This essay was originally published on https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-books-that-keep-me-alive-on-death-row/ I have been forced to live in a 4½-by-11-foot cage against my will. Only literature can offer an escape from my hellish existence. Someone once told me that reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.  That someone was another death row inmate, an older […]

This essay was originally published on https://www.truthdig.com/articles/is-america-civilized-not-as-long-as-it-sanctions-the-death-penalty/ The ongoing support of capital punishment belies this country’s claim to having moved past the primitive stage of human development. There is no place in a civilized society for capital punishment. That’s why actual civilized societies around the world do not have, use or endorse capital punishment. Twenty

This essay was originally published on https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-death-penalty-is-part-of-our-shared-and-tortured-history/ Understanding our history in this country is important, especially in our present-day reality with Trump in the White House.   The following speech was delivered via telephone at the Death Penalty Focus event held on September 23, 2018. The late James Baldwin stated that history is far from

This essay was originally published on https://www.truthdig.com/articles/lying-with-a-straight-face/ Wrongly convicted prisoners assert their innocence, and research backs them up, yet some politicians and law enforcement officials continue to propagate lies and prop up an unjust system. DEATH ROW, SAN QUENTIN, Calif.— “There are no innocent people on death row in California.” Those were the words of

This essay was originally published on https://www.truthdig.com/articles/black-history-month-death-row/ The horrible things I suffered in 2004—when California attempted to murder me in its death chamber—should not surprise anyone. Lynchings and executions are a fact of African-American life. Editor’s note: Kevin Cooper was convicted of a 1983 quadruple murder and sentenced to death in a trial in which

This essay was originally published on https://www.truthdig.com/articles/2018-year-executioner/ Justice today is just like the justice of yesteryear, especially when it comes to the use of capital punishment. DEATH ROW, SAN QUENTIN, Calif.—Many years ago, Protestant pastor and poet Martin Niemoller famously wrote of the Nazi era: First they came for the Socialists, and I did not

Originally posted on: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/thanksgiving-death-row/ Thanksgiving on Death Row The author has been in San Quentin since 1985 and is fighting to prevent the state of California from killing him for a murder he says he did not commit. Editor’s note: Kevin Cooper was convicted of a 1983 quadruple murder in a trial in which evidence

The Murder of Kevin Cooper Against the Current, No. 190, September/October 2017Originally published at https://againstthecurrent.org/atc190/p5074/ AS I WRITE this to you, I am in a 4 1/2 by 11 foot long cage, with two feet between the side of the bed and the wall for me to walk in. I have been in a cage