the gallows.
And I want to encourage all of you to get
(27:03):
this book. Read it. You will find a lot of
knowledge and a lot of freedom in this book. And
it might sounds fames that you will find freedom from
a guy locked up, but take my word from it.
Read this book. You will find a lot of freedom.
Where do we find our freedom? I describe situations where
(27:24):
someone has a very very beautiful home or two door
garage right off the beach, great job, a trained dog,
and how their lives are so miserable. At the same time,
their life is so miserable, and every time they pull
(27:47):
out the parking lot, they don't. There's a stretch of
beach that they never get to see going to work
and coming back, and to think that you have all
these proper tilities two find your own freedom, to be blessed,
to be fortunate to not have that, but always with
(28:10):
a sense of being on death row is doesn't have
to be in prison, you know you can't. Don't do that.
Don't learn just from people in prison on death row
in San Quentin. We'll learn from the misery that you
see other people have when they when they're alcoholics, when
(28:34):
they are dope finds are very abusive to their spouse,
where Vinus is right in the next door, not necessary
on the streets. You know, just because you're out doesn't
mean that they're free. That's a myth. That's a very
very clear myth to me. And I learned that they
(28:58):
beat me in the Buddhist I really did that. There's
something that I can directly relate to. Having exhausted his
state appeals, Jarvis now heads to the federal courts. Brian
Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative introduced Jarvis to Stanford
professor Larry Marshall, who in turn introduced Jarvis to the
prestigious international law firm Kirkland and Ellis. They have recently
(29:20):
committed to represent Jarvis pro bono and his federal habeas
proceedings and other post conviction proceedings. His lead attorney, William F. Williams, said,
after decades of litigation in the California state courts, we
now have the opportunity to raise in federal courts the
serious constitutional issues that deprived Jarvis of a fair trial,
(29:40):
and we look forward to presenting his claims to a
federal judge. We will continue to support Jarvis and help
tell his story far and wide as the riveting details unfold,
and we remain optimistic that Governor Gavin Newsom will hear
our open letter and revisit the unjust case of Jarvis
j Masters. The vast majority of legal insights into Jarvis's
(30:07):
substantial claims of innocence were published in the article Unrequited
Innocence in US Capital Cases Unintended Consequences of the Fourth
Kind by Rob Warden and John Seasley, published in the
Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy in the spring
of twenty nineteen. Not only does this fascinating read profile
Jarvis's case, but the cases involving twenty four more condemned
(30:30):
men and women whom the authors believed to be innocent
as well. We linked to the article in our show notes.
Special thanks to Alan Sinaki for providing legal insights into
Jarvis's case as well. Today's episode was written and produced
by Donna Fazzari and myself, Corny Cole. Our theme song
sentenced is compliments of the band's stick figure from their
(30:52):
albums Set in Stone. Stu Sternbach has 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
(31:13):
thirty five seventy five. That's two zero one nine zero
three thirty five seventy five. 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. After the California Supreme Court, here's a habeas
(00:23):
corpus appeal for a capital crime. They have nine d
days with which to file their opinion. We had already
surpassed the nine week mark following Jarvis Master's appeal, so
we knew the decision was impending, soon to be delivered
to our inboxes. Anyone can stay apprized of ongoing Supreme
Court cases by signing up at Courts dot c A
dot gov. At the sixty six day mark, we all
(00:46):
received an email with a subject line Supreme Court of
California Case Notifications for s one three zero four nine five,
the body of which read notice of forthcoming opinion to
be filed in three days and three days later, twenty
one days before their deadline, the eagerly anticipated email read
(01:09):
the Supreme Court of California Opinion available online and then
in parentheses concurrence. I lost the English unanimously. That heard
it real bad, you know, but I mean just you know,
sucked it up for a while. I did a lot
of meditation and a lot of sitting in, a lot
(01:30):
of thinking, and one thing I was very very confident
in months out of this decision was that I will
try to feel in the same place ready to accept
whatever outcome that is. Jarvis's lawyers had filed his habeas
petition in two thousand five. It took the California Supreme
(01:51):
Court fourteen excruciatingly long years to address the petition and
then sixty nine short days to reaffirm what they had
already decided. Had the court moved with any sense of
urgency or a bare minimum respect for the goal of
a speedy trial, there's a possibility, however remote, it might
have been, that Jarvis could have already moved through the
(02:12):
Federal appeals, a far less politically fraught system, and inhaled
the wonders of freedom. When I heard about the decision,
my immediate reaction was I was crushed. I felt crushed
to the ball. Yeah. I was hoping that no one
(02:34):
asked me these questions about what it felt like, you know,
because to me, it would have been like I was
a specive than a subject card, uh, something to look
at you. I any want to be that way mm hmmm.
