SAN FRANCISCO — By age 46, Bob Williams had spent greater than half his life in isolation, ready to die on San Quentin’s loss of life row.
Williams was 18 when he raped and murdered 40-year-old Mary Breck at her Kern County house in October 1994. The day earlier than, he had damaged into Breck’s house and stolen her bank cards. He returned — initially with the intention of giving the gadgets again, he mentioned — however as an alternative brutally assaulted and strangled Beck, leaving her gasping for air in her bed room earlier than he went again to complete the killing. He was convicted of first-degree homicide and sentenced to loss of life.
By that time, Williams had spent his youth biking by means of juvenile corridor and foster properties. Unhappy as it could sound, he mentioned, getting despatched to San Quentin “was the perfect factor that ever occurred to me.”
A condemned inmate is led to his cell on San Quentin’s loss of life row.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
“I went to jail with the concept of No. 1, discovering God, and if I may discover God, discover some form of forgiveness if it was accessible,” Williams mentioned.
On loss of life row, he constructed a life amid the dank cells of concrete and iron stacked 5 tales excessive. He soaked up books on philosophy and spirituality, discovering solace within the poem “Invictus.” He had come to phrases together with his loss of life sentence, the prospect of deadly injection at all times looming, when on account of political churns out of his management, San Quentin’s loss of life row was itself declared at an finish. During the last 5 years, its cells have been systematically emptied and its condemned males dispersed to different prisons.
Within the spring of 2022, Williams was uprooted from his solitary world and transferred to a jail in San Diego County. There, for the primary time in a long time, he would eat with different males and stroll amongst them within the jail yard, feeling daylight on his face.
The state has transferred lots of of condemned males from San Quentin’s loss of life row to different prisons as a part of a plan to rework the power right into a mannequin for rehabilitation.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
Now 49, Williams continues to be condemned to die. However beneath a collection of govt actions ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom — his 2019 moratorium on executions and his 2023 pronouncement that San Quentin can be remodeled right into a mannequin for rehabilitation — it’s unlikely that any of the 588 condemned prisoners in California shall be put to loss of life within the close to future.
Newsom’s directive to dismantle loss of life row didn’t alter the sentences for condemned women and men. Nevertheless it did dramatically upend their lives. A whole bunch of loss of life row inmates from San Quentin have been scattered amongst two dozen establishments throughout the state, whereas the 18 condemned girls who had been housed within the remoted loss of life row on the Central California Girls’s Facility in Chowchilla had been moved into basic inhabitants housing on the identical jail.
The transfers ushered in new freedoms for the inmates, who on loss of life row usually spent greater than 20 hours a day in single cells lined with metallic mesh that filtered out daylight. They had been handcuffed and escorted by armed guards anytime they left their cells. They largely ate alone and exercised in small teams. They’d little, if any, entry to courses and rehabilitative programming.
When it was Williams’ flip to go away, he left most of his belongings behind, passing out a few of his books and giving a guitar to at least one pal, his artwork provides to a different. He packed his Bibles and prayer books and some items of prison-approved clothes. Then he boarded a van and traveled roughly 12 hours south to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, the place he discovered significant work as a chapel clerk.
A condemned inmate makes a telephone name from his cell on San Quentin’s loss of life row.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
Williams marveled on the coastal sunsets, and stopped to choose grass within the jail yard simply so he may scent it. On the yard, he performed softball and basketball like he was an adolescent once more, welcoming the physique pains that got here with vigorous train.
There have been additionally uncomfortable changes. He was finally assigned a cellmate, which made him uneasy at evening. And lots of the guards and different inmates appeared cautious of sharing house with males sentenced to loss of life.
“It’s a transition,” he mentioned. “And it’s a tough transition typically.”
San Quentin, lengthy house to California’s most infamous criminals, is being reimagined as a jail targeted on making ready offenders for reentry into society.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
Whilst jail reform advocates have celebrated Newsom’s efforts to abolish capital punishment and rebrand San Quentin as a spot of hope and transition, teams representing crime victims and their households have responded with a mixture of fury and weary resignation. They accuse him of ignoring California voters, who’ve routinely rebuffed efforts to finish executions, together with in 2016, once they rejected a statewide poll measure that may have repealed the loss of life penalty.
“Dying row was voted [on] by the individuals of the state of California. And one particular person, the governor, by a swipe of a pen determined to take it away and finish it,” mentioned Patricia Wenskunas, founding father of Crime Survivors Inc. “He revictimized all of these members of the family that had been promised and informed that that particular person would face loss of life.”
The identical 12 months voters rejected the loss of life penalty initiative, they narrowly handed a competing poll measure, Proposition 66, aimed toward rushing up California’s execution course of by shortening the timeline for authorized appeals. However a little-known provision of Proposition 66 allowed the state to accommodate condemned inmates in different prisons, the place they might be required to carry jail jobs and pay 70% of their earnings to victims.
