Imagining a new life outside after 40 years on death row
BOLINAS, Calif. - Douglas "Chief" Stankewitz got up Wednesday in the early morning darkness. That's when he meditates and exercises and reads. He turned on the television and caught the Channel 7 news. It was around 5:30. And he heard.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom planned to declare a moratorium on the death penalty that day, dismantle the death chamber. Because capital punishment, Newsom said, is immoral and expensive. Kills the innocent along with the guilty. Targets the black, the brown, the poor.
"I just thought, 'It's about time, about time someone stepped up who had the power and authority to do so,'" Stankewitz said.
He was the first person to land on California's death row after capital punishment was reinstated in 1978. He was 20 then. He will be 61 in May.
He is still on death row, sentenced for
