[Transitions is a two-part series compiled from a number of submissions sent to us by Glenn Cornwell. Discussing the implications of Proposition 66 on the lives of those housed in California’s historic East Block, Glenn shares his account of transitioning from San Quentin’s death row to the general population while also reflecting on the last thirty years he spent within condemned segregation.]
I arrived on San Quentin’s death row on April 24, 1995. Back then, East Block was “off the hook,” supporting 570 single cells, five different exercise yards, and every California gang you could imagine.
Violent attacks were common back then, but the way we were released to the yard almost ensured combat to play out a certain way. The problem was we could only be let out on the yard one person at a time, and every time one of each gang made it to the yard, they’d take off on each other. I can still hear the sound of the gunman firing rubber or wooden shots, and I remember having to lie down on the ground, hoping not to be hit by a ricocheting projectile.
Back then, we were under the ten-day lockdown rule for any fights. I was on a yard schedule with two different gangs of the same race but who were at odds with each other. The ten-day rule meant ten days being confined to quarters for anyone fighting, but after about seven of these lockdowns, one side ran out of people, and we were able to have a regular program for a time. Over the years I’ve seen almost every gang go through a similar routine. Mostly, I saw crowds crashing into each other in numbers, even fighting inside gangs, what they called “cleaning house.”
Since then, it’s gotten better. The California model has begun to take shape, and it seems that most correctional officers are better trained. Drama still goes down though. Possession of a cell phone used to be a major write-up, but now the state has passed out tablets to all of us, with cell phones included along with several other apps. Even laws that were once ignored are getting many prisoners out of prisons or reduced sentences. One of my friends took a deal for one-third to life and was released at his first parole hearing. Of course, he’d already had forty-three years in.
I get the impression California is trying to follow the Norway model or something like it. In Norway twenty-one years is the max, with some exceptions calling for thirty years. The challenge of these changes in California is that all these new applications of the law hinge on what new governor is elected in the next election. Today, it’s Gavin Newsom, but tomorrow it could be another Pete Wilson. If you don’t remember, Wilson was an ultra conservative whose family was deeply invested in the steel business. So, what does Pete do once he’s in office? He built thirty-plus new prisons filled to the brim with steel. Prison is a business above all else, and the lives that rot here are just secondary to that bottom line.
In 2016 the voters passed Proposition 66, which allows condemned incarcerated people to leave death row and program on regular yards. We are supposed to get jobs and pay back our debt to society, rather than just sit around and spoil. That means that all this is finally coming to an end, with everyone on death row being slated for transfer to other California prisons. On February 28, 2024, I was endorsed for transfer to Stockton State Prison.
Since the transfers started, East Block almost seems like a ghost town, and I’ve heard that several hundred of the condemned have been shipped out already. It’s desolate and empty here, and, of my yoga class, everyone except me is gone. I find myself working out alone most days, playing chess with my neighbor, but the hum and murmur of life which once filled the tier is long gone, leaving death row like a tomb filled with echoes and silence.
Now that everyone is almost gone, the air here does seem lighter, cleaner even, but it’s still death row. Even though I go to the yard with only seven people, and our population here is down to a trickle, the violence of this place still persists. Just the other day two people beat each other bloody. I live on the second tier, front bar, and the staging cages are right below me. I tend to see everyone get processed after incidents, and, on occasion, I have been processed in the same way, looking up at my cell from the cages I typically look down on. The transfers have created a tension, an unspoken stress point that rides along the surface of our daily movements and conversations.
The unknown can be a scary proposition for some, and since people started getting endorsed to leave the Row there have been a lot of grievances filed. A rumor floated through that one of the guys who left was attacked at his arriving prison, but as the story went, he was allegedly convicted of raping and killing an eighty-five-year-old woman, someone characterized as a saint. You can never put much weight in the stories that circulate around here, but the stories can tell you something about how people try to rationalize their fears away, or try to intensify fear in others.
Someone took their own life on the tier above me the other day, hung themselves. This is not an uncommon occurrence around here; still, I can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with the transfers? For a long time on the row this was the only way you would lose people, from them taking themselves out, but over the last five years everything has been different.
Covid really shook up East Block. A lot of folks died from the illness. From December of 2019 to October of 2020 I was relocated to the fourth floor of the main hospital here at San Quentin, and during that time, death row was hit hard. If I had been there, I figure I too would have caught Covid, and maybe wouldn’t be here to tell this story. When I got back, they said that they were going to send me to Salinas Valley State Prison. Their reasoning was that I was over sixty-five, had asthma and high blood pressure, and because of my medical risk, I should be sent out. To me that logic seemed flawed, and with the added exposure of being shuffled in a bus with twenty other people, it amounted to a punishment. They took my property for a week as I waited to leave, but then at the last minute they canceled the move. For us on the row, many of whom haven’t moved in thirty years, these changes are difficult to adjust to.
This time around, I learned of a completely new term, “transpacking.” I guess it’s what everyone not on the Row typically deals with before they leave an institution. They packed up all of my property except what I could fit into two boxes. I don’t know if that’s the norm, but I sure did appreciate it and counted it as a really generous gesture. So, now I wait, on the brink of departure into the unknown. I don’t know what will come next, but I’ll keep you posted.
