Death Row Inmate Quotes

Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.

The window is the reason the death row inmates go to the visiting room to see their lawyers and investigators. The lawyers think their clients want to see them. No, they want to see the window.

Nobody knew anyone else’s private world. In the end, they were all alone as inmates on death row, side by side. Sometimes you could get a look at one another with a little pocket mirror, cell to cell, but that was all.

grief. The first is anticipatory. This is hospice grief. Prognostic grief. This is the grief that comes when you drive your dog to the vet for the very last time. This is the death row inmate’s family’s grief. See that pain in the distance? It’s on its way. This is the grief that it is somewhat possible to prepare for. You finish all business. You come to terms. Goodbyes are said and said again. Anguish stalks the chambers of your heart and you steel yourself for the impending presence of an everlasting absence. This grief is an instrument of torture. It squeezes and pulls and presses down. Grief that follows an immediate loss comes on like a stab wound. This is the second kind of grief. It is a cutting pain and it is always a surprise. You never see it coming. It is a grief that can’t be

imagine what death would feel like, they mostly described sadness, fear, and anxiety. But their studies of terminally ill patients and death row inmates found that those actually facing death are more likely to speak of meaning, connection, and love. As the researchers concluded: “Meeting the grim reaper may not be as grim as it seems.

Death row is a place for broken people just like Tom Hanks. They can't be fixed, warped all out of shape by the cracks and splinters inside them. And what else can you do with stuff that's broken except throw it in the trash? Right?

You think I eat a lot now? That’s nothing. Tune in December 31st, when I will stream a live webcast of my last meal. Death row inmates get one. Why shouldn’t I? I can’t take another year in this fat suit, but I can end this year with a bang. If you can stomach it, you’re invited to watch . . . as I eat myself to death. —Butter

We had a genuine love for each other, and we loved being around each other, and in the gang was where I felt love. Troit Lynes, former death row inmate of Her Majesty Prison

I asked Troit, ‘What was it about the gang leaders that made you want to be more like them?’ Troit answered, ‘To be truthful, I used to feel good in their presence. I used to feel wanted in their presence. I used to feel appreciated in their presence. In their presence, you can sit down and talk and you can feel that they appreciate you. Troit Lynes, former death row inmate of Her Majesty Prison in The Bahamas

At this very moment we are breathing the same air that once was Marco Polo’s last breath. And we’re also breathing the same air that was Mozart’s first breath as a baby. you’re also breathing air that’s probably been queefed by Mata Hari, Cleopatra and Marilyn Monroe, which either way you look at it is pretty cool. So, while we’re breathing in the same molecules as Jesus, we’re also breathing in the same air as Pontius Pilot, Attila the Hun and an inmate on Death Row in San Quentin State Prison. We are linked to every other life form that has ever been on this planet because we literally breathe the same air.

More inmates died of suicide than the needle on death row in California.

Y'know, I heard once that Washington's the only state in the union with an active gallows." "It's true," I said. "Death-row inmates can choose between that and lethal injection." "The needle or the noose,

Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist and founder of the National Institute for Play, says that we are hardwired to play and that to neglect our natural playful impulses can be as dangerous as avoiding sleep. Dr. Brown studied Death Row inmates and serial killers and found that nearly all of them had childhoods that lacked normal play patterns. He says the opposite of play is not work, it is depression, so play might well be considered a survival skill. Risky,

When I went to prison and came out, it was like another stripe being added to my shoulder—another notch of respect on my belt. On the streets, you cannot get a name until you do something. You have to prove who you are by doing something outrageous, like shooting someone from a rival gang. It allowed others to see what type of person you were, and established the fact that you were ready for anything. Back in the day, what we were looking for was for someone to have our backs. So every time I did something and was recognized for what I did, it gave me more nerves to continue. After the deed was all said and done, and we were hanging on the blocks, everyone is praising you and talking about what you did. You all should have been there. You should have seen how Taco rushed up on that fella and dealt with him. Those praises were like drugs that eventually poison the mind, and gave you more inspiration to do things to have more people talking about you. People recognizing you as one who isn’t scared, one who is ready to do whatever is needed. No one ever wants to go to prison. I never wanted to go to prison. I just wanted to be recognized as one willing and ready for a battle anytime. Troit Lynes, former death row inmate of Her Majesty Prison in the Bahamas

A few years after you disappeared, a postal worker named Ben Carver was sentenced to death for murdering six young men. (He is a homosexual, which, according to Huckleberry, means he is not attracted to murdering young women.) Rumors have it that Carver cannibalized some of his victims, but there was never a trial, so the more salacious details were not made public. I found Carver’s name in the sheriff’s file ten months ago, the fifth anniversary of your disappearance. The letter was written on Georgia Department of Corrections stationery and signed by the warden. He was informing the sheriff that Ben Carver, a death row inmate, had mentioned to one of the prison guards that he might have some information pertaining to your disappearance.

