Death Row Inmate Dies in Fight Amid Rising Tension

A Death Row prisoner died after a fight with another condemned inmate in what San Quentin officials described as an increase in prison violence in the days before what was to be California’s first execution in 23 years this week.

In the first homicide involving Death Row prisoners during the current era of capital punishment, Martin Gonzalez, 41, died in a Marin County hospital on Friday, five days after he got into a fight on the main exercise yard for condemned prisoners, prison officials said.

Prison spokesman Lt. Cal White said Jose A. Rodrigues, on Death Row since 1988 for a murder in Menlo Park, is locked in a cell in San Quentin’s Adjustment Center and faces a possible murder charge.

White said a fight involving Gonzalez broke out shortly before 11 a.m. on March 25. Gonzalez suffered a blow to his head when he was struck or fell to the ground. He was sent to Marin General Hospital, where he died.

Gonzalez had been on Death Row since 1983, when he was convicted in Los Angeles County Superior Court of murdering Carlos Ventura in 1982. In an incident near Norwalk, Ventura was stabbed and raped with a pool cue after he had thrown something into the windshield of Gonzalez’s van.

Jay T. Lichtman, Gonzalez’s attorney, said he had been anticipating that the state Supreme Court would rule shortly on his client’s appeal of the death sentence. Lichtman argued the case before the justices in February.

“There was a lot to say about this case,” Lichtman said. “Unfortunately, we’ll never get a chance to say it.”

Rodrigues was convicted in the 1987 stabbing death of Andres Zavala-Barriga during a drug-related robbery. His appeal of his sentence to the state Supreme Court is in its early stages. No decision is expected for a year or more. Deputy State Public Defender Joel Kirshenbaum, his lawyer, declined to discuss the matter.

Although crimes by Death Row inmates rarely are prosecuted, Marin County Deputy Dist. Atty. Terrence Boren said his office will review Gonzalez’s death once the prison completes its investigation.

The homicide was the first on Death Row, which currently houses about 270 inmates, since California restored capital punishment laws in 1977, prison officials said. Since that year, seven condemned prisoners have killed themselves and two have died of natural causes, said Christine May, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

The homicide occurred amid heightened tensions at San Quentin over what was the scheduled execution this past Tuesday of convicted killer Robert Alton Harris. A federal appeals court stayed Harris’ execution last Friday, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the stay Monday.

Sgt. Vernell Crittendon, a prison spokesman, said officers reported more fist fights and attempted stabbings than usual in the days before the scheduled execution. In one incident, he said, a condemned prisoner who has AIDS tried to bite an officer.