Death Row Transcript
- I'm 21 years old and it's very hard for me to understand that they wanna put me to death. I can't understand, I mean, when I first got here, I was, I was scared, I mean, I was so scared that I threw up at night, you know. I got so scared I would throw up and I couldn't eat. And they thought the reason I wasn't eating because I was trying to be a hardass. No, I was just scared, sick to death in my stomach. And when I would go out to shower, my legs would wobble, you know, 'cause of fright. I didn't know what to expect. And it's entirely different from a person who's on the street and he gets hit by a car because he didn't know that was gonna happen. But here you're told in advance you're gonna die. And every night you lay awake and you think about it. You say, "Wow, will it really happen?" And you say, "What will I do?" I mean, how will I react when the time comes? Will I go crazy, will I just, how would I react?
- Well, I've had the death pasted on me three different times and each time facing death wasn't no problem. It was up, then when you got the stay of execution, the kick back on it, that's what really hurt you. Oh, my last time I got within three days of my execution. What the biggest problem there, oh I was ready to go on, 'cause it wouldn't bother me a bit. Then I turned around, April come up, with a stay of execution. And that's what hurt, 'cause that put me in a state of shock. Far as that goes man, just lives and survives on death row.
- It's a pretty weird thing being in here and looking at everything going on and not really, not really knowing what, what really is going on because you stay in the darkness all the time. There's a spiritual darkness with it, the devil working on you at all times, trying to break you down, and be a human wreck or whatever. Something unreal. It's been kinda hard to forget about, thinking about how these people try you and coach and stuff. But if you want to live for the Lord Jesus Christ, you live for him for all the days, whatever. Gotta wonder. Off from the world, that's all I been trying to do, run off from it because ain't nobody that's good here. They're all out for the money, the big take. Joke a lot with the guys next to you in the cell, get tired of everything. Joking, get tired of everything I guess. But I'm not scared of death, it will come to everybody. Anybody with common sense knows that they're gonna run into death somewhere.
- Well, they don't let me keep no razor in this cell. They, they take them all out. They claim we're dangerous with a razor. Once you got everything in here if you could, you could do more damage well, than the razor here, it'd be a that mirror there. You could break it and do anything with it. It's just rules, you know, that they go by.
- My name is Ronnie D Hodges. I'm a correction officer for TDC. My primary job is security, as I'm presently working death row. My main job is, other than security, is to ensure that the inmates are fed on a timely basis. I pass out that utensils and pick them up. I count these utensils in and out, due to the fact that they can file them down and make weapons out of them. I myself think that death row is the safest place to work in this prison, due to the fact that each prisoner is locked in his own individual cell. He's not released for anything, with the exception of recreation, at which time we search each man individually, and we search them when they go on back in the cell.
- Please.
- 13.
- Man, you played most of them. That's all right, he'll be able to talk in a minute. He is getting ready. I wouldn't handle that anyway.
- Just play, don't worry about it.
- Oh, I might have one now.
- Just play and don't worry about it.
- He said, "I just wanna see "what these goddamn mutts look like." So we stopped and he was looking, and he said, "Whew," he said, "You know I seen all kind a dogs in my life," but he said, "I ain't ever seen no funny collar like that."
- [Prisoner] You know I asked him about it, don't you? He can suck my dick. I told him that, I asked around.
- I came here in August 26th, 1974. 4:00 one afternoon, arrived here. Came here, and the gloom looked, wasn't nothing on here, but just emptiness. One barber chair, two men out there in the hall. When we entered right out there I was warned not to speak out, be the -- or be loud or anything. If we did that, I'd have to pay the consequences. The consequences was then was all, it was a good beating because of the floor man that was here. However now it's different. I spent the first year on one row, next year, since then I've been on two row, and eight cell, and in the cell I'm in now. And it's been more or less, til the loneliness, I guess what you put on it. The biggest fear is when you walk on to this place, I've seen one man walk out through there and he stood right out there and broke down and cried. I've seen more come here and live three days and start praying. And I've seen them come in here and curse the day they was born because of fear. I've seen grown men come in here and get down and pray like kids and cry.
