This article represents the first published interview with Chol Soo Lee. In seeking to give voice to Chol Soo Lee, this edited transcript hopes to resuscitate the importance of Lee’s struggles and its relevance to our lives today. 1

In December 1977, KW Lee, a Korean immigrant and a reporter for Sacramento Union, first met Chol Soo Lee, a young Korean immigrant, at Deuel Vocational Institute (DVI) in Tracy, Calif. At the time, Chol Soo Lee was serving a life sentence at DVI for allegedly murdering a Chinatown gang advisor in San Francisco in 1973.(See “Chol Soo Lee—KW Lee Timeline”). Two months prior to their meeting, Chol Soo had fatally stabbed a neo-Nazi inmate, Morrison Needham, in a prison yard altercation at DVI. Though Chol Soo Lee claimed self-defense, he was tried and convicted of first-degree murder in the Needham killing. As a result of his second conviction on a first-degree murder charge, Chol Soo Lee was sentenced to the death penalty and transferred to San Quentin’s death row.