Although maybe unintended, it was this provision that allowed the Newsom administration to empty loss of life row. And, on paper not less than, state jail officers have touted the transfers as successful.
They word that lots of of condemned inmates have contributed greater than $229,000 in restitution since January 2020, when the transfers started.
Seventy % of the transferred inmates are actually participating in rehabilitative packages, based on the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Greater than 330 are enrolled in academic programs, and 263 are concerned in self-help courses.
However, 99 condemned inmates have confronted self-discipline “for critical violations,” based on the division. Nonetheless officers mentioned, a lot of the transferred prisoners are displaying a decline in disciplinary factors on their data, which implies “they’re participating in programming choices and have usually good habits.”
For the prisoners, the transfers have introduced a broad number of experiences and feelings.
Many had grown accustomed to the solitude of loss of life row, its stale scent and the frequent rants from inmates in psychological well being disaster. They lived alone, with set occasions for meals, yard entry and showers.
Some condemned inmates nonetheless dwell in single cells of their new lodging, however others have been assigned cellmates or dwell in dormlike settings. At some prisons, meals are shared within the chow corridor. So the transition has meant adjusting to group settings and all they entail: extra individuals, eye contact, dialog, confrontation.
Kevin Bernoudy, 46, was sentenced to loss of life for a 2006 gang-related homicide in L.A. County. He has struggled in his first 12 months at California State Jail Solano, the place he was transferred to carry him nearer to his spouse, whom he married in 2023.
Dying row was harsh, however got here with a way of order, says inmate Kevin Bernoudy. Transferring into the overall jail inhabitants has meant interacting with younger guys, some with attitudes.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
Dying row was harsh, but in addition got here with a way of order and lots of of his fellow prisoners had grown outdated behind bars. Shifting to the overall inhabitants meant interacting with younger guys, a few of them with attitudes.
Bernoudy mentioned he acquired into an altercation with some youthful inmates in the summertime final 12 months. “They don’t need no construction. They don’t need to cease utilizing medication…. They don’t need to do nothing to assist themselves,” he mentioned of the youthful guys. “If that is our future, it’s horrible.”
Bernoudy hasn’t been given a job but or enrolled in any courses, so his days now don’t look a lot completely different than they did throughout his decade at San Quentin.
However there have been perks.
Everybody on loss of life row used the identical nail clipper {that a} guard would hand them once they went to the bathe, he mentioned. Relatively than use a shared clipper, Bernoudy mentioned, he would “wait till the bathe, and I’d simply peel my very own toenails off.”
At his new jail, inmates should buy their very own razors and nail clippers from the canteen. And the meals is best.
“They gave me a [chicken] leg, and to me that was like, wow,” he mentioned. “We don’t get that on loss of life row. You’re not allowed to have bones.”
David Carpenter, dubbed the Trailside Killer, was sentenced to loss of life in 1984 for the murders of greater than half a dozen individuals alongside Northern California climbing trails.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
Among the many condemned prisoners who’ve been transferred are individuals convicted of a number of the most monstrous crimes in California historical past.
David Carpenter was sentenced to loss of life in 1984 for the murders of greater than half a dozen individuals alongside Northern California climbing trails between 1979 and 1981, a grotesque spree that earned him the nickname Trailside Killer. At 94, Carpenter is California’s oldest condemned inmate.
In interviews carried out by textual content within the spring of 2024, utilizing a pill offered by the jail, Carpenter mentioned he was wanting ahead to his switch to the California Well being Care Facility in Stockton.
“The primary cause for all of us is the FREEDOM [we] will be capable of expertise,” he wrote.
Carpenter makes use of a wheelchair and a walker, so he was housed in a single cell. He mentioned he now will get a sizzling breakfast every single day and enjoys far more time on the yard. He enrolled in a pc training program and is looking for out alternatives for interplay, equivalent to attending jail church providers.
A guard stands watch on San Quentin’s loss of life row.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
In September, Carpenter contracted COVID-19 and fell severely sick. He was moved to an isolation unit for a number of days and recovered. It was a stark distinction to 2020, when greater than a dozen loss of life row inmates died as COVID swept by means of the ward.
“All of us San Quentin inmates see being right here as being in a retirement house setting,” Carpenter mentioned.
Raynard Cummings additionally mentioned life was higher since he left San Quentin, if solely marginally.
Cummings, 67, was condemned to die for his position within the deadly taking pictures of LAPD Officer Paul Verna throughout a site visitors cease in June 1983. Prosecutors mentioned that as Verna walked as much as his automobile, Cummings pulled out a gun and shot the officer, whereas his pal, Kenneth Homosexual, jumped out of the automobile and unloaded a number of extra rounds into Verna. Each males had been convicted in 1985 and sentenced to die, although Homosexual has since been resentenced to life with out parole.
Final 12 months, with the prospects of transfers looming, Cummings informed The Occasions he hoped to be despatched to a jail that was wheelchair accessible and the place he may get bodily remedy for his arthritis. However he was additionally ready for a extra confrontational relationship with the guards.