- I've been here two and a half years, I came here in 1976. I wasn't even expecting the death penalty when they brought me down here. I was convicted one day and brought the next. I was totally terrified, I did not know what to expect or where I was gonna be coming. Next thing I know, when they bring me in the door down here, I see the barber chair down there and thought I was seeing the electric chair, just about freaked my mind out.
- [Worker] Hello boss, could you rack two please?
- They don't want you to wear beards or mustache or anything. And the, the reason why that they want you to wear short hair is because they said, if your hair grow long you'll get bugs in it, and all this kind of stuff. but this is not true. People here shower every day. The doctor come around two, three times a day and at night. If a inmate got bugs, I'm sure he'd have enough sense to report it. The base is, the real reason why TDC don't want a person to look like himself is because they want you, to keep you in a frame of mind as being a kid.
- Now this is a piddling shock, I'm a state-approved trustee. I'm allowed to come up here and, and make leather goods and do my little old piddling here. You know, that's a pastime. Now that's one thing, at maximum security prisoners don't do that. That is, that is death row is maximum security. In other words, when you move, when that door opens you move one-on-one. One prisoner, one guard. So maximum security prisoners are not allowed this privilege. This is one of the rewards that you get for, for being a state-approved trustee. I started 1941, I came to prison 1941. And I've practically been in prison ever since. I'm a three-time loser, I'm doing two life sentences. I've been back since 1967, I've been back 12 years on this, on this sentence here. I was out on parole and I got another sentence and came back. You had, most generally if you've got the death penalty under the old law, you was an ex-convict, you had done a lot of time. You, they, they felt like that you couldn't be rehabilitated and that you needed to die. Under this law here it's the degree of, of the crime that you commit. So you get a different, you get a younger inmate now. And most of the old inmates that I had on death row, that I waited on and attended to, were people had did time before. They knew what prison was. They had, they had become used to prison. They knew what the rules were. So they, they were more adjusted when they came on the row. Then you had inmates down there that had been on the row 10, 12 years. Joe Smith, been on the row, I believe almost 10 or 12 years when I went down there. So they guide and direct those people, you know, in their thinking and their actions. So it was all together different. They, there wasn't any loud talking. You respected the man in the cell next to you. You held you voice down, you know, and there wasn't all that whooping and hollering and carrying on that they have now. You know, they were just more mature. You've got young inmates down there now.
- They cage me up like an animal. And whenever you get out of line, get, get your rights that they've taken away from you, try to get them back. They say, "Oh, you're acting like an animal," you know. Well, let me ask you this. What is human behavior under these conditions? I mean, what is normal for a man to react, when he's told he's gonna have to die-- when he's--when everything's taken from him, his life? Your mail's censored, they read your mail, they read. Take a visitor. They're standing over your shoulder. They know everything you're saying. You shower, they're watching you. At night, they're shining flashlights in your cell. You know, you never have a free moment. And I asked you, what is normal behavior? I mean, if whatever it is, I don't know it. All's I know is what's happening now, the present. And it's, it's a nightmare for me.
- So basically what you have is a man. You take him off the streets. He had his friends out there, his circle he associated in, he had his family. You bring him down here and lock him in one of these cells, you're taking his identity away. He doesn't have his friends around, he's just a nobody, just somebody anonymous. And he's found in a situation where he has to start all over, start in a new world and a whole different environment and situation, and a lot of them adjust to it, oh pretty well, and others don't adjust. They come from jails, you have your weaker ones in jail, they might've been messed around in jail, raped, taken advantage of in jail, and then when he comes down here and he brings those problems and those complexes with him. So when he gets here, in working here, you have to be able to deal with him. It's not just a matter of coming in, working eight hours, cleaning up and going back in. You have to come in, you have to wake up with them on your mind. Come in, if you're gonna deal with them you have to have it on your mind. You have to try to be aware of their problems. Have to be sensitive as to what's going on, try and figure out, you know, what's the matter with them or just what it is going on in their heads. 'Cause sitting in them cells is, they're in there 24 hours a day, and there's just no way you can tell what's going on inside of them. And a person, some of them retreat. One fellow in particular, he was raped in jail and messed over pretty bad. He come down here, come by, a person look at him wrong, he takes that as an aggressive act towards him. He won't come out to recreate or he won't talk to people. He's scared, he's paranoid. And you have to try and deal with him, and still try and be fair with him, and treat him like a individual, a human being.
