DEATH ROW HAS MANY EXECUTIONERS\Majority of condemned men commit suicide, die of natural causes.

Byline: Michelle Locked Associated Press 

With the silent plunge of syringes pushing a deadly trio of drugs into his body, "Freeway Killer" William George Bonin became the third man executed in San Quentin's death chamber since voters reinstated capital punishment in 1978.

But he was the 22nd man on Death Row to die during that era.

The discrepancy can be blamed on a phenomenon lost in the clamor surrounding California executions. Suicide and natural causes are the leading killers of Death Row inmates.

Proponents of the death penalty say that's an indication the appeals process takes too long.

"No vicious criminal's going to be deterred knowing that he's going to die of old age on Death Row," said Sean Walsh, spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson. "Deterrent means tried, convicted and executed quickly."

"I think that it's clear that the system is not in tune with what the voters want," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. "People in California have voted repeatedly for an effective death penalty."

But those who oppose capital punishment say the deaths, more than half of which were suicides, underscore the barbarity of state-sanctioned killing.

"I think people have to understand what kind of life they're living on the Row . . . every day knowing that the clock is ticking toward their execution," said Lance Lindsey of Death Penalty Focus. "We really believe that they're living under conditions of torture."

There are now more than 400 inmates on California's Death Row, more than one-fourth of whom have been there for a decade or more.

Life on the Row is a "24-hour reminder that you are condemned to die," said David Magris.

Magris ought to know. He was sentenced to death for his role in two gas station robberies that left one man dead and another paralyzed and spent three years on the Row. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment when capital punishment was declared unconstitutional in 1972, and he was paroled in 1985.

That wasn't the only startling twist to Magris' story. He later was reconciled with the man he paralyzed. Both have spoken out against the death penalty.

Now 48, married and successfully employed, Magris recalled the surreal contradiction of the pains taken to keep condemned men healthy and sane while they awaited execution.

"We used to tell ourselves it just kind of seems they're fattening up the pigs for the slaughter," he said.

Current Death Row inmate Dean Phillip Carter, who posts his reflections on the Internet with the help of a San Francisco radio personality, also talks about the "incredible pressure and stress" of Death Row life.

"There are people in here that give up and commit suicide, others slowly lose their mind and end up being medicated," he wrote in one column.

Of the 19 Death Row inmates who have died in obscurity since 1978, 11 served as their own executioners, six died of natural causes and two were killed in fights, prison officials said.

Nationally, according to a Department of Justice report covering the years 1973-93, California had the most non-execution fatalities on Death Row. Florida was second with 14, and Texas was third with 12.

Not surprisingly, those three states also had the country's biggest Death Rows.

California prison officials say the number of San Quentin suicides is too small to draw any statistical conclusions.

Louis Beermann, chief psychologist for the corrections department, said the department has implemented a suicide prevention program that has resulted in a suicide rate of 17 per 100,000 among the general prison population. Beermann said that is lower than the rate among free men of about 22 per 100,000.

A review of Death Row suicides does not reveal much of a pattern.

Most hung themselves using clothing or bed sheets.

One suicide had been on the Row only five days; one had served nine years. The average time served was about three years.

Two suicides took place the day after Christmas, one in 1980, the other in 1985. And a suicide took place in the month following each of the first two executions of the post-1978 era, Robert Alton Harris in 1992 and David Mason in 1993.

Some considered Mason's case a form of suicide because he chose to short-circuit the lengthy appeals process.

He could have stalled the day of his death for years by taking his case to federal courts. He chose not to, saying, among other things, he wanted the state justices who affirmed his sentence to be responsible for his death.

In January, inmate William Kirkpatrick Jr. almost followed in Mason's steps, writing an obscenity-laced letter that demanded, "Give me my execution date and kill me" State officials offered to oblige, but the execution was postponed when Kirkpatrick changed his mind.

But for the most part, inmates pursue all appeals available, an option advocates point out is their constitutional right.

They also note that not all of the lag time can be pinned on inmates. Most have to wait years to get an attorney appointed to their case.

"Perhaps the biggest lie promoted by the News Media and told by these Special Interest groups is that we here on Death Row spend years manipulating the courts and laughing up our sleeves," Carter declared in one of his Internet postings.

"The reason that we spend so long on Death Row is because of what these groups have done. They have lobbied politicians and the courts, passing law after law that makes it more and more difficult for a inmate on the Row to go through the appeals process," he said.

Deputy Attorney General Dane Gillette, the state's capital case coordinator, said prosecutors are trying to whittle down the backlog, but "there's only so much we can do in terms of trying to convince the courts to speed the cases along."

A fourth execution, that of Merced triple-murderer Keith Daniel Williams, is expected to take place in April.

But there are still scores of cases 16 and even 17 years old with no execution date set.

Death penalty proponents say the system demands reform.

"I think we ought to shoot for a median time from sentence to execution of three years," said Scheidegger.

Opponents have another solution to the legal limbo of Death Row - do away with it and use life sentences without possibility of parole to keep society's predators at bay.

"This is not a bleeding heart, liberal, poor-victim-in-Death-Row (philosophy)," Lindsey said. "This is, why continue the cycle of violence? Why continue killing for killing?"

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Photo Former Death Row inmate David Magris says life on the Row serves as a "24-hour reminder that you are condemned to die." Associated Press