I described it as having just had your wisdom keeeth
(02:57):
pulled out and someone's trying to hold a conversation with you.
You know, it hurt it in that way. So that
was my first you know, That's how I responded to it,
and over the next ten fifteen hours, and so I
had to straighten up, you know, I had to figure
(03:18):
out how to straighten up off this, you know. And
when it comes down to your freedom, epis so long,
you really, deep down inside you know, want this. You
want to win this. And they caught up to me
that the idea of losing is one more long, long
(03:39):
time of being in prison for zero, for nothing, and
no one knew how. And I was saying this to myself,
No one knows how long a day is. I'm fucking
with someone that doesn't know what a day feels like,
innocent on the death throw. They have no idea. Then
they get upset because I'm upset. You know, what world
(04:02):
are you guys living in? Concerns that were key in
the two thousand five petition included, but we're not limited
to prosecutorial misconduct. Newly discovered evidence and ineffective counsel. His
appellate attorneys at the time wrote that his death sentence
rested on evidence that the prosecution had known or should
have known was quote inflammatory, unreliable, untrue, and or misleading.
(04:28):
In so many words, I had now hold everybody up.
I had now played the role of don't worry about this, okay,
blah blah blah. You know that was just that was
role playing because I knew no one would understand where
I was really at. You know, silence for me was
the biggest hug I could have gotten, just so like
(04:50):
every time someone talked to me, I was able to
call somebody I had. I had to explain people were
calling you, but you felt like you had to comfort
them all the time. It just feels like I was
the strongest shoulder for people to lean on. And if
(05:11):
I was fillion upset, they were phillips. So Mynes, who
was not the shill upset because I knew it would
create a lot of unhealthy ways for me personally. The
star witness against Jarvis was a black guerrilla family member
by the name of Rufus Willis, who testified under grant
of immunity from prosecution at the trial that he had
(05:34):
been in the prison yard when the b GF gang
were planning the assassination of Officer Birchfield, where it was
agreed he said that Jarvis would provide the tip of
the spear. In the preliminary hearing, Rufus Willis described Jarvis
as standing five seven, chubby, with a stomach, wearing glasses,
clean shaven, and free of tattoos. Note in fact that
(05:57):
Jarvis masters is six ft one, slender, didn't wear any glasses,
had a mustache and goatee with a tattoo on his
left cheek. An inmate named Harold Richardson, however, confessed to
playing the role in the crime that Rufus had attributed
to Jarvis, and fit the physical description Rufus had articulated
to a t seems like a slam dunk for reasonable doubt.
(06:21):
Right just have him testified before the jury. Not so fast.
Harold Richardson refused to testify, citing his right against self incrimination.
Jervis's council pleaded with the judge to grant immunity for prosecution,
but for whatever reason, the judge refused. Jervis's council also
pleaded with the judge to allow expert testimony regarding the
(06:43):
unreliability of jail house informants, and for whatever reason, she
refused that plea as well, do you feel like you're
losing hope? You know what? And there you're talking about, Well,
can you hear the Buddhist here? I'll I don't want
to get into what hope post to do for me
(07:04):
right now, you know, I don't. I don't think hope
is gonna that's gonna help me resolve where I'm that.
