In the Shadow of Death — Letters from a friend on death row shed light on the ultimate legal penalty
The following article by Amy Gaffney appeared as the cover story in CN&R (Chico News and Review)
My friend Andre Burton lives on death row at San Quentin. It is not a nice place to be.
This February, Andre asked to be moved from the cell he was in to one closer to the tier showers. He likes being able to be one of the first to shower, and he hoped the area would be quieter than the one he was in. He wrote about the experience in a letter to me (reprinted as he wrote it):
The inmate who was in this cell prior to my being re-housed in it was a "J cat"--an inmate here on the row who has mental and psychologically disturbed issues. The man lived in this cell like a helpless animal. He lived in this cell for four months. He never flushed the toilet, never threw out his trash, no matter what it was--daily lunches given us here. For four months he left what he did not eat laying around on the floor everywhere in the cell. He never changed his underclothing, never cleaned the cell, but just lived like an uncared for animal, mentally sick and disturbed.
Andre said he spent the next few days scrubbing the cell with the meager cleaning supplies he had. He found the task especially challenging because the cell was coated with the pepper spray used to "extract" the former prisoner from the cell. For days Andre's eyes and nose and skin burned. He also said he had to work to kill off the roaches that had infested the cell and crawled over the floor where he slept. (Many inmates sleep on the floor and use the concrete bed areas as desks, since no other surface is available.)
Andre and I have been writing each other and I have been visiting him regularly for one year now. I received his name and address last April from The Death Row Support Project. I had first considered doing prison work when I was a student at San Francisco Theological Seminary and drove by San Quentin each week on my way to campus.
Although I was already visiting women in federal prison as a visitor with Prisoner Visitation and Support, I felt drawn to reach out to someone on death row. I could not have anticipated meeting someone like Andre. He is a songwriter and had this to say about his gift:
I love music; it's so much of who I am. You have yet to hear the love songs I write and sing. I sing all the time to my soul, here in my own space, but only loud enough for me to enjoy. I have music ringing in my spirits almost every night, and more songs trying to come out. I know 'cause they keep coming back.
Sometimes his letters are painful to read, detailing the horrors and challenges of his environment and the suffering that surrounds him. Often they are compelling, helping me to know and understand the perspective of someone whose life experience is radically different from my own. Unfailingly, they express a faith and hope that continue to astound me. In many ways Andre's life reads like one very long bad dream, yet he is someone of remarkable spirit. Last July, he wrote me the following: