Jan. 21
USA:
BOOKS: Love, life and death on Execution Row
Writing for Their Lives: Death Row USA
edited by Marie Mulvey Roberts
University of Illinois Press, $19.95
IF I had nothing more to do each day than consider matters of life and
death and all that happened in between from the confines of an 8ft x 8ft
cell then I'd probably be a much better writer. I'd probably also go
insane and hope to die before someone else killed me. The madness of death
row in the USA is described in graphic detail in this collection of
testimonies, short stories and poems. In addition to contributions from
prisoners, included are accounts from people employed in the business of
killing: defence lawyers, psychiatrists, spiritual advisers, abolitionists
and executioners.
The journey to a horrific and excruciating death is documented from a
capital trial to the point of execution through the testimony of the
prisoners themselves and those who love, watch, listen and write to them.
It is an uncomfortable journey, however far removed you may be from the
ultimate destination when you embark on it.
Whether it is the careless humiliations heaped upon Martin Draughton's
elderly and infirm mother by his jailers when she comes to visit him on
death row in Texas, or the complicity of the guards in allowing a violent
assault on Michael Ross, a serial killer from Connecticut, by another
(non-death row) prisoner, conditions on death row mean it is nothing short
of miraculous that residents make it to the death chamber at all.
When they do, prisoners can expect to be gassed, injected with a lethal
cocktail of drugs that shuts down the vital organs one by one, a process
that can take up to half an hour to complete, or electrocution, depending
on which state condemned them to die in the first place. In many states
death row prisoners are not allowed any form of socialisation with each
other and some are even denied their choice of spiritual adviser if they
do not practice a recognised, sanctioned religion.
Most moving, inevitably, are the testimonies of the prisoners themselves.
Most do not question either their guilt or their fate, accepting their lot
with resignation. It is a tragic expectation of American life that if you
are poor or black or both then this is the way things have always been.
It is the accounts from those in a position to effect change that carry
the most weight. These include an account from former Illinois governor
George Ryan, who became so concerned about miscarriages of justice on his
watch that he took the unprecedented step of commuting the death sentences
of all death row prisoners to life imprisonment.
For anyone brave enough to wonder what being killed by the state entails,
Erika Trueman details the final hours leading up to the execution of her
friend Ignacio Ortiz. In stark prose she takes you inside the prison,
allowing you to wait those excrutiating final hours with her before being
taken to the death chamber.
"The curtain opened and we saw Ignacio. He was already strapped onto the
gurney, with a white sheet covering him up to his neck. We could not see
the straps that held him, nor could we see the needles they had inserted
ready for the poison to flow. Ignacio lay still. His eyes shut and head
towards the ceiling. An officer announced that there was no stay [of
execution]. The microphone was switched off and the officer walked out
without looking at the man waiting to die. Ignacio's head and chest heave
up once as if he was choking. He breathes twice more, and lies still, his
mouth slightly open. An officer came in and announced: 'Death at 3.05pm.'
It was as if the man on the gurney did not exist, as if he had already
gone, left his humanity behind like an old coat that one can just take off
or put on as one pleases."
Very few books have the power to change the world. This book is unlikely
to be the exception. And for that we should all be very sorry indeed.
(source: Tribune Magazine; Cary Gee)
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