Reviews
The Death Game, by Mike Gray
The struggle continues! Both for advocates of fair alternatives to
the death penalty and for authors and publishers of studies on that struggle.
Mike Gray’s The Death Game is finally available, after months of
financial delay caused by the inconsideration (greed) of the fifth largest
U.S. bank (Bank One) against Common Courage Press’ distributor.
But the wait is well worth it. The Death Game is a captivating read.
Based on recent events this book shows how the rush to charge, prosecute,
and execute is entangled with career goals of police, prosecutors, judges,
and politicians. Will Illinois Governor George Ryan be a pivotal figure
in the history of this struggle? Will Roger Coleman’s execution bring
Virginia into pivotal focus in the national realization that justice and
capital punishment don’t mix? Read this book!
Everett Heath
Don’t Kill in Our Names, by Rachel King
Don’t Kill in Our Names presents a collection of painfully honest
and detailed accounts from people who have lost a family member through
murder, who have opposed and continue to oppose the imposition of the death
penalty.
From the introduction, King is frank about the purpose and nature of this
book. In order to put across the most persuasive argument against
the death penalty, she deliberately focuses on murder cases that are not
common. Stranger homicides, the ones most used in this book, account
for only 14% of all murders in the U.S.
However, any charge that this book is manipulative abolitionist propaganda
is washed away by the full and candid nature of the experiences that are
recounted here. In each chapter King gives the reader the opportunity to
hear about the family members’ pain and journey to forgiveness in their own
words, often spending a large amount of time on specific and physical details
of the murder that would not be out of place in a prosecutor’s closing statement.
The opening chapter, “The Lost Child,” gives voice to Marietta Jaeger’s
feelings of torment during the period that her seven-year-old daughter had
been kidnapped, when she did not know whether she was alive or dead.
The reader knows that Susie has been killed but is forced to engage in the
pain felt by Marietta and her family. This highlights the full spectrum
of emotions that are present in a potential capital case but are often bypassed
by both sides of the death penalty debate. By including this raw emotion,
including anger and vengeance, King also gives credibility to the forgiveness
shown by the family members. There is no room for the rebuttal that
family members somehow didn’t love the victim or that their actions were
in fact a denial or repression of feelings.
King also goes to lengths to highlight how other family members, and also
the state that prosecuted those responsible, have repeatedly excluded these
individuals. She points to one example where Ron Carlson, the brother of
murdered Debbie Thornton, writes to then Texas Governor Bush and pleads for
the life of his sister’s killer to be spared. Carlson receives a standard
letter from an aide, with only the phrase “I understand this matter is of
great concern to you and your family” distinguishing it from others routinely
sent out.
These incidents illustrate how the imposition of the death penalty is just
that, an imposition by the state on both the convicted and on the family
of those struggling to cope with the loss of a loved one. All here attack
the notion of closure and finality that the death penalty is supposed to
bring, and instead promote forgiveness as a lasting way to deal positively
with the ongoing pain resulting from the loss of a loved one. Family
members reinforce the notion that the pursuance of the death penalty does
not benefit the families of murder victims; any correlation in sentiment
between the prosecutor and family is all too often coincidental.
King has given a voice to a vital section of the death penalty debate,
and this book should be required reading for both sides.
Ben Soesman
Welcome to Hell: Letters and Writings from Death Row, edited
by Jan Arriens
This book aims to give a voice to the voiceless, the condemned men and
women in America living on death row. It grew out of the BBC production
and broadcast of the documentary film Fourteen Days in May, which
is about the execution of Edward Johnson by Mississippi officials on May
20, 1987. The film provoked great uproar in Britain regarding the execution
itself and also the conditions on death row. This led to the formation of
the pen pal organization LifeLines; the correspondence between these letter
writers and those on death row forms the substance of the book.
In the “Foreword” to the book, Sister Helen Prejean asks: "Who wants a
guided tour into hell...Why would anyone in their right mind want to descend
into the hellish experience of death row inmates awaiting execution?"
