Originally posted on Scheerpost.com on Aug 2, 2024
The Day the Handcuffs Came Off: From Death Row to Being Seen as Human
By Kevin Cooper
Every person unlucky enough to be sentenced to death has often dreamed about getting off death row, especially those who have spent decades as a condemned person living in an inhumane and torturous man-made hell.
Some have been able to leave, whether because they received a new trial or hearing, a penalty phase reversal, or they received life without parole (LWOP) in the sentencing or penalty phase of their trial or hearing. Since 1978, 30 men have gotten off death row by committing suicide; 13 were executed by the state.
On Jan. 31, 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the dismantling of death row and moving all the condemned individuals to other maximum security state prisons. This is seen by some as part of his plan to do away with the death penalty in this state. In March 2019, Newsom ordered a moratorium on executions and shut down the execution chamber. He said, “I think premeditated murder is wrong, in all its forms and manifestation, including government-sponsored premeditated murder. I don’t support the death penalty, never have.”
The first phase of this removal of the incarcerated condemned people was voluntary, in which any death row person who wanted to transfer could leave San Quentin for another prison for which they were qualified. The qualification process involved first going to the Unit Classification Committee (UCC), which included the sergeant and lieutenant of the prison’s psychiatric unit, the unit counselor and others.
You were told based on your prison record, discipline record – or lack thereof – and “case factors,” whatever they are, that you had or did not have “points” to transfer. Depending on the number of points that you had, you were either one of three different levels and you would be sent to a prison where that number of points allowed for you to transfer. California has a four level prison system. As condemned people, we could not go to a Level I prison. We had to be sent to a Level II, III, or IV prison based on points. We were also given a list of prisons from which to choose.
A few weeks to a month later, the Institutional Classification Committee (ICC) came into the process. The ICC, which includes the warden, associate warden and others who run and control the entire institution, would either agree or disagree with what the people at the UCC committee recommended. If they agreed, your case would be sent to Sacramento where the real decisions were made about transfers, and they either rejected or accepted what was sent to them.
After the volunteer transfers left, those of us still at San Quentin would hear from them what the transfer program was like by way of their homeboys, family members, or anyone else who they had connections with who could send word back to San Quentin.
Most of the feedback I heard was positive, despite what the pro-death penalty people were saying about condemned inmates starting trouble, starting fights, or stabbing people in the general population if they got a chance. In other words, they would continue to dehumanize people who had death sentences. But none of those predictions, or lies, came true!
After some time went by, the program was no longer voluntary; it became mandatory. Once the mandatory phase began, the whole condemned population was told that in a short matter of time, we all would be transferred. The whole UCC and ICC committees went into overdrive.
Some people who were told they could go to the prison they chose were called back to the UCC committee to start the whole process all over again for any number of reasons — be it an enemy or an illness, or no bed space — they could not go to the prison of their original choice.
Like everyone else on death row, I went through both UCC and ICC committees. I went before the last ICC committee at the end of February 2024, and I was again given the same four prisons from which to choose: Stockton, New Folsom, Donovan and Chino.
I chose the California Health Care Facility (CHCF) Stockton due to several health issues, including a bad back, for which I need pain relief, and other health issues that led me to choose this place. I had known for months, from the first UCC to the last ICC committee that I was going to be transferred, but the wait to get transferred was maddening. Waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting…
But finally, on Wednesday May 22, 2024, around 10 p.m., a guard who was making his rounds, and whose job it was to tell inmates that they would be transferred the next day stopped at that cage that I was in and said, “Mr. Cooper you will be sent to R&R (receiving and release) for transfer between midnight and 6 a.m.”
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My travels started as everyone else’s did, but in my mind I saw a conscious version of this upcoming transfer that I did not expect to experience. It was a consciousness that had come from all the historical African American books that I read that were about or included the middle passage. What do I mean?
As my ancestors were forced against their will, handcuffed and shackled and force marched across the Sahara to slave markets, and from there to slave ships as chattel slaves, I, as a modern day slave, according to the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. have a much better understanding of their experience, though on a much less significant level.
On a basic human level, they were forced into overcrowded bottoms of dirty, nasty and inhumane ships and were forced to endure a very tough and rough months-long trip over oceans at the mercy of rain-driven storms and hurricane winds, such that the strongest white man on the top of that ship would undergo seasickness of the worst kind, so imagine how it was for my ancestors below deck.
My understanding of their experience makes mine is so small and insignificant in comparison that I don’t feel justified in using it as an example, but it’s the only one that I have to make this point: This mandatory transfer meant that I had to transfer against my will, even if I did not want to be transferred. I was handcuffed and shackled on May 23, 2024 then escorted onto a van and placed inside a plexiglass cage so that I could be taken from San Quentin prison to the Stockton prison 91 miles away.
Like many of my ancestors, I was in an overheated box with basically no room to move, and during that inhumane van ride I felt every pothole in every road as the van drove on. I was bounced up and down and side to side so much that I vomited from motion sickness and lack of air.
My sojourn started at 3 a.m. on May 23, 2024 when the guards at San Quentin came to get me and my remaining property that I had been able to keep with me until then. My property and I were taken to R&R, and I was placed inside another cage where my property was taken, inventoried and then placed with the rest of my personal property that they had taken from me in March 2024.
