CONDEMNED
Timothy James Young is a wrongfully convicted prisoner on San Quentin’s death row who writes about social justice issues. He is a visionary and a thinker who uses his pen to fight for freedom.
It’s official! After 24 years of weal and woe and going toe to toe with the gatekeepers of capital punishment, I am finally preparing to leave the only death row in California at San Quentin State Prison.
The problem is, I’m not leaving in the way I had envisioned. In my dreams, I bid good riddance to my tormentors as I walk out the prison gates with a full exoneration, having wiped away my wrongful conviction. In the parking lot, I am met by family, friends, and supporters offering me a warm welcome home.
That’s how it plays out in my head. But thanks to the voters in California, a whole new scene has been set.
Instead of walking out the front gates, I am being ushered out the back door by way of Proposition 66, a measure passed by California voters in 2016 and constitutionally upheld in 2017. I’m not walking toward freedom, but toward a whole new plantation, where we will live with cellmates, be required to work, and have our meager earnings garnished by 70 percent to pay into a Victim’s Compensation Fund. This is because Prop 66 is a pro-death penalty initiative that not only calls for San Quentin’s death row prisoners to be relocated across the state, but streamlines and guts the appellate process with the aim of speeding up executions.
All the while, California Governor Gavin Newsom has given a public impression that the death penalty is ending in California. In 2019, he announced a moratorium on imposing capital punishment through executive order. In 2022, he announced he would dismantle death row—the largest in the country, with 671 condemned prisoners as of January 2023—over the next two years. That same year, as part of a larger effort to turn San Quentin Prison into a rehabilitative center, the California Department of Corrections’ spokeswoman said it will transform the former death row “into something innovative and anchored in rehabilitation.”
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The governor’s claims of dismantling are not only misleading, but they attempt to mask reality with fallacy. Here on death row, we have been caught for years in a state of suspended animation, uncertainty, anxiety, and misinformation.
In 2012 and 2016, voters rejected ballot measures to abolish the death penalty. Instead, in 2016, they narrowly supported Prop 66, a rival proposal backed by law enforcement groups to radically change the judicial process, speed up the pace of appeals, allow condemned prisoners to be housed at any state prison, and, as voters were told, put people to death faster. Although the California Supreme Court upheld most of its complicated requirements in 2017, the justices invalidated a key section that would have forced the courts to dispose of all death penalty appeals within five years. California has not executed anyone since 2006.
Then came Newsom’s moratorium in 2019. But as headlines generated, county prosecutors in California’s mostly red districts still prosecuted death penalty cases. People are still being sent to death row.
I realized that death row isn’t being dismantled—it’s being rebranded!
I know because I spoke with a new arrival during a recent stint in solitary confinement, the hole. He hailed from Riverside County, where 16 death sentences, including at least three after the moratorium, have been ordered by judges since 2015. As of this summer, the county’s prosecutors are actively seeking the death penalty. Upon hearing from the new arrival that people are still facing capital punishment, I was mind blown. I realized that death row isn’t being dismantled—it’s being rebranded!
As the rebranding and political maneuvering happens outside prison walls, we’re forced to live through the uncertain reality of leaving death row while still being sentenced to death. Many men are middle aged or elderly, and have been on death row for decades. They’ve grown accustomed to being isolated in a single cell or a lockdown unit with very little opportunity for movement.
It’s hard to gauge the preparedness of others because many of them were nonbelievers. They thought Prop 66 was a farce, a sham, that it would never be allowed to stand.
That all changed this August when the counselors went tier to tier with a clipboard in hand, asking each prisoner: “Which wave do you wish to be shipped out on?” I listened. I strained to get a feel for which waves were being selected, but the normally amped-up chit chat within the unit fell silent.
When they got to me, I elected to go on the first wave. They say the first wave is the most dangerous because you never know what to expect, but I just want to get the whole thing over with. I’m tired of it hanging over my head. Also, the first wave affords me a better chance of landing a preferred destination. Those who opt for the later waves will probably not be considered for hardships and accommodations. Instead, they will be shipped in volume to whichever prison has the bed space.
What lies on the other side of the great divide? That’s the million dollar question. We will move from single cells, where we often spend 23 hours a day, into a bunked cell with a second person. Instead of waiting for all of our meals to be delivered through the tray slot of our door, we will now walk back and forth to the chow hall to receive cold cuts, vittles, and grub. On death row, there are no work assignments. After the transfer, we will be required to work and then, 70 percent of our income—which will be pennies on the hour—will go toward a Victim’s Compensation Fund.
While some staff members are genuinely happy to see us go, others curse the transfers because they feel it jeopardizes their job security. Some officers are busy taking bets on how many prisoners will die by suicide.
There are things that are less known. What will it feel like to go from decades of isolation to a powder keg of movement and activity? What will the politics be? Will different races be able to fraternize and form friendships like they do on death row? I doubt it. Beyond that, how will it feel to walk around without handcuffs at all times, without the atmospheric heaviness of a hands-on escort? Will it feel like a miniscule victory? A momentary blip of freedom? In many ways, I imagine the transfer process will be like going from a three bean soup to a seasoned pot of gumbo, a controllable campfire to a wildfire. And many of us will get swallowed up.
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Kayle Smith has been eligible for parole for 10 of the 34 years he’s spent in prison. The state has spent $240,000 to keep him incarcerated.
While some staff members are genuinely happy to see us go, others curse the transfers because they feel it jeopardizes their job security. Some officers are busy taking bets on how many prisoners will die by suicide, rather than leave the familiarity of their specialized housing unit. I erased the thought from my head, then it dawned on me that this very thing has happened before in 2020, during a pilot phase of transfers off death row. That probably explains why the psych techs have begun walking the tiers and doing regular mental health checks. Fear falls on the side of the prisoner, and in this instance, it’s the fear of the unknown.
I will suck it up because as a wrongfully-convicted prisoner, I have tons of practice. But I won’t shut up until the death penalty has been abolished. It is my duty to inform people that moratoriums don’t abolish the death penalty. Plantation reassignments don’t abolish the death penalty. And lip service certainly doesn’t abolish the death penalty.
The only thing that stands a chance at abolishing the death penalty in California is a gubernatorial-backed ballot initiative that has the money and manpower it needs to succeed. With that said, I call upon Newsom to not only “dismantle” death row, but to speak out against Prop 66’s harms and injustices and set the stage for a new ballot initiative.
This has to happen. The time to do it is now. I will not stop advocating until California abolishes the death penalty.