The movement actually managed to succeed in lobbying for the passage of involuntary sterilization laws in thirty American states. This meant that the state could neuter people who fell below a particular IQ without their having any say in the matter. That each state eventually repealed the laws is a testament to common sense and compassion. That the laws existed in the first place is a frightening indication of how dangerously limited any standardized test is in calculating intelligence and the capacity to contribute to society. IQ tests can even be a matter of life and death. A criminal who commits a capital offense is not subject to the death penalty if his IQ is below seventy. However, IQ scores regularly rise over the course of a generation (by as much as twenty-five points), causing the scale to be reset every fifteen to twenty years to maintain a mean score of one hundred. Therefore, someone who commits a capital offense may be more likely to be put to death at the beginning of a cycle than at the end. That’s giving a single test an awful lot of responsibility. People can also improve their scores through study and practice. I read a case recently about a death row inmate who’d at that point spent ten years in jail on a life sentence (he wasn’t the trigger man, but he’d been involved in a robbery where someone died). During his incarceration, he took a series of courses. When retested, his IQ had risen more than ten points—suddenly making him eligible for execution.

80 percent of death row inmates in the U.S. are products of the juvenile justice system.

God Listens I cry out to the LORD; I pray to the LORD for mercy. Psalm 142:1 You can talk to God because God listens. Your voice matters in heaven. He takes you very seriously. When you enter his presence, he turns to you to hear your voice. No need to fear that you will be ignored. Even if you stammer or stumble, even if what you have to say impresses no one, it impresses God, and he listens. He listens to the painful plea of the elderly in the rest home. He listens to the gruff confession of the death-row inmate. When the alcoholic begs for mercy, when the spouse seeks guidance, when the businessman steps off the street into the chapel, God listens. Intently. Carefully.

When Big Pete first arrived here at Salton’s death row, everyone said to me, “Yo, B! (my name’s Brian, but that ain’t so cool, so all my brothers calls me “B” instead) What’s it like being Big Pete’s cellie?  You scared he gonna kill you in your sleep?”  I just smiled and let them guess.  It gave me some respect with the other inmates that I was a brother sharing a cell with the big, white, killing machine—and was still alive every morning.  But they didn’t know Big Pete like I do.  And I’m sure gonna miss him when he’s gone.

I would hear them say on the radio, that we need to hang them once they have been convicted for murder. I don’t think that some of them should have ever reached that stage. If we had prevented them from going on death row, it would not be a discussion about hanging them. Supt. Allerdyce Strachan, the first female officer to rise to the rank of superintendent on the Royal Bahamas Police Force.

Everyone who I called my friends, persons who I used to hang out with, these were the individuals who formed and made up the gang known as the Rebellion Raiders. So when the gang was formed I was automatically a part of it, because it was formed by my friends. I didn’t have to go out and join the gang. Troit Lynes, former death row inmate of Her Majesty Prison in the Bahamas

The leaders at that time believed so much in protecting the name and the reputation of the gang, that I along with one or two other individuals who were still in school who were trusted, responsible, and ready were given weapons to take to school to make sure that if anything arises, the matter would be dealt with properly. They made sure that even if their presence were not there during a fight, we were in a position to properly defend ourselves. Troit Lynes, former death row inmate of Her Majesty Prison

I would hear them say on the radio, that we need to hang them once they have been convicted for murder. I don’t think that some of them should have ever reached that stage. If we had prevented them from going on death row, it would not be a discussion about hanging them. Supt. Allerdyce Strachan, the first female officer to rise to the rank of superintendent on the Royal Bahamas Police Force. Hanging, death-row-inmates, crime prevention, gang intervention, talk shows, youth outreach, youth programs, convicted murderers, community policing, law enforcement, gang prevention, community outreach, at-risk-youth, police officers, convicted-for-murder, Rebellion Raiders, I would hear them say on the radio, that we need to hang them once they have been convicted for murder. I don’t think that some of them should have ever reached that stage. If we had prevented them from going on death row, it would not be a discussion about hanging them. Supt. Allerdyce Strachan, the first female officer to rise to the rank of superintendent on the Royal Bahamas Police Force.

