The Marin Independent Journal
NOVATO, Calif. — The California Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence of a San Quentin inmate convicted for the murder of a prison guard three decades ago.
The unanimous ruling against Jarvis Masters was released Monday. The seven-member court rejected all of Masters’ arguments, including claims of judicial error and prosecutorial misconduct.
Masters’ lead lawyer, Joseph Baxter, said the ruling was “poorly written and poorly reasoned,” with mistakes of fact and case law.
“It’s really a shabby product,” said Baxter, who is based in Santa Rosa. “We expect better from that court.”
Masters is still waiting for the state Supreme Court to hear his habeas corpus petition on other issues. Those issues include the recantation of two key witnesses and a challenge to an incriminating prison note attributed to Masters, said his lead lawyer, Joseph Baxter. A specialist hired by his lawyers has concluded Masters was not the author, Baxter said.
Baxter said he expects to win the habeas ruling. If he doesn’t, Masters will appeal to the federal courts for review.
Jarvis was initially sent to San Quentin in 1981 for a string of armed robberies in the Los Angeles area when he was in his late teens. In 1985, he and three other inmates allegedly formed a conspiracy to kill prison guards, leading to the stabbing death of Sgt. Dean Burchfield.
The inmates were prosecuted in Marin Superior Court. One of the inmates, Rufus Willis, testified against the others under a grant of immunity from prosecution. Masters, Andre Johnson and Lawrence Woodard were convicted of murder.
Masters, who had a long history of violence and was suspected of other killings, received the death penalty.
The jury was unable to decide on a death sentence for Woodard, and the prosecution decided to seek a life sentence instead.
The jury sentenced Johnson, the stabber, to death, but a judge granted a motion to modify the sentence to life in prison.
Woodard and Johnson are still in state prison, though not at San Quentin.
Masters, 53, has become widely known as a published author and a proponent of Buddhism.
The last execution in California was in 2006, after which the death penalty became tied up in constitutional and regulatory litigation. Of about 750 inmates on death row, nearly 300 have had their death sentences affirmed by the state Supreme Court.
Copyright 2016 The Marin Independent Journal