I just don't think hope is a necessary thing to
have right now. I think it's really unhealthy. I think
it has no real value to it. Yeah, I think
(07:26):
that I'll be chasing something that you know, I don't
know where it would go one way to other, and
Hope is not going to be responsible for that. I
would not let that be my response. I would not
give Hope that responsibility. In other words, I really don't
(07:49):
want to put hope o front street, you know so,
I think that is a very very Buddhist way of saying,
you know, hope is not an issue that you should
put everything into. Okay, what do you want to put
on street? If not hope? The idea of not expecting anything.
(08:11):
Work with that? Why do I need to spend time
trying to effect one outcome from the other. To not
be that smart to know and to live in that
space of unknown, not knowing. That's a very comfortable space
if you can control it, if it can be maintained.
(08:32):
How do you do that? Oh man, I don't really know.
You know, I know what the practice is. I really
don't know how to do that. I can give you
the basic instruction, but I don't I don't know how
it works. And that's what they call it. What a
practice is. You get better at it, you discover more,
(08:54):
it becomes more of a way of thinking. It supposed
to create balance in your life. H Quit trying to
tell yourself what you don't know. I mean, that's just
the way I see it in prison. On me, I
I cheech this kind of stuff to people. So I
mean my way of saying it to a lot of
(09:15):
guys in here is, you know, quick trying to tell
you know yourself you know something. When you don't, all
you're gonna do is fall asleep and want some bit
once some timely lost because of it, leave it alone.
Trying to be in the best place when it happened.
So just be in the place of not knowing what
you what you really don't suppost and know anything about,
(09:37):
and be smart enough to think that you don't need
to know what you're not gonna be told to you
until it happens. Lawrence Woodard, the man who was accused
of masterminding the murder of Sergeant Birchfield, was sentenced to
life without possibility of parole. Andre Johnson, the man who
(10:01):
was accused of a single stab wound that severed Sergeant
Birchfield's pulmonary artery, was sentenced to life without the possibility
of parole. Jarvis Masters, accused of manufacturing the tip of
the spear, was sentenced to death after a penalty phase
hearing at which a prisoner named Johnny Hose, a member
of the Black Guerrilla Family, testified that Jarvis had bragged
(10:23):
about murdering a San Quentin prisoner in nine four, though
this case had never been adjudicated. Subsequent to the trials
and sentencing, all three States witnesses Rufus Willis, Bobby Evans,
and Johnny Hose have recanted and sworn statements saying that
they had lied at the trial in hopes of obtaining
(10:44):
favorable treatment for themselves. The rufus Willis statement also said
that he had coerced Jarvis, out of fear for his
own safety, to write the incriminating kites, which Masters copied
from the writings of Willis and Woodard. Finally, Andre Johnson,
Jarvis's co defendant convicted of actually stabbing Birchfield to death,
(11:04):
provided a sworn statement saying that Masters had no role
in the murder. Were you surprised when they came back
with the death penalty? Yes, Jeffrey Rockline, lead defense counsel
for Jarvis Masters from nineteen eighty six to nineteen Jarvis
testified and he was very compelling, very believable, very likable,
(11:28):
very human, very warm, sympathetic. You know, he told a
story about his life that was, you know, really sad,
very upsetting, and you know, he testified to the jury,
I thought, in a very communicative way. And then we
had other experts on the stand about you know, his background,
(11:49):
Craig Haney was was excellent. So yeah, I was surprised
that they came back with death, very very surprised. Do
you remember talking to Jarvis about it after? Oh? Sure,
Oh yeah, how was that to him? Well, it was hard,
So yeah, it was difficult thinking with him. But you know,
he Jarvis is a is a tough, strong guy, you know,
(12:13):
and he's a real fighter. And I really grew to
like Jarvis, you know, and like him very much like
him and feel for him and have sympathy for him
and as as a human being, as a person who
was able to actually pull himself out of you know,
that whole gang prison culture and the criminal culture. Um.
(12:35):
So I have a great deal of respect for him.
And number one number two, there was so much evidence
that was kept from us. Um, there's so much of
the bad evidence that has flipped over, has reversed that.
You know, if he were tried now, whether I would
handle it or another defense lawyer would handle it, you know,
they'd get an acquibble. I think there's this overwhelming reasonable
(12:57):
doubt that Jarvis was was guilty of the crimes. That's
what I feel. So I'm glad you're doing this work.