- The word got down here, somehow the word got it on death row. Spread it around about what happened to me at the rehab center, and it's been a living hell ever since. The only thing I have is the TVs to watch, my soap operas I watch. I've been watching three soap operas for three years and one month now. And that's the only thing I care about since I don't, I can't recreate because some of these death row men wanna get to me. I have to stay in my cell for my protection. And the TVs and radio is the only thing I have for recreation or entertainment. And the rest, the majority of the time, they don't let, they don't let me watch anything I wanna watch on TV here. And it's just, I've snitched on a bunch of people here because they were doing, treating me like dirt and I wanted to get back at them. Stop them from, you know, being, you know, treating me, treating me so bad, I wanted to, it made me so mad I wanted to get back at them so I snitched on a few of them here. And now they all want to get even. Now they all want to get to me if they could. If I, if they execute me or if they put me out in population with a life sentence commute my death sentence to life, I'll die out in population because all these, all these enemies I have, what they've done to me, it's not my fault, it's their fault what they've done to me. They done that just to be mean and hateful, just to find, have something to do. And I won't live, I wouldn't live five minutes out there in population doing a life sentence or doing any other kind of time. I stay in my cell, 24 hours around the clock. The only time I come out of my cell is to shower and when I have a visit, that's the only safe time I have. The only time it's safe for me to come out of my cell. And that's bad, that's worse than dying. I'm living through hell here on death row.
- Our cell doors opened and we came out and started down the hall, and the man was only maybe five feet ahead of me, and I was closing that gap quickly while I was talking to another man. And as we walked closer and closer to the door to go into the recreation room, all of a sudden, I wasn't looking, but all of a sudden right in front of me, there was a commotion. And I saw another man being stabbed by another man that was supposed to be his friend, for no apparent reason. To this day, nobody knows why it happened or what caused it to happen. And I do not know, even know what was used, but I know that there was blood all over the place. And I was standing there in shock with my mouth open. I didn't have enough time to react, to get back out of the way or to get into the middle of it, trying to stop it. But the man that was attacked was cut in the neck and the arm and the side, and he was bleeding terribly, profusely.
- Death row, you ain't gonna find no ease on death row whatsoever. You cannot, a man can walk by my cell any time of the night, and I hear him when he comes and I hear him when he goes back, I never miss it. And you might've noticed my pillow at that end of the bunk, I got a reason for it, because I don't trust no one on these walkways. And all the old hands that's here, you probably see them sleeping at the other end too. 'Cause they hearing me and scream out at night. You hear them, , you hear them gagging and choking for breath. That's, that kind of, every bit of that is fear, man. That's, it's, it works on you every way.
- I, only place I can go is the shower and the shower is only about 10 feet from here. I don't never get out of this cell unless I get a visit. And this is a rare occurrence, it's not an everyday thing. I've changed so much far as physical appearance. I've lost so much weight in my face. My face, it looks unreal, you know. I, I look in the mirror and I see a face that's not mine. I say, "Where did that come from, is that mine?" And it is mine, but I don't recognize it.
- I've been here four years, a couple of months, few days now. And just sitting here has a tremendous effect upon one's age, mentally and physically. Like I talk to some of the fellows around here and I tell them I'm 28 years old and it's, I mean, it's almost impossible for them to believe. Being here on death row has a mental effect on one that the average person couldn't believe. And after so long, it has just totally, totally aged you 10, 15, 20 years beyond what your age is. And, once you're here on death row one it's just in limbo, you know? He doesn't know whether he'll see next month, next year, whatever, you know? it's always just, it's just steady wonder, you know.
