In the twenty-one years that I have been on death row here at San Quentin Prison, I have heard many things concerning the death penalty, especially from those people who support it and the men and women who work for the government to enforce it.
I have most definitely heard many, many things from the people who want me dead, including those mentioned above. Recently, though, I read something in a newspaper article written by Paula Priamos that truly made me think. This woman wrote in support of my murder at the hands of this state, and to show her support for the victims of the murders for which I have been convicted and their families.
She stated that because the victims' families had traveled to Northern California in search of “some emotional and psychological relief” through watching my murder by the executioners at this prison, and because the courts granted me a stay and people who are against executions and my murder outside of the prison cheered the courts' decision, it struck her as “perverse and cruel.”
This woman has no idea what “perverse and cruel” really is. My family members, who are victims of this death penalty system just as I am, did not think that my stay was “perverse and cruel.” Neither did my son, my friends, nor my supporters around the world. Neither did I, for that matter, especially since it was me who was going to be poisoned by this state in order for them to murder my Black ass! My attorneys not only did not think it was perverse and cruel, they were happy because it is not often than the whole United States Supreme Court agrees with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, especially in a death penalty case.
I will tell you what truly is perverse and cruel: Christian men and women misusing God's name in order to justify their support of the death penalty.
It's perverse and cruel that here in the twenty-first century the United States of America is still as racist, sexist, and homophobic as it always has been and will do whatever it wants and can to silence people of color, women, and gays.
It's perverse and cruel that poor women of all races and cultures within this country who have never been treated equally on any level of their lives will get their first taste of equality by having the exact same amount of poison, or gas, or electricity sent into their bodies as the men who get executed.
It's perverse and cruel that a certain group of human beings need to watch another human being be murdered by the state in order to receive some sort of “emotional or psychological relief.” One would think that this is what God is for, and if one wanted to heal either mentally, emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually, they would get down on their knees and ask the same God that they pray to enforce the death penalty to come into their lives and hearts and help them heal.
I find it perverse and cruel that many Americans within this country, or should I say certain Americans within this country, like to be lied to. They are willing to turn a blind eye to the truth in order to support a system that is built and maintained on lies, deception, and everything else negative. It's a shame that these certain Americans are willing to overlook the truth in order to uphold what they believe in, even when what they believe in is truly wrong.
No matter what Paula Priamos or anyone else says about me, I will continue to speak the truth and maintain my innocence because I am innocent of the murders for which I was wrongly convicted and almost executed.
Why my attorneys and investigators started working in order to get me that stay of execution, they went and spoke to the six or seven remaining jurors who sent me to death row. They each told my attorneys that if there was one less piece of evidence presented during my trial, or if my defense attorney had had one more means of defending me, they would not have found me guilty, much less sentenced me to death.
Since that stay was granted, my attorneys and investigators have discovered—without the help of the state or the federal district judge in San Diego—multiple constitutional violations, and myriad errors that tainted my conviction, none of which were not known of by me or my trial attorney, or the jury, because the district attorneys hid the information or sheriff's department tampered with evidence or destroyed it.
This is truly perverse and cruel, and it represents many times over the “one less piece of evidence” that those jurors mentioned.
Because of the state and its death penalty supporters, I have spent over 21 years in this place, and have come within three hours and forty-two minutes of being murdered for crimes that I did not commit. This is also perverse and cruel. It is perverse and cruel that the death penalty is still being used anywhere in the world by anyone.
In Struggle
From Death Row
At San Quentin Prison
Kevin Cooper