This was done after Sacramento upheld the recommendation by both committees that I be sent to Stockton prison as a “Level II” inmate. Level II is the lowest custody that any death row inmate can get. I had no points for bad prison conduct, no write ups or disciplinary problems over the 39 years I have been on death row. Many Level II, III or even IV prisons these days have electrified fences as prison security to prevent escapes. The only reason that I and every other inmate who was sent to a Level II prison was allowed to be sent there or here is because of the electrified fences.
While waiting in R&R, I was photographed, given a state lunch of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sunflower seeds. All of that I did not eat because I did not want to vomit inside of a bus or van. At that time, I had no idea how I was going to be transported.
When I finally got in the transfer van, it was close to 8 a.m. There were three other inmates inside the van with me. One Latino man, and two other Black men. The driver of the van and his fellow officer were white men. All my ancestors at the bottom of those slave ships during the middle passage were Black, like me, and all the people captaining those ships at the top were, of course, white men. No matter how big or small the narrative, the characters remain the same.
In both cases, what a hell of a ride! As I stated, we hit each and every pot hole, crack and unearthed part of every road that the van traveled. I was sitting right behind the driver in the plexiglass cage in a space that was so small and tight that I honestly could hardly move, and I was, of course, wearing a chain around my waist that had handcuffs attached to it. I had shackles around both my ankles with a short chain holding them together.
There was a door to let me inside the cage, and once I was placed inside, it was locked. Besides the bad ride, it was the heat inside that van – and inside that cage I was in within the van – that did me in, and that’s my truth.
I called out to the officers, “Can you please turn the heat off, and put the air conditioning on?” One of them hollered back “Yes,” and the air came on and I started to feel better. It was great because it got cold fast, like within a couple minutes. I was feeling pretty good, and that nauseous feeling went away.
Just as soon as I was feeling great and knew I would not vomit, the Latino guy in the rear of the van hollered out, “Hey can you turn the air conditioning off, it’s cold back here,” Then the officer turned it off, and I was back in purgatory as it got hot again real fast. I do not know how long we had been on the road when this happened.
I was not allowed to wear my watch, ring, chain or ankh cross, the Egyptian symbol for life. We were not allowed to wear anything but our underwear, socks and tennis shoes and a white California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) jumpsuit that has a blue stripe running down the middle of the back.
Once that heat hit me again, along with bouncing up and down and being thrown from side to side because I was not put in a seatbelt during this torturous ride, I vomited water, as that was all I had in my stomach.
The officer who was not driving asked me if I was throwing up and I said “Yes.” He then unlocked and opened the door between us and handed me a barf-bag. Why didn’t he give that to me when I first got inside that cage inside that van? After he closed and locked the door again he hollered, “Hey, I seen worse.”
I could look into the middle of the van – the empty space on the other side of the cage I was in – and I could see my personal property; Four plastic storage containers, one portfolio with my art supplies like canvas boards and drawing papers, a box labeled “arts & crafts,” my TV and typewriter in their boxes. All the property from the other inmates was there, too.
Finally, we saw the sign on the side of the road that stated, “City of Stockton,” but we kept going right past it for another eight or so miles until we reached this prison, where we all were taken
Once I got to R&R inside the prison grounds, that’s where my property and I parted ways, not to be reunited for another two very long weeks.
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Once we got out of that van, the handcuffs were taken off all of us and have not been put back on. Everywhere I went at San Quentin, I had to be escorted by a guard, and my hands were always handcuffed behind my back. Here at Stockton, no matter where I go, I go by myself and do not have to wear handcuffs.
In fact, I am not even an inmate here; I am a resident! A human being. At San Quentin on death row, there seemed to be an ongoing and never ending system of trying to dehumanize and take away the humanity of each and every death row prisoner. Here at Stockton, I can honestly say that there is a system in place to restore the humanity of the residents and rebuild the damage that was done to us by the inhumane system at San Quentin.
Since I arrived here at the health care facility, my blood pressure – which at San Quentin was always around 150/89 – was at 111/77, just by the change of prisons and the lack of stress here compared to all the stress there. The only problem I have had so far, and it is behind me now, is the unusually long wait to get my personal property. However, with the help of my friend in and out of struggle, Gavrilah, and her calling this prison and speaking to the people, I received most of my property except my art supplies, which I was told I could not have, but I could donate them, throw them away or send them home to friends who would donate them to any organization for elderly or youth that would take them.
The governor and his staff did a good thing for humanity and the people of the state of California by doing what he did with this transfer program for condemned inmates. I will give him credit for that, though I have a personal issue with the way he handled – or didn’t handle – my innocence investigation, but that’s another story.
The cages/cells here at Stockton are twice the size of the cage in which I was locked up at San Quentin. I am also allowed to have ice everyday, fingernail clippers without the file, plastic tweezers, use of the microwave oven and an iron to use on my clothes.
So yes, things have improved greatly for Kevin Cooper. I am still an innocent man living and confined to a modern day plantation, yet in prison. So while I am most definitely happy to no longer be in East Block of San Quentin on death row, I cannot lose focus on the fact that no matter how much better this modern day plantation is over that one, I, as an innocent man, am still being denied my freedom, no matter where I am caged against my will! My struggle and that of my legal team has not and will not change.
This also says to me that what this current governor did today with this transfer could have been done yesterday or yesteryear by the other governors of this state, but wasn’t. The exact same rules that this governor used to do this were on the books back then for other governors to do the same, but they didn’t. That says a lot. They wanted us to be nothing more than pieces on their political chess board and not the human beings that we are. Thank you Gov. Gavin Newsom for seeing us and treating us as we are — human beings.