It's very important. He should not be on death row.
He shouldn't be in prison actually for this crime. You know,
it's really a tragedy. Um, it really is. You know,
it's really unfair. How do you hear the decision? Who
told you? How did you find out? Art from at
(13:20):
least a dozen people, you know, they were coming at
me from all over the place, and what I noticed
about most of them was they wanted a response. They
wanted to know my first reaction, and they wanted to
know it in a way that it's so really really
sickening to me. It's almost like people are looking right
down you, right down your throat and wanting to know
(13:43):
what aposted to feel like, you know, how does it
feel for that to happen? I'm sorry, but I really
want to know how you're dealing with this. I wanted
to look in your eyes and see something you know
that that all, yeah, I can see, I mean that
kind of stuff. So I think what happened was I
dealt with it by trying to fear show I was
(14:10):
not defeated, you know, and I was ready to take
it to the next level that it's not as bad
as it was supposed to be. You know, the court
basically preached us with some really good issues, and that
was the issue by Blue and the other justice speak
(14:34):
the two issues that really we can really really build
on the two issues that Jarvis is referencing that may
help as he navigates the federal appeals process. Written by
California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin lou in his concurring opinion
on Jarvis's habeas corpus petition, he writes, we have no
(14:55):
occasion in this posture to consider whether, in light of
the trial evidence, as well as the reference hearing and findings,
we can be confident of the verdict beyond a reasonable
doubt and to quote, nor do we have occasion here
to consider whether, in light of all of the relevant circumstances,
the fact that Masters was sentenced to death while his
(15:16):
co defendants were not maybe indicative of arbitrary nous in
the application of the death penalty. I had the last
god I killed executed was on my watch with my
client in two thousand and six. And that's another thing
that makes me so sick death. I'll tell you when
(15:39):
you have that kind of direct experience of it, as
well as the experience of standing up there next to
my client, Jarvis, and having the judge condemned him to death.
Attorney Michael Satras sat second chair on Jarvis's defense team
from nineteen through nineteen nine, and his death penalty sentence.
(16:00):
I've always been against that penalty. I get a add
taste in my mouth from it, and every experience that
I have of it to me, just shows how wrong
and arbitrary and capricious it is. And for Jarvis to
end up with the death penalty when wood or jury
(16:21):
hangs on the issue, which is the same jury we had.
Woodard is the he's the true believer. If anybody is
in participation in the gang, he is indisputably the leader
of those three. So the jury hangs on him and
then comes back with the death penalty for Jarvis. And
(16:44):
then you have Johnson, the actual killer, who gets the
death penalty by his jury, and the judge modifies it
because it is kind of arbitrary. He's sort of a
fall guy in some ways from Woodard and the higher
(17:06):
ups picking him as as the good soldier who wants
to make his bones and whatever to commit the killing.
But he's kind of just this not very bright, innocent
young man. And so the judge, to me, that was
a very good move on her part. And then we
(17:29):
come up for pronouncement of judgment, and by all rights,
by all signs of justice and whatever should have been modified.
In reference to the three States witnesses recanting their testimony,
the California Supreme Court wrote that while Jarvis had demonstrated
(17:49):
them to be generally liars, he does not offer any
persuasive reason to credit their recantations over their trial testimony.
In other words, we know that prison snitches are prison snitches.
We know that prison snitches lie when it benefits them.
We know that there was a chance that they were
lying in the original trial, and there's an equal chance
(18:11):
that they lied in their recantations, and because of that,
we unanimously endorse the execution of a man because you know,
we really don't know in this prison context. Yeah, I mean,
you're accurate in observing that these people, many of them,
the snitches, are unreliable. They tell different stories. Jeffrey Rotwine,
(18:34):
again lead defense counsel for Jarvis during his murder trial.