- When he comes here from a judge, he's considered an outcast, all right? Then his people, first thing you know, his people start leaving him one by one. I'm not talking about his aunts and uncles, girlfriends, something like, I'm talking about his mother, father, sister, and brother. That's his people, even your children. Now I'm a father of five children. Every one of them left me and neither one of them writes. I got a boy finishing school this year. And then he comes down here and he reaches out to people, with no success. First thing he knows, he's down here and he takes life, it's what is worst, and he makes it any way he can. And he learns to hustle. This is a school more or less than anything else here, but it's a school for the criminal mind, not for the good man. A man sits out there and he learns how to connive people on the outside. Me up there, I can write one letter and get a ten dollar bill every time I write it. But with that, without that, he don't make it. If a man depending on solely what TDC got you here, he don't make it at all. TDC don't give you nothing. They say they give you towels, food, things like that. Sure they give you that, but what about your toothpaste, your toothbrushes, your hair cream, deodorant, things like that. You know, what a man really needs. Shoe polish, they don't give you shoe polish. You buy it. Things, like just the small things a man needs. Writing paper, envelopes, they don't give you that. And if you was, if a man was on the outside that may seem like nothing. But in here a writing tablet and 10 envelopes is worth a ten dollar bill to a man. That's right, even though they don't cost him but a dollar 60 cents for the envelopes and 60 cents for the writing tablet. But it's worth a ten dollar bill to him. A bag of coffee is valued to the man at a five dollar bill. He gives $1.75 for it. But on the outside people take it for granted. It's not, something like that, it's just a everyday thing. But here it's excecessity, a man needs it to survive. And without it, without these little things I just told you, you'll sit there in that cell and you'll crack completely up. I've seen men walk that cell up there and they'll get in their head and they'll run up there and grab them bars and shake it, and they scream out just to break the monotonous of that cell, in that cell.
- We have somebody flip out or get so mad or frustrated that something will happen every week, just about every day. Somebody'll get mad and yell. Somebody will get mad and just go screaming about the television. We have men here that sleep under blankets continuously, summer and winter, and they sweat all the time and they scream for the windows to be open. And the windows might be open. We have men that wake up in the middle of the night to start singing, or some men have something drawn on her wall, an outline of a man, and they start talking to it, scolding it and cussing it, beating it, and beating their legs, beating their bunk, just to get something, some motion or something in their life, you know, other than just sitting here. We've had men sit here on the floor and beat their head against the bunk till they're bloody. Had men try and cut themselves. We've had men that just couldn't tolerate it anymore, and nothing was actually happening to them, but that was the thing, the waiting. It's continuously having the same walls, the same bars, the same paper, same books, nothing changes. Only the outside, the light. We have day and then we have night. We have day and then we have night. The programs are almost always the same that, if anything comes on the TV. The mail runs at different times, but that makes things a little different. Meals run pretty much the same. One week it might come a little earlier, one week it'd come a little later. But the meals, the food hardly ever changes. Food is sickening to somebody that might be from the free world. But we here, we have to get used to it. Our stomachs, our systems get used to it.
- In one cell you may have a White guy with a Black guy next to him, and a Spanish guy on the other side from him. Well they, the black guy from Dallas, the white guy from San Antonio, they don't have much to talk about. There's not much in common. They come from different backgrounds, different cultures and families. They're gonna have either come to a mutual agreement or find something to talk about. A lot of guys or their children's been around, traveled a lot. They're gonna about army experiences or just rap in general about their cases. If not, a lot of them get books. They can order books from the outside. A few of them into Zen, a few of them take up religion. They get into the Bible. Others'll just sleep, you know. They get in a fantasy world, just cover their heads up and imagine, just pretend they're in the streets, or in a situation where it's the perfect world there for a minute. A man is not used to being locked up or confined, it's hard on him when he first comes in. You can see the fear on a lot of them. It's not just a fear of death row. A lot of them are young guys, just out of service or just out of high school. Confused about life, don't even know what life's about. Really haven't done any living. In one particular case, a fella out of Fort Worth, he come in, he'd been here a week, week and a half. And I come by his cell cleaning up, and he was just sitting there like he's seen a ghost. And I just started talking with him. He just come out and said, "Well man, I haven't even, "you know, slept all with a woman, you know, "down here on death row." Well, he was saying a lot. That he hadn't been anywhere, he hadn't done anything and hadn't really finished high school. Just got out, got into something, and before he's been able to be a man, or even know what life's about he's down here on death row. It's several guys like that. They'll sit and fall off into their world, or they'll just get involved in soap operas. These guys, they can tell you everything that happened in the soap operas, for all the soap operas from 12:30 on til 3:00.
- [Soap Actor] You know he says at the city council, somebody's really trying to railroad it through. Well, I think -- Wanna see my notes on it? That really wasn't a very pleasant trip for you, was it?
- No, I guess not.
- [Announcer] We will return for the second half of Days of Our Lives in just a moment.
