Should a Killer Profit From Putting His Death Row Writings Up for Sale?

New York Times

05-04-2025

The 65th Annual New York International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan this weekend may seem like a maze of musty rarities.
But among the first editions and historical manuscripts is an archive of writings from an unlikely place: death row at San Quentin Prison in California.
The archive contains much of the vast output of Albert Jones, a 60-year-old killer who wrote 11 books while confined to 1-EB-117, his cell in the prison's East Block for a quarter-century. He was one of hundreds of condemned prisoners held on the block until its closing last year.
The writings by Mr. Jones, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for a double murder, are a rare portal into San Quentin's death row, said Ben Kinmont, the California bookseller who is handling the sale for Mr. Jones and asking $80,000 for the archive.
'There are no other comparable archives,' Mr. Kinmont said. The collection, which includes private journals, drawings and personal objects, is 'the largest and most complete body of material to ever come out of San Quentin's death row,' he added.
There are nearly two million people in U.S. prisons and jails, about five times the number who were incarcerated in the early 1970s. With the study of life in prison growing as a scholarly field, such sales are becoming more common.
In many of the sales, the proceeds go to the prisoners, something that often rankles the loved ones of victims, especially in murder cases.
In 2018, Harvard University bought archives of the activist and scholar Angela Davis that included prison materials. In 2022, Brown University acquired the archive of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther who is serving a life sentence for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer.
Harvard also acquired the archive of Ian Manuel, a Florida man who spent most of his 26 years in prison in solitary confinement. Hosea Baskin, a book dealer in Massachusetts who handled the sale, said archives of prisoners' works were valuable because of the dearth in U.S. libraries of contemporaneous, first-person writings of incarcerated people.
At last year's antiquarian fair, a single volume by Mr. Jones, a cookbook of recipes from fellow prisoners, sold for $20,000 to the University of California at Berkeley's Bancroft Library, according to Mr. Kinmont, who handled the sale.
Mr. Kinmont, who, in addition to antiquarian works, handles modern material in a category he calls 'gastronomy and economic precarity,' hopes other elite universities are interested in the larger archive of Mr. Jones's work.
The practice of prisoners profiting from writing about their experiences has long been contentious.
After Curtis Dawkins signed a $150,000 book deal with Scribner in 2016 while serving a life sentence for murder in Michigan, state officials said they would try to recoup the money to pay for his incarceration. His lawyer helped negotiate an agreement that allowed him to keep some of it, said Sandra Dijkstra, his agent on the deal.
Ms. Dijkstra said in an interview that Mr. Jones's archive would probably attract bidding from collectors and publishers, not for its quality of writing 'as much as its sociological ramifications.'
'The author is probably adding something significant to our knowledge of contemporary society from his unique perspective,' she said. 'I cringe at the idea of a killer making money by talking about his crime, but, on the other hand, if the public can learn from his story, then, it is worth publishing.'
Many states have so-called Son of Sam laws that prevent convicted criminals from profiting by writing about their crimes. The term comes from a New York law established to bar the serial killer David Berkowitz from selling his story about the murders he committed in the 1970s.
Mr. Kinmont said that
Mr. Jones's archive did not include writings about the murders and that most of his work was about his life in prison.
The $80,000 asking price reflects what the Berkeley library paid for the cookbook, and the current market for prison literature, Mr. Kinmont said. Mr. Jones has said that the proceeds from his books and archives are earmarked for his grandchildren's education.
Mr. Kinmont would not specify his fee, but he said he had reduced it for the sale. Mr. Jones's literary efforts stand apart from his conviction, Mr. Kinmont said: 'I'm not saying this exonerates him, but he has managed to spend time and energy that was not expected or demanded of him, in an extremely difficult setting, to put together these books that are crucial in helping us to understand the carceral state.'
In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on executions in California, whose 600-plus death row inmates dwarf the number of condemned prisoners in any other state. Most had been held at San Quentin but have been transferred to other prisons, as Mr. Jones was last year.
He was convicted in 1996 of two counts of first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of an older couple killed during a robbery at their home. Prosecutors said Mr. Jones had recruited teenagers to help him carry out the killings.
At trial, his lawyers stressed the lack of physical evidence connecting him to the murders and said the teenagers had falsely blamed Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones, who is ineligible for parole, maintains his innocence and is appealing the verdict.
For Ken Wallace, a grandson of the couple, the memory of the murders still stings. In an interview, he said he did not object to Mr. Jones's writing books. But, he added, 'I certainly don't think he should profit from them.'
'Nobody should be making money off this tragic crime,' Mr. Wallace said. 'If there are profits, they should go toward the families of victims, not to set up a trust fund for his kids.'
Mr. Jones was known as Ru-Al growing up in Compton, Calif., as a member of the Bloods street gang. In a phone interview from prison in Sacramento, Mr. Jones said he had been encouraged to start writing around 1999 by a fellow death row inmate, Stanley Williams, a founder of the rival Crips gang known as Tookie who was executed in 2005.
Rising at 3:45 a.m., Mr. Jones would typically write longhand on pads, consult a cellblock buddy, Big Nate, for spelling help and then pay another death row inmate with seven books of stamps, common prison currency, to edit the book.
To generate interest in his work, Mr. Jones sent fliers to bookstores and churches. His writing was collected by a priest from a nearby Episcopal church who sent the manuscripts out to be self-published and sold online.
'He may not be well educated but he's a damn good storyteller,' the priest, the Rev. Christopher H. Martin, said in an interview. 'And he gives a unique 3-D picture of what life on San Quentin's death row was like over 30 years.'
Some of Mr. Jones's books, like 'Put on the Shelf to Die' and 'I'm in God's Confinement,' discuss prison life, including depictions of prisoners preparing for execution. Stories from his earlier life include a glossary of Bloods slang and tales from Centennial High School, which he attended with the rap producer Dr. Dre.
Then there are the cookbooks, natural outgrowths of death row inmates' obsession with cooking on hot plates in their cells because 'your next meal could be your last,' Mr. Jones said.
For 'The Death Row Cookbook,' the one bought by the Berkeley library, fellow inmates slipped folded recipes for dishes like 'County Jail Burrito' and 'Prison Paella' to Mr. Jones through prison bars.
He said he was finishing his 12th book, one he thought could be his break.
'I'm hoping Cardi B or the Kardashians take notice,' he said. 'That's what I'm praying for.'