We attacked Ruvius Willis. We attack you know, Johnny Hoes,
Bobby Evans, the people that were, you know, cooperating with
the government. And typically there's a whole history of cooperation,
you know, and and and requests for leniency or money
(18:54):
or reduction and sentences or dismissal of cases, and you
have to kind rely on the institution, the district attorney
and the you know, the prison and the Department of Corrections,
you know, to disclose and and produce all the records
and information varying on that person's character and background and
motives for testifying. I asked Larry Marshall, a professor of
(19:25):
law at Stanford who happens to be consulting on Jarvis's case.
Now that the habeas corpus opinion has been rendered on
the state level, what is next for Jarvis? So the
next step, after one goes through the state system of
the direct appeal and then the habeas is we give
a defendant capital or otherwise the right to go into
(19:50):
federal court. And two show that the state court was
unreasonable in rejecting his or her ca institutional claims. So
it's not enough to convince a federal judge that my
rights have been violated and that I should have been
(20:10):
given relief. You have to show, and this is since
since the anti terrorism and effective death penalty app you
have to show that the state court was reasonable, that
it unreasonably applied settled law, Settled Supreme Court, United States
Supreme Court precedent. So it's a very high burden. But
(20:33):
on the other hand, it's a burden that has met
at times in outrageous cases. And it also has to
be the claims have to be federal constitutional claims, and
this is a very This federal habeas is a very
odd bird in the structure of our court system because
(20:53):
it kind of puts it does put a federal district
court judge and then a federal Court of Appeals in
the role of reviewing the reasonableness of what the state
supreme court has done. We don't do that in civil cases.
And civil cases, if there's a federal issue, you go
straight to the Supreme Court. You don't get to go
(21:15):
into federal court and have a judge sort of second
guess at some level what the state court has done.
But again, because we do recognize that constitutional rights in
the criminal setting are particularly cherished, we do provide we
do provide this remedy. And just as an historical note,
(21:36):
it was born in large part over the fact that,
let's say, during reconstruction, a lot of states in the South,
we're not respecting the constitutional rights of black defendants. Congress
had a mechanism, they had those defendants had a mechanism
of going into court um and saying to the federal
(21:59):
court book, our constitutional rights are being violated, and there
was a sense that the federal courts would be more
independent and more willing to recognize those constitutional rights. I've
told Jarvis that I will work very hard to help
put together a terrific team of the lawyers pro bono
lawyers who will take on his representation in federal court.
(22:23):
That I will be more than willing to consult with
those lawyers as they as they as they work through
the case and to the you know, part of the
team in that sense, um, in an informal in an
informal way, but I do believe they play that he
needs to get some lawyers who are both passionate and
(22:47):
brilliant and and very eager to get involved in a
in an injustice like this. I asked Larry what he
believes that we as a society oh to those who
have languished on death row and in prison in general,
only to be found innocent years, if not decades later
(23:07):
after their incarceration. I believe that and this might sound corny, um,
which I guess is appropriate, but I'm pumped there you go.
I I believe that the main thing we owe them
(23:28):
is to learn from our mistakes. Is the main thing
we owe them is that their pain have not been
in vain and that um other people will not suffer
because of what they went through and what we've learned. Now,
that's not all that we were. We owe them, We
(23:49):
owe them, we need to make them whole as best
we can really can't. Part of the way we do
that is through money, uh, and judgments and the ability
to try to rebuild or build a life. Um and
I think those are vital as well. But it does
(24:09):
seem to me as a society that if we go
through that with an individual, we learned that the individual
was wrongly convicted, and then we nonetheless just go back
to business as usual. That is just this massive slap
in the face to the person who has been exonerated
(24:31):
and two people coming down the pike. The late Geronimo
Pratt served two tours in Vietnam, where he earned two
bronze stars, a silver star, and two purple stars. When
he returned to the States, he became a high ranking
member of the Black Panther Party and was eventually imprisoned
in San Quentin for twenty seven years for a murder
he did not commit, and was awarded four point five
(24:54):
million dollars from federal and local governments as settlement in
a wrongful imprisonment suit. Here we have Geronimo on tape
decades ago bearing witness to his friend Jarvis J. Masters,
at the launch party for Jarvis's first book, Finding Freedom,
Writings from Death Row. Hey, UM, met Jarvis Masters in
(25:17):
prison while we were in the hole in San Quentin's
adjustment center, shortly after he was charged with the murder
of Sergeant Burstville. No, I should say, wrongfully charge. And um,
he's a very beautiful brother. I kind of two did
(25:39):
like I do with Uh. I did, but most youngsters
kind of took him under my way for a minute
the brief time we were together, and uh I noticed
that specialness about him that made him stand apart from
most youngsters his age. And uh later on when I
(26:00):
learned that he had written a book and that he
had continued just practices and to his disciplines that we
had been trying to promote as older prisoners, and I
was very proud of that. And then when I got
the book and read it, and I knew he was there,
and so uh, even though he sits on death row
(26:22):
and facing death, I was also up there for eighteen months,
but I was not facing officially the death. I know
what it's like. But now that I know, he has
reached this nirvana at this level, and I'm sure that
the Jarvis is this in a safe place, even though
he still physically needs our help to get him off
(26:43):
of death row. And hopefully through these methods and channels
now we'll we'll be able to generate enough support, enough
funds or whatever to effect his release from uh the gallows.