- I found that in, since I've known the Lord that the worst vice that I have right now is cigarettes. But in a way it's used for my good also, because it takes a lot of my time to roll my cigarettes, which I roll on different days of the week, say Wednesday, I usually roll my cigarettes for the rest of the week. And that way I do my thinking and meditating on what, what I'm gonna do and what the Lord wants me to do.
- I take this here Marlboro pack, and I'm fixing to make a picture frame out of it. It's, you start with just a plain pack. You take all the accessories out of it and you open it up, right at the seam, and fold it, like straight across where it'll be even. We don't have anything sharp to cut them with, so we usually take a matchbox, wooden matchbox and use it to trim after we take, clipped in the edges like this. Then you take and fold it again. You get four different designs out of it by folding it four times. Look, here's an example of some of it here.
- One way I'm able to keep my sanity, and what I started doing when I first got here was picking up my pencil. I consider my pencil my best friend here. I started sketching, I started drawing. I started doing things that I used to do when I was much younger and in, out there in the free world. I used to love to draw and cartoon, and come up with funny little things. Jokes, I've always wanted to be, I like to find humor in things. I like, I prefer being happy. I like to see people happy, I like to see people laugh. I like to do things to make people laugh, to help them to laugh, not actually make them, but to help them. And I got into more cartooning and drawing, and it developed into cartooning to the point that people would see it and like it. And I was here for six months before I found out that I could send out business mail. And then I started mailing it to these magazines and I offered them to the magazines. Say, "If y'all like it and you want it, you can have it. "It's free, just if y'all like it." I started getting checks back. And since that time, my family has not sent me any money. And if I need anything, I take care of it because I'm making a living or I'm making money here to buy my own commissary. Mainly I draw horses, but I draw all types. But I draw mainly horses because I have such a love for horses. And I know horses have a personality, all animals have a personality and, and you always kinda wonder what goes on in their mind. Since I've been locked up, I've come to realize what it's like to be, possibly, if I was a horse, thinking, if I was locked in a stall like horses are stalled all the time, what would I be thinking if I was looking out over that door? And I related to that, that's, and I worked on that idea and I developed horses being restrained, or tied down, or are in a stall or, or having their feet worked on, or somebody having to take care of them like they couldn't take care of themselves. But it's a known fact that horses for centuries took care of themselves, and then suddenly they become owned by somebody and they end up being controlled and locked up and told what to do and what they can't do, and where they can go and what they can't go. And I have to kinda relate psychologically to these horses.
- The first couple of years that I was here, I worked crossword puzzles almost every day. And I finally got burned out on them and had to find something else to do with my time. And so one day I picked up a pencil and started to just do a little sketching and it turned out to be nice. So I kinda felt that I possibly had a little talent, and I started in with drawing, and I've been drawing for the last two years. I make greeting cards, and I've gotten off into doing portraits, larger paintings, scenes of birds in trees, and so forth. If, if there's anything good that's come out of receiving the death penalty, it's that I've discovered I have a little talent in art, so I can be thankful for that. 'Cause I haven't received anything since you was here yesterday.
- [Guard] Okay I know, but I've been gone ever since. I'll check it--
- Do something for me, man.
- [Guard] I will Ethan, I promise.
- All right, well do something. They're something else.
- I stopped these medical orderlies. They're just orderlies and I told them, I said, "Look, I haven't used the bathroom about, "almost three weeks," and he gave, he gives me a couple of pills. He said, "This will move you." Well I took them pills and it hurt my stomach, but I didn't move. I stopped in the next day and I told him, he gives me a couple more pills, I didn't move. So finally I just, you know, in order to get anything done down here, you've got to just really, you know, be down to earth, just push it. So I pushed until finally, you know, I went down there to see the doctor and, and I told him, and he gave me some Metamucil and it finally moved me. But all this time, I mean, I could have died and they didn't even care. I mean all this time it took me to get to the, this laxative, and they just kept giving me pills and long stories, and this and that.
