California death row pris­on­er Kevin Cooper (pic­tured), whose inno­cence claims recent­ly spurred the American Bar Association to call for a reprieve, recent­ly authored an arti­cle describ­ing what is was like for him to expe­ri­ence near­ly being exe­cut­ed on February 10, 2004. Cooper described the days lead­ing up to his sched­uled exe­cu­tion, which includ­ed round-the-clock mon­i­tor­ing, med­ical exams, and meet­ings with his attor­neys. ​“My lawyers kept com­ing to see me and updat­ing me on what the were doing to save my life, but I hon­est­ly did not believe they could stop the state from putting me to death,” he said. The key pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness against Cooper was the sur­viv­ing son of the mur­dered cou­ple, who was grave­ly injured dur­ing the attack. On the day of the mur­ders, the 8‑year-old boy said that three white or Hispanic men had com­mit­ted the killings. After see­ing pho­tos of Cooper on tele­vi­sion, he also told his grand­moth­er and a sher­if­f’s deputy that Cooper — who is black — was not the killer. Cooper recounts prison per­son­nel forcibly apply­ing a torni­quet to his arms to deter­mine the best veins for use in his exe­cu­tion, and taunts from guards that pho­tos they were tak­ing would be ​“the last images the world would see of me.” One asked whether he want­ed ​“a Tombstone piz­za” as his last meal. On what was sup­posed to be his final day of life, Cooper met with vis­i­tors before being tak­en away to be strip-searched twice and placed in a cage to await exe­cu­tion. During the sec­ond search, which was con­duct­ed inside the death cham­ber, he was sub­ject­ed to a full body-cav­i­ty exam­i­na­tion, includ­ing a guard shin­ing a flash­light inside Cooper’s mouth and up his rec­tum. A clock was on the wall of the exe­cu­tion hold­ing cell, and Cooper said, ​“I looked at that large wall clock, know­ing that with each pass­ing minute, my life was tick­ing away.” The exe­cu­tion prepa­ra­tions con­tin­ued even after a low­er court grant­ed Cooper a stay, because the state was appeal­ing the stay to the U.S. Supreme Court. Less than four hours before the exe­cu­tion was sched­uled to take place, the Court unan­i­mous­ly upheld the stay. After receiv­ing a call from his lawyer about the Supreme Court vote, Cooper wrote, ​“I gave the phone back to the guard and told the exe­cu­tion­ers that they were not going to do their jobs that night.”

(K. Cooper, ​“What It’s Like to Almost Get Executed,” The Marshall Project, March 31, 2016.) See Innocence.

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