Death Row and Prison Media Interview Ban is Horrible Government Policy

Florence, AZ—Currently there are 121 men and three women on Death Row in Arizona.  The killing here substantially exceeds larger states like Texas for per capita executions.  There has been a number of exonerations here and certainly more are expected.

The State of Arizona like several others has cut off TV news from access to any inmate for any reason.  Inmates can write letters but letters don’t make watchable TV and prison officials know this.  A huge percentage of inmates are illiterate and can't even write a simple letter.

Prison officials try and justify this by suggesting that crime victims become traumatized whenever inmates appear on TV.   That’s hogwash unless of course some "victim" falsely accused and obtained a conviction against an innocent person.  Yes, that does happen far more often than we will admit.

The media does not like wasting time listening to inmates whine about their troubles.  They only will commute to the remote locations where the prisons are for compelling reasons. These kinds of interviews happen rarely even in the jurisdictions that allow them.

Most lawyers hate for their clients to talk to the media because they tend to incriminate themselves even further during the appellate process. 

Often an inmate can raise issues of corruption or doubt that have real merit.  Is there somehow harm when an inmate wants to make it public that prosecutors and courts are refusing to administer DNA tests that would exonerate him?

The inmate media embargo is really about saving law enforcement agencies and prosecutors from embarrassment in wrongful conviction cases.  The claim of saving victims from emotional harm rings deceptive, hollow and disingenuous.

Texas allows TV news crews full access to their condemned inmates right up to death’s door.  Often it is an inmate wanting to express remorse.   Sometimes it’s simply a self-serving gesture to gain sympathy.  Other times it’s a frantic effort to get their cases reinvestigated with today’s better tools before the death clock runs out.

When government hides their inmates from the media it flies in the face of open government.  Transparency is reduced to zero by solid steel doors and high prison walls. 

Our prisons are being reduced to secret Gulags where anonymous inmates are housed in seclusion.  When inmates are so isolated that nobody can observe, horrible things begin to happen. 

It’s time for Arizona and California to return to the policies of the past where the media has reasonable access.  Our penal systems seem to be headed for the policies of Devil’s Island or North Korea.  This departure from civilization is dead wrong. 

Why Barbara Graham was executed in California’s Gas Chamber

Barbara Graham in Court at her 1953 trial

Burbank, CA—Mabel Monahan a former pro-roller skater who had been disabled but was living out her retirement in a nice Burbank home located at 1718 West Parkside Avenue in Burbank, CA.

30 year-old Barbara Graham was a very pretty but troubled gal who came from Oakland, CA.  Graham was raised in really crappy conditions and often often by strangers.  Her education was somewhat marginal.

Back then being homeless was a crime called Vagrancy.  That was her first offense and Graham was jailed at the Ventura State School for Girls.  Graham’s own mother also once did some time there.   Later Graham also did a prison stretch over a perjury beef while trying to help a friend in trouble.

Back in those days there were no birth control pills and abortion was a serious felony.  Graham unwisely married three men, had a child by each.   

Everyone treated single mothers of that sad era very poorly.  Their job prospects were limited greatly and Graham understandably fell into a life of prostitution, bad checks and the underworld.

Barbara Graham was now 30 years old and married to her third husband, Henry Graham.   He was a drug-addicted bartender who introduced his young wife to his own unsavory friends.  That union was the beginning and end of this tale of despair, deceit and doom. 

We know for sure Mabel Monahan was brutally beaten and suffocated to death. We of course can only guess just how that happened based upon the statements of those involved in the killing.

The killers of Monahan, were named in exchange for full immunity from prosecution by a co-conspirator by the name of John True.   True’s self-serving statements sealed the fate of his friends.  They were Barbara Graham along with Jack Santo and Emmett Perkins.  

The prosecution theory was that Santo, Perkins and Graham targeted Monahan because of rumors she keep lots of cash and jewelry around her home.

True claimed that Graham knocked on the door and when Monahan opened it all four killers forced their way in to the home.  True claimed that Graham bludgeoned Monahan repeatedly in the head with a gun and suffocated her. 

I think it was safe to assume that by implicating Graham is the actual killer that she’d somehow be spared the death penalty.  With luck Perkins and Santo would then be able to mitigate their actions and be spared too. 

Prosecutors did not have particularly strong case against Graham so they enlisted the aid of a slimy jailhouse snitch and an undercover cop. 

They successfully entrapped Graham to put up the cop as a phony alibi witness.  The conversations were surreptitiously recorded and sensationally used against her in the Los Angeles superior Court.  That made getting a conviction much easier.

Graham and her two co-defendants were convicted and sentenced to death.  Appeals in those days went very quick.  Within two years all three exhausted their failed appeals and were executed the same day June 3, 1955 at San Quentin.

Two films were made depicting these events.  Susan Hayward and Lindsey Wagner both played Graham. 

The story was told by a hearing impaired, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, Edward Montgomery who did his best to save Graham’s life.  His reports along with their written correspondence became the basis for the screenplay. 

Graham’s horrible life and death was used in a failed attempt to champion anti-death penalty efforts in America.

The death penalty sucks in a big way.  We kill people based on mistaken or perjured eyewitness testimony every day.   The death penalty is a power no government should be able to exercise against its own citizens.

California like many states did not just execute murderers.  Rapists, kidnappers and even horse thieves often faced death upon conviction.  The last convicted rapist put to death in California was Caryl Chessman on May 2, 1960. 

Utah Execution is a Barbaric and Cowardly Act

Draper, UT—I visited the prison here several years ago on an adoption matter. It’s a clean appearing seemingly well run institution for men that have done vile and horrible things. Many are dangerous career criminals housed there that should never be set free until they’re too old to hurt anyone.

After midnight tonight Ronnie Lee Gardner, 49 is going to be escorted to and strapped into a chair and five men will fire .30 Caliber Winchester rifles at a small target on his chest.

Gardner’s crime was a despicable act. He was convicted of capital murder 25 years ago for the 1985 fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt. He was desperate and 24 years-old back then.

It’s disturbing to me that an entire quarter of a century has passed. That much time would change anyone. There is no evidence since that mad act that indicates he’d re-offend or not find a peaceful way to somehow serve society even if it was behind bars. Killing Gardner now is almost like killing Peter for Paul’s crime.

Gardner made quite an exhaustive appeal to the pardon board. It served no purpose and was a total waste of breath.

Gardner can’t be blamed for the 25 year appeal process since he did not create it. I can’t help but to believe that the freakish delay and half of Gardner’s life was spent dreading his own killing at the hands of the government. At some point this should qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.

Gardner sat on Death Row for so long he watched young prison guards grow old and retire while he was waiting to die or get a commutation. That certainly qualifies as “hard time”.

I guess this execution is raw vengeance in its purest form. Taking a captive human to a death chamber is in itself a disgusting act. Being part of this kind of barbarism carries the mark of Cain. There are no heroes here.

I oppose the death penalty not because people don’t deserve that fate but because no government should have the power to kill their own citizens. Every government on earth will abuse that power sooner or later. I have no qualms about killing in legitimate self defense or defense of another.

As for Gardner he’s about to cease to exist or cross over to the “other side” if you believe there is one. One thing for sure his earthly tormentors can punish him no more.