In a conversation conducted over multiple texts over a few days, Kevin Cooper described how different his life is off death row and in the general population. One of the more than 600 death-sentenced people transferred from San Quentin’s death row to 24 prisons throughout the state, he is at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, where almost 3,000 people with medical needs are imprisoned.
“The biggest positive difference between San Quentin death row and CHCF is no handcuffs. And we can take a hot shower whenever we want, and for how long we want, in a shower with a door on it. At SQ’s death row, we could shower only three times a week in a cell that was converted to a shower. We were locked in, and there was a cage on it, not a door.”
Another big difference? “No strip searching every time we leave the cell! Only when we leave the visiting area are we strip-searched here at CHCF. At SQ, we were constantly strip-searched. We can also have fingernail clippers without the file that we can purchase from the prison store and a 10-pack of shaving razor(s).
“Health care is also much better here. And the cages at San Quentin are 4-1/2 feet wide by 11 feet long. The cage I’m in now is almost twice that size. There are dormitories for the general population, and all death row people live in cells. Some are single-celled for health reasons, most are double-celled. All the cells have solid doors, and you cannot hear what goes on outside the cells if you’re inside the cell. Each cell has a non-opening window so you can see the sun and moon, some activities during the day, and the moon and stars at night.”
Cooper says, “There is a lot of socializing. We play basketball every day in the giant regular yard—half-court and full-court games. They also play soccer, softball, and pickleball.
“One of the negatives here is the food. Everyone transferred here who was fat or overweight at San Quentin has lost weight because they give us small portions of food with no seasoning. It’s very bland — it’s hospital food! But that’s the only negative thing about this prison that I can complain about so far.”
Another positive, Cooper says, is that “here we can cook using a microwave oven, use an iron to press our clothes, and when I first got here, we could have ice. But two guys in another unit got into a fight over ice, so the prison took the ice away from everyone for now.”
Another difference is that he hasn’t “seen or experienced any forms of racism from any of the other incarcerated people or the staff. There are transsexuals here too, and some of them have had surgery to look like women, breasts and all. Condoms are in every unit in a large plastic dispenser for anyone to take.”
There are no “real programs for people from death row,” according to Cooper. “Most of the programs are for general population, and for those who go to the parole board to try and get out. Most of those from death row are put to work in the prison kitchen, or go to school for a GED, or something.”
There are about 2,500 staff people at CHCF. “This place is so huge and is spread across many acres. Most officers ride bikes to get around, taking people to medical appointments in golf carts,” he says.
In short, “Nothing here was hard to get used to except the heat. It’s so hot outside in the summer that at certain times of the day they won’t let us go out because of the heat. At SQ we never experienced this type of heat before.”
Despite his positivity, though, Cooper points out that “no one who doesn’t walk in my shoes can really understand this oppression or what living here is really about, or how dehumanizing it really is. You have to live this experience to truly understand this inhumane American way of life. We are called residents here, not inmates, and are treated with dignity and respect. We are not just numbers, but human beings. But this is still a prison.”
Kevin Cooper was sentenced to death in 1985 after being convicted of the murder of four people in San Bernardino County in June 1983. For 41 years, Cooper has insisted he is innocent, and there are serious questions about evidence that was missing, tampered with, destroyed, possibly planted, or hidden from the defense. Supporters include federal court judges, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, four Innocence Project organizations, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the American Bar Association. An innocence investigation of his case requested by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021, which sided with the prosecution, was widely criticized as a “sham,” by two University of San Francisco law professors and failed to address the American Bar Association’s “ongoing concerns regarding the case of death-row inmate Kevin Cooper.”
