Death row chaplain

In 1983, twenty-seven-year old Earl Smith walked through the menacing gates of San Quentin State Prison just as everyone thought he would. As a gang member and criminal from a young age, Smith expected to do some time. But when he walked in it was not as an inmate but as the Chaplain of Death Row. A year earlier six bullets were fired into his body in a botched drug deal. Those bullets saved his soul and changed his life path forever. Twenty-three years later, Smith had played chess with Charles Manson, negotiated truces between rival gangs, and bore witness to the final thoughts and prayers of dozens of Death Row inmates.