She answers that it is because we want to expand our understanding, as well
as our humanness.
Many on death row are abandoned by their family and friends and have very
little, if any, contact with the outside world. Consequently, letters can
be a very real lifeline to them. Ronald Spivey on death row in Georgia
says that condemned prisoners are emotionally handicapped people with "an
overload of guilt" and "absolutely no sense of self-worth." Spivey
also tells us that: “…We are killing the weaker of the species.”
Walter Correll on Virginia's death row notes that it does not matter if
a person is guilty or not. The courts are only interested if "they got
a fair trial to begin with." This reminds me of the statement of former
Virginia Attorney General Mary Sue Terry who said, "[e]vidence of innocence
is irrelevant," in response to the appeal of Roger Coleman, who was later
executed.
The main strength of Welcome to Hell is that it tells, in prisoner’s
own words, of the lack of medical care, of the searing temperatures in the
summer and of the freezing winters, of the everyday degrading and depraved
existence of living on the row, and of the denial of access to legal information.
In short, the book shows the humanity within those who have been deemed
subhuman, and each story is a painful testament to that fact.
Prisoners in Texas say when tour groups are brought onto the row, which
can be often, "you feel like an animal on display." You are forbidden
to say anything to them and will be punished if you do, which of course the
visitors do not know. Once when a warden was asked why none of the prisoners
were talking, he answered that they don't have the guts to face the public
because of what they did which brought them to death row.
Some respond to their hellish conditions with insanity, violence, or suicide.
Some ask officials to give them Thorazine and can be seen doing the mummy-like
"Thorazine shuffle.” Some try to develop humor or a sense of camaraderie
(both of which prison officials are constantly trying to eliminate).
Some find drugs or alcohol for escape.
The book also explains the downside of correspondence with those on death
row. Some prisoners are angry, disturbed, manipulative, or unreasonable,
making correspondence impossible. Because of their great loneliness and deprivation
it is not surprising for prisoners to develop strong romantic attachments.
Female correspondents need to set firm boundaries for friendship if they
do not want to engage in the prisoner's fantasy world through sexual letters.
Prisoner Michael Lambrix does an excellent summary job of describing death
row: "It is not enough to condemn us...we must first be stripped of our
humanity before being deprived of our life.”
In my opinion from what is said in this book, "la crème de la crème"
of the hell comes when a prisoner is about to be executed. Not only does
the condemned prisoner think, feel, and know this terror and hopelessness
directly, but so do each of the remaining prisoners on the row, as well as
the condemned's family and friends. A Mississippi prisoner writes, "The depths
of depravity and cruelty that people who wield power can knowingly and willingly
descend to are unbelievable."
Bill Menza
The Exonerated
At the first New York City play that I’ve seen in far too long, it was
surprising – and gratifying – to see mentioned as a project donor in the
playbill one of my favorite local/state organizations: Virginians
for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. (VADP had been consulted and
had provided information.)
The play was The Exonerated, which is playing to sold-out audiences
in its off-Broadway venue. Some of you may have seen the production
put on in Charlottesville by VADP several years ago. Actually, The
Exonerated is more a reading than a play – a powerful reading. In New
York City, every several weeks different well-known film or stage personalities
appear as readers. The playwrites interviewed 20 people in person and
40 people by telephone who had served anywhere from two to 22 years on death
row. The readings are based on six of these interviews, as well as
on an exhaustive search of pertinent public records.
You learn what it can feel like to be innocent and on death row and how
relationships with loved ones can be affected. For example, one fellow
later found innocent was on death row for murdering his parents. In
another reading, you learn of a woman and her husband who were both on death
row for a crime they did not commit. The husband is executed for the
crime; until she is exonerated, the woman is separated from her two young
children. By 2000, 89 people had been exonerated from death row; today,
the number is 108.
The Exonerated is an eye-opening experience.
Betty Black