“They’re going to see I’m in right here for a cop killing, and so they all really feel some form of manner about it,” he mentioned.
Final spring, Cummings was despatched to a high-security yard on the state jail in Lancaster. When he arrived, Cummings mentioned, he was mesmerized at seeing a full moon for the primary time since 1983. However he’s been postpone by what he describes as a basic sense of chaos.
As of late fall, Cummings mentioned he had not discovered a job or enrolled in any rehabilitative teams. Nonetheless, he was glad to be out of San Quentin.
“San Quentin was 10 occasions, 1,000,000 occasions worse,” he mentioned. “They usually knew they may get away with it, as a result of we had been the worst of the more severe, the despicable of the despicable.”
Like lots of the condemned inmates, Cummings already has been transferred a second time, a part of the continued prisoner shuffle as corrections officers handle house constraints and inmate safety classifications. This 12 months, he was transferred to Excessive Desert State Jail in Lassen County.
“There have been real friendships that had been grown from there,” Cathy Sarinana says of the loss of life row at Central California Girls’s Facility. “We had been like household.”
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
Cathy Sarinana, 48, is certainly one of 18 girls condemned to die in California. She was cautious on the prospect of leaving loss of life row on the Central California Girls’s Facility. Although arrange like a “hen coop,” Sarinana mentioned, the ladies inside fashioned a supportive group. At occasions, “it was like highschool,” she mentioned, with cliques and bickering. However “there have been real friendships that had been grown from there. We had been like household.”
Sarinana and her husband had been convicted in 2009 of killing their 11-year-old nephew, Ricky Morales, on Christmas Day 2005 in Riverside County. Sarinana’s husband admitted to beating the boy earlier than he died, and he or she was accused of ongoing abuse. Quickly after Ricky was discovered lifeless, investigators discovered the physique of his 13-year-old brother, Conrad, encased in concrete in a trash can within the household’s carport.
Sarinana mentioned that her habits was the byproduct of years of bodily and emotional abuse by her husband. She agrees that she needs to be in jail, though she doesn’t suppose she deserved a loss of life sentence. Greater than something, she mentioned, she ought to have finished extra to guard her nephews.
“I nonetheless ought to have tried. And I dwell with that guilt every single day,” she mentioned.
Inmate Cathy Sarinana, left, nervous in regards to the judgment condemned girls would face when moved off loss of life row. “Everybody right here has finished loopy stuff,” Sarinana says.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
However on loss of life row, Sarinana mentioned, she discovered the acceptance she’d lengthy craved.
The condemned girls loved a bit extra freedom than the lads at San Quentin, largely as a result of there have been so few of them. They had been allowed to congregate within the unit exterior their cells for some portion of every day.
She reminisced in regards to the potlucks the ladies would throw to mark holidays. They’d entry to large pots of water they may warmth with electrical rods. At Christmas, they made tamales. For Thanksgiving, Sarinana would make rolls full of meat and cheese. And to rejoice the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, they original fascinator hats out of cardboard and glitter.
Sarinana left the row in March 2024. She was transferred to a medical unit on the jail campus that accommodates prisoners, equivalent to herself, who use wheelchairs.
She nervous in regards to the judgment the condemned girls would face. Many had killed youngsters, their husbands — or each.
“Everybody right here has finished loopy stuff,” Sarinana mentioned. “We had been nervous about being shunned.”
It took months to acclimate to being round so many individuals. And after years of being cuffed when she left her cell, she didn’t know the way to use her arms. Turning doorknobs was tough.
However over time, Sarinana has warmed to her new setting. She works as a gaggle facilitator with Velda Dobson-Davis, a retired chief deputy warden who now volunteers on the girls’s jail, working packages targeted on trauma.
Sarinana nonetheless has moments when she misses loss of life row. Final Christmas, she was coping with a tough bout of despair. She remembered the video games the ladies performed throughout the holidays and their elaborate meals.
“I nonetheless crave that place,” she mentioned. “It’s morbid.”
Most of the inmates transferred out of loss of life row had grown used to the relative solitude. The transition to new prisons has meant adjusting to group settings and confrontation.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
Williams, the inmate who was 18 when he dedicated the crime that despatched him to loss of life row, mentioned his new lease on life is equally bittersweet. Final 12 months, he was moved once more, this time to the California Well being Care Facility in Stockton. He doesn’t prefer it as a lot as Donovan, nevertheless it’s nonetheless higher than loss of life row.
As time passes, he finds himself wishing Newsom would do one thing extra for condemned prisoners, particularly those that had been his age once they had been sentenced. “I’m form of at some extent of, both execute me or inform me you’re not going to,” he mentioned.
He permits himself to nurture a sliver of hope that in the future he might be resentenced and launched. However he’s nonetheless at peace with the notion of dying behind bars — whether or not from age, or execution.
“I’ve come nose to nose with it, and I’ve appeared it within the eye,” he mentioned. “And I discovered life.”
Occasions researcher Cary Schneider contributed to this report.
