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