The Buddhist on Death Row

She then addressed Satris directly. “You’ve turned Mr. Masters … into a human being,” she said. “He was born into hell. He was born for reasons that are almost impossible for me to comprehend. If people don’t want children, they shouldn’t have them. Apparently, his mother didn’t know how not to have them.”

Savitt acknowledged that it had been a tragedy when Jarvis was taken away from the Procks. That was when “he gave up on himself,” she said, “and that is when he became a very destructive person.” Then he entered the prison system, “another hell.”

Savitt took a breath. When she continued, she said something that stunned Jarvis. She claimed that she understood him to a large degree, “the best that one who was raised white middle-class can understand,” and then proceeded to address the aggravating circumstances.

As evidence against him, she cited violence in Jarvis’s past, including the robberies. She also cited his refusal to debrief about the BGF, believing that his refusal contradicted his claims that he’d renounced the gang.

“Mr. Masters,” she said, “will you please stand.”

Jarvis stood.

Over the previous two years, he had sometimes glimpsed warmth in the judge’s face. Now whatever sympathy he’d seen or imagined was replaced by hardness.

“It is the order of this court that you shall suffer the death penalty,” she said. “Said penalty to be inflicted within the walls of the state prison at San Quentin, California, in the manner prescribed by law.”

Part Two

The Second Noble Truth

The Cause of Suffering

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

—C. S. Lewis

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