And I want to encourage all of you to get
(27:03):
this book. Read it. You will find a lot of
knowledge and a lot of freedom in this book. And
it might sounds fames that you will find freedom from
a guy locked up, but take my word from it.
Read this book. You will find a lot of freedom.
Where do we find our freedom? I describe situations where
(27:24):
someone has a very very beautiful home or two door
garage right off the beach, great job, a trained dog,
and how their lives are so miserable. At the same time,
their life is so miserable, and every time they pull
(27:47):
out the parking lot, they don't. There's a stretch of
beach that they never get to see going to work
and coming back, and to think that you have all
these proper tilities two find your own freedom, to be blessed,
to be fortunate to not have that, but always with
(28:10):
a sense of being on death row is doesn't have
to be in prison, you know you can't. Don't do that.
Don't learn just from people in prison on death row
in San Quentin. We'll learn from the misery that you
see other people have when they when they're alcoholics, when
(28:34):
they are dope finds are very abusive to their spouse,
where Vinus is right in the next door, not necessary
on the streets. You know, just because you're out doesn't
mean that they're free. That's a myth. That's a very
very clear myth to me. And I learned that they
(28:58):
beat me in the Buddhist I really did that. There's
something that I can directly relate to. Having exhausted his
state appeals, Jarvis now heads to the federal courts. Brian
Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative introduced Jarvis to Stanford
professor Larry Marshall, who in turn introduced Jarvis to the
prestigious international law firm Kirkland and Ellis. They have recently
(29:20):
committed to represent Jarvis pro bono and his federal habeas
proceedings and other post conviction proceedings. His lead attorney, William F. Williams, said,
after decades of litigation in the California state courts, we
now have the opportunity to raise in federal courts the
serious constitutional issues that deprived Jarvis of a fair trial,
(29:40):
and we look forward to presenting his claims to a
federal judge. We will continue to support Jarvis and help
tell his story far and wide as the riveting details unfold,
and we remain optimistic that Governor Gavin Newsom will hear
our open letter and revisit the unjust case of Jarvis
j Masters. The vast majority of legal insights into Jarvis's
(30:07):
substantial claims of innocence were published in the article Unrequited
Innocence in US Capital Cases Unintended Consequences of the Fourth
Kind by Rob Warden and John Seasley, published in the
Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy in the spring
of twenty nineteen. Not only does this fascinating read profile
Jarvis's case, but the cases involving twenty four more condemned
(30:30):
men and women whom the authors believed to be innocent
as well. We linked to the article in our show notes.
Special thanks to Alan Sinaki for providing legal insights into
Jarvis's case as well. Today's episode was written and produced
by Donna Fazzari and myself, Corny Cole. Our theme song
sentenced is compliments of the band's stick figure from their
(30:52):
albums Set in Stone. Stu Sternbach has 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
(31:13):
thirty five seventy five. That's two zero one nine zero
three thirty five seventy five. 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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