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.

Poetry and Death Row [10w] Write poetry with the urgency of a death row inmate.

There are no mental health services offered to Death Row inmates. For whatever healing is done they themselves must be the healers.

According to the California Penal Code, prisoners have the legal right to marry. The prison approved Richard’s marriage, and his and Doreen’s names were added to the list of ten inmates marrying that day, three from death row. It was quickly pointed out to a curious journalist by San Quentin’s public relations department that prisoners on death row do not have the right to conjugal visits.

Richard was handed over to heavily armed, grim-faced San Quentin officials. He was put in the A/C block, known as Reception. His prison number was E37101. All prisoners—except death row inmates—were kept in Reception while they were evaluated and it was decided where they would do their actual time. Richard still had the Pan assault and murder charges against him, and until that case had been adjudicated, he would not be moved to E block after his obligatory three-month stay in Reception. He would, after evaluation, be transferred to the San Francisco County Jail, to be closer to court for hearings and motions on the Pan matter. Lawyers from the San Francisco public defender’s office would be representing Richard in the Pan incident. Richard was put in another six-by-eight-foot cell with an aluminum toilet, a sink, and a bunk bed. Prisoners in reception did not have access to phones, and their visits were for only two hours a week. In E block, the inmates were allowed twenty-four hours a week for visits, and Reception inmates were kept in the cell nearly twenty-four hours a day. Richard was assigned cell number 3AC8.

The upshot was that there wasn’t much difference between the final food requests of death row inmates and what Americans normally eat. If we continue to eat as though we are having our last meals, eventually, they will be.

Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.

Although victims do not always become perpetrators, a truism repeated by prosecutors at sentencing, as if it were a profound revelation never before put into words, it is the rare serious perpetrator who was not also a victim. . . . It is the rare death row inmate whose life does not read like a case study of extreme deprivation and abuse. It is the rare juvenile incarcerated in an adult prison for rape or murder who has had anything other than the cruelest of childhoods.

Here is a true story. A sixteen-year-old prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp was raped by a guard. Knowing that any prisoner who appeared without a cap on morning parade was immediately shot, the guard stole his victim’s cap. The victim once shot, the rape could not be uncovered. The prisoner knew that his only chance of life was to find a cap. So he stole the cap of another camp inmate, asleep in bed, and lived to tell the tale. The other prisoner was shot. Roman Frister, the prisoner who stole the cap, describes the death of his fellow inmate as follows: The officer and the kapo walked down the lines.… I counted the seconds as they counted the prisoners. I wanted it to be over. They were up to row four. The capless man didn’t beg for his life. We all knew the rules of the game, the killers and the killed alike. There was no need for words. The shot rang out without warning. There was a short, dry, echoless thud. One bullet to the brain. They always shot you in the back of the skull. There was a war on. Ammunition had to be used sparingly. I didn’t want to know who the man was. I was delighted to be alive. What does morality say the young prisoner ought to have done? It says that human life has no price. Very well. Should he therefore have consented to lose his life? Or does the pricelessness of life mean that he was justified in doing anything to save his own? Morality is supposed to be universal and categorical. But the lesson of Roman Frister’s story is that it is a convenience, to be relied upon only in normal times.

Kathleen: “Send them all my love and best wishes for happiness.” Jimmy Dennis: “I’m gonna do that, and you’re gonna keep getting better, alright? I can’t tell you how good it is to hear your voice again”. Kathleen: (trying hard not to cry) “Jimmy, you take care.” Jimmy: “You too, Kitty. Hey Andrew, you’re writing a book about someone who changed the legal game. She set precedents that are in place today going forward, but what’s most rare about Kitty Behan is she sees another person as a person. Most people see others in terms of what they can do for you. Kitty saved my life by seeing me as I am, and you quote me on that.

If you believe everything an inmate says in his last statement, then Texas has put hundreds of innocent men to death.

Everyone is probably familiar with the story about the new guy in prison on death row. The first day he’s locked up, another inmate yells out, “Twenty-four!” Everyone on death row breaks up laughing. A little time goes by and another prisoner shouts, “Seventeen!” Again, everyone cracks up. The new guy asks another inmate, “What is that?” The inmate says, “They are telling jokes. We all know the joke, so they just give the punch line.” The new guy says, “Let me try. Twenty-nine!” Nothing happens. The inmate says, “See, some people can tell jokes and some people can’t.