- And the inmates here is on the, on death row. They, they don't differ really that much from the ones that are already out in population. Sometimes these, these inmates are a little more tense or they, well naturally they've got a little, they've got more problems, medical problems and other problems. They are a little more nervous sometimes. But that's, that's, that isn't on a day-to-day basis. I mean it's, it varies from different times, but as far as an inmate on death row, as far as them differing too much than the ones out in population, there aren't, there really aren't that much difference in the type patient that is up there. Now these, I say these patients, sometimes they're a little nervous or tense, more so than the ones that we have out in population. But as far as treating the two different type inmates, why there's not really that much difference in the two of them. Now on death row in particular, I make at least one round every day. I make a ward round up through the unit up there, through that death row unit. I make at least one round every day. I take with me pills and also prescriptions, which these people have had prescriptions written prior. And I take a little pill box with me that has different kinds of pills in it, the aspirins and APCs and et cetera. And I go through it and I interview and I talk with every inmate in each different cell. I talk with each one of them. Whatever their ill might be, I'll try to treat them up there. And if it's something that I can't treat, why then I in turn come back, I get the man's, or the inmate's name, and come back and refer them to their doctor. And then we make an appointment for them, and then my doctor would go up and examine these patients. But the load box I carry around, I'd say it's got a routine medication in it. If I go up there and if it's something I can treat, I treat these patients right on the spot without them having to come out of the, their cell.
- My name is James Russell. I'm an inmate on death row, my number is 579. I've been on death row since November, 1977. Since that time I have had problems with the dentist department and trying to have dentures. I have two teeth missing in front, and I desire to have those two teeth replaced, but the department, dentist department, as well as TDC has refused to give me dentures. So what I've did is made me a set of teeth, not to eat or to speak with, but to keep my upper lip from falling inwards. So you can't eat with them, at least I can't, but they are more or less a support to keep my upper lip from falling inwards. At night, just before I go to, just before I go to sleep I put them in. It made out of a piece of plastic, out of a plastic cigarette pack. And the way I would put them in at night, something like this. ♪ It's a Barnum and Bailey world ♪ ♪ Just as simple as it can be ♪ ♪ But it wouldn't be make-believe ♪ ♪ If you believe in me ♪ The teeth, you can't talk with them because they'll not sit in your mouth. They won't sit, but they do help with keeping my lip from falling in. Now, something as simple as a pair of teeth, I don't see why the TDC would deny any inmate some teeth to eat with. And the reasons why I want them is to eat with, and while, when I speak, I can be understood without this hissing sound that you get from teeth being missing, and to keep my upper lip from falling inwards. But TDC has constantly refused to give me a simple set of teeth. They say, "Well you don't need no teeth, "you're gonna die anyway," you know. And he don't know this for a fact, unless'n he know now in advance, what's going to happen. how the courts are gonna rule. I've got a lawsuit filed in court, and so far I have did a lot of legal research and I haven't found any law that supports TDC position that would cause them to legally deny me teeth. The way I do my legal research, I usually take Texas Digest and, I look up under the medical treatment for prisoners and stuff like this. And once I find the law that supports my position, then I looks it up in a law book. And once I find it, then I try to find some law that would support TDC position. But so far I haven't found any law case, law statutes, anything, anywhere, that would support TDC's position in denying me teeth.
- Alleged to have been committed in Harris County, Texas and any person got assaulted by violence or by putting in fear of life and bodily injury. They got a lot of words in there.
- [Jack] Yeah.
- [Prisoner] Any unlawful violence performed by a person.
- I'm in here for capital murder and robbery out of Houston, Texas. I spend a great deal of my time in my cell working on my case and conviction, down here on me. And I have to put most of my time getting help from other inmates because of lack of education, not being able to recognize what I'm doing. And we have to send off to these law libraries, which to get records, it's on the docket up there. Which we don't have, the courts won't issue them to us. And this state law library here, which this is a form letter from them, that only charges us a nickel a copy for these letters and the legal forms that we need. And they try to help out as much as possible. Of course it's slow, because we're not paying them a great deal of money, but they do volunteer to do this. Now, the courts out of Harris County, that I have ordered some indictments, old indictments, I only wanted two of them and they had charged me $2 a piece for these indictments. Well, if a man don't have the money, you know, there's no way I can get these indictments.
