RALPH BAILEY: The problem is death row is a life term
| Friday, Nov 20 2009 05:02 PM
Last Updated Friday, Nov 20 2009 05:02 PM
A recent Los Angeles Times article detailed how a gang member openly opted for the death penalty instead of a life sentence, implying death row is cushier than general stir. Since one of Kern County's most famous killers hangs his hat on San Quentin's death row, I wanted to see what life was like for 47-year-old mass murderer and former educator Vincent Brothers.
Brothers, who concocted an elaborate plot to brutally shoot and kill his mother-in-law, estranged wife and three children -- including his 6-week-old infant -- enjoys color television, a CD player and digs larger than those serving life terms, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
He and 684 other condemned prisoners also have exclusive cells, greater access to telephones and get contact visits.
However, said CDCR spokeswoman Terry Thornton, the extra space is for legal material for appeals. Same goes for the phone access to contact attorneys and visits are closely monitored and restricted.
San Quentin Public Information Officer Sam Robinson insisted anyone who thinks death row is "soft time" is stir crazy.
For example, Robinson said all but a few hours of Brothers' day are spent in a 4-feet-wide, 9-feet-deep cell with an iron bed and iron toilet.
After breakfast at 7 a.m. every morning, he joins about 80 of his fellow psychopaths for a few hours of yard time. However, this is the only time they ever leave their cells, save "shower days" that for Brothers are Sunday, Tuesday and Friday and last no more than seven minutes.
"He's a model inmate," Robinson said. "He doesn't get a lot of mail. He's not a rock star inmate like a (Richard) Ramirez or Scott Peterson. He rarely ever receives visits from family or counsel and the staff says he uses the phone about once or twice a month."
Robinson said Brothers remains cuffed when moving throughout the prison and is escorted by arm by an officer, unlike general population inmates. He's locked in the shower for his seven-minute bath time and, Robinson said, "That's life for the good guys!" (Behaved prisoners.)
Meantime, Kern County's "top cop" insists talk of life 'in the tall cotton' on death row is politically driven.
"You have to be very distrustful of a story depicting prison life as easy when written with an anti-death penalty agenda," said Kern County District Attorney Ed Jagels.
"The death penalty can be carried out in an expeditious manner with all the defendants' rights exercised. The great example is Virginia. But the 9th Circuit is a renegade court filled with lifetime appointees who are pro-criminal and are (anti)-death penalty fanatics."
Jagels' Virginia allusion is to John Allen Muhammad. The "Beltway Sniper" killed at least 10 people in the Virginia and Maryland areas in 2002 and was put to death just last week, six years after sentencing.
And numbers here seem to bear Jagels out. Since 1977, California, which ridiculously continues to debate whether legal injection is cruel and unusual, executed 13 condemned men. In that same period, Texas carried out 441 executions, Virginia 103.
Jagels insists the 4th and 5th District Courts of Appeal in Richmond, Va., and New Orleans, respectively, are dominated by southern, conservative judges not bent on circumventing the law.
Robinson agrees with Jagels.
"This talk of easy life began with an L.A. Times article ... But I can tell you there were points in the story that were factually wrong," Robinson said.
The article focused on white supremacist Billy Joe Johnson. After getting sentenced to life, Johnson confessed to two additional murders in order to get the death penalty. His attorney insists the 45-year-old figured once on death row and after his appeals ran their course he'd be in his 60s or 70s and won't care about dying.
Jagels said the perception that death row life is comfy is part of a liberal agenda to make the death penalty appear ineffective and therefore useless.
But while TVs and CD players are clearly over-the-top amenities for a man who turned a gun on a 6-week-old child, the real dilemma is not life on death row but that death row is a life term. It rests with the 27 men and women of the 9th Circuit. California needs a diamond lane on the road to justice, not liberal obstacles.
Perhaps if Brothers knew he'd face the same odds of survival he gave his own children, he might have spared them. If the gun-toting butcher knew the state would rise up and demand justice, he may have had second thoughts.
But as long as we are governed by a Kangaroo Court, the death penalty here will be nothing more than an empty threat ... a bad joke.
Earnestine, Joanie, Marques, Lyndsey and Marshall deserve better.
Ralph Bailey, who hosts a talk show on AM 1560 KNZR, is one of four conservative community columnists whose work appears here every Saturday. These are the opinions of Bailey, not necessarily The Californian. You can e-mail him at rbailey@bakersfield.com. Next week: Heather Ijames.