- Having a good lawyer and being indignant, to start with, you find yourself in jail, charged with a capital offense. You go down for your hearing. The district attorney files notice for the death penalty. The judge appoints you a lawyer. Maybe you'll go three, four, five, six, seven weeks and you'll never see the lawyer. And you really don't have any defense prepared when you go to court. If you've got a lawyer, if you're paying a lawyer, of course you're paying him to represent you, and he does represent you. He hires investigators to go out and investigate the things you tell him. He spends some of that money in preparing your defense. He don't just take the money, and put it all in his pocket. And the tougher case you got, the more investigation, the more money it costs you, naturally. The poor segment of society has always been the one that went to the chair. The rich man didn't ever do go to the electric chair.
- Now many men here are just, have court-appointed lawyers. They don't even have the money to hire somebody just to defend them in the first case, let alone their appeals and on from there, fighting for their life. Many men such as myself don't, don't deserve to be here. We're no more a continuing threat than Mickey Mouse, but we were considered to be some kind of animal, and make it, it's continuously that pressure on us. We have not the money to get the lawyers. Now there's men here that families, had homes, before this happened to them. They had homes, they had property, they had land, they had stocks, they had bonds. They have that no longer, they're living in apartments while they're trying to get their sons off of death row. Just to get them into, to where they're serving life or get it, to prove their innocence, to get them out of here. I'm not saying that everybody here is innocent or meek as a lamb, but there are many men here that are, that don't deserve what they've gotten. They're here because of politics, because of the DAs wanted to get reelected. The sheriff wanted to get reelected. It's many things that happen in the corridors that the public do not know about. People do not realize that it can happen to them, until it does.
- The death penalty don't affect me that much. I'm not worried about, about being executed. The only time it really bothers me, is I get depressed sometimes because of the mail situation, or I get depressed when I see my parents suffering because of this crime that I was involved in, and the death penalty that I'm sentenced to. I'm punishing my people, 'cause the court's punishing me, and that's not right. They, they haven't violated any laws, but they have to be put through all of this because I violated the law. This just wait and waiting and waiting. They have, the courts have plenty of patience because they go home at night, they see their kids. Somebody doing a five-year sentence, or 10 years, or even a life sentence in Texas, they know that the man is gonna come home. He has a chance of making parole. But they have no idea in, for the death penalty. We might be executed. They start executing, it could could just snowball and everybody would go faster and faster. But we don't know. Maybe they won't, maybe they will. The executions could start next month or they could start next year or they just won't start at all. But we have no idea of knowing, just waiting day after day, seeing the pain it puts your people through to, to have to see you wait. I can wait, I think I can wait here for 10 years and be all right, but the pain it's putting my people through makes me wanna do something about it, and there's nothing I can do, just sit here and wait.
- It's just, it's once you come here, you lose everything. That's my opinion of it.
- It's in every man's mind. We know that we're gonna get out of here one way or the other. Either we're gonna walk away free, we're gonna walk away into population to serve a life term or some sort of time, or we're going to leave here feet first in a box.
- All of it's hard to me, you know. It's just all hard and nothing-- Just being away from life is hard.
- This place here is a nightmare and you don't never wake up, you know? You keep hoping you'll wake up, but you don't.
- I'd like to just comment on the present-day situation in the world, as far as what's happening in Asia, Iran to be exact. I believe that any time that the real issue of religion via politics are come into being. It had to be one based on separations. Separation, and understanding just what it means to go by the book, or the Quran, the holy Quran for, for this book is inspired so that man could get some kind of insight as to the existence of being religious. As far as the, the conditions in the situation, I'm not going to philosophize, because it's not my belief, but I will contend that whatever happens in Iran, we are so concerned about it and in spite of that we somehow never had some impetus into the total outcome. Obviously Iran understood the people of America, the United States government of America is one based on the creed of ethnic purity. We run into contradictions and disagreements, but it's our, just our form of politics. When it come down to, spreading love and joy all over the world, I'd like to stay happy, and be happy that you all can come to understand that, our own way of doing things, and it would be in conflict with you if you're not welcome. But we would like to spread concern to the whole wide world. People in China, red China, people that's in Taiwan, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Russia, Europe, Finland, Denmark, Britain, Great Britain, France, Russia, Cuba, Africa, South Africa, West Africa, or wherever there is potential of, of insecurities and violations of human rights. We are concerned because it is our, somewhat background to have some, some, say as far as the outcome in case of injustice based on what, the attempt to convey an all-institutionalized concept and idea based on one of separatism, if you're understanding the real language that has been, been spoken.
