Texas: Many death row prisoners want to apologize, Canadian study finds

Wilfred Laurier University researcher Judy Eaton, who was part of a panel discussion at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences conference in Toronto Wednesday, concluded in a study that nearly 1/3 of death row inmates made sincere apologies for their crimes.

When Canadian researcher Judy Eaton set out to study the human yearning to apologize she turned her sights to Texas’s death row.

In the final minutes before execution, condemned prisoners have no realistic hope of changing their fate and nothing practical to gain from telling victims they are sorry.

Yet many do.

In what is believed to be the first study of apologies in such a setting, Eaton, an associate professor of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Brantford campus, along with criminology student Anna Theuer, analyzed the last statements of 305 inmates executed by Texas between 1982 and 2007.

Nearly a third spontaneously apologized for their crimes and showed signs of true repentance, such as taking responsibility for their actions and expressions of empathy.

The results were presented Wednesday at a meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in Toronto.

While previous research on apologies focused on people with their lives ahead of them, the prisoners who apologized before being put to death in Texas could do nothing more to affect their sentence or gain leniency.

This doesn’t mean their apologies were all sincere, Eaton acknowledges, and it doesn’t discount the possibility inmates were apologizing to make themselves feel better or because of religious beliefs about being judged in an afterlife.

But it does reduce the possibility they offered regrets for purely manipulative reasons and also dispels the image of death row inmates as largely unrepentant and in denial about guilt, she said.

With research already confirming victims want and benefit from apologies, the results of the Texas study also suggest that criminal justice systems should devote more attention to ensuring offenders can provide them, Eaton said.

“The general take-home message is they (offenders) do want to apologize and victims do tend to want apologies,” she said in an interview. “So, clearly the apology needs to be considered in the criminal justice system."

In some ways, Canada has already taken the lead, Eaton said, with restorative justice programs as well as legislation in three provinces, including Ontario, which allows people to offer apologies without admitting legal liability.

In introducing the legislation three years ago, Attorney General Chris Bentley said the absence of an apology can lead to bitter and protracted litigation when people are wronged.

Wrongly convicted Canadians have also sought apologies from the courts and Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized on behalf of Canadians in 2008 to former students of Indian Residential Schools.

But unlike Britain and Australia, the federal government hasn’t apologized for an early 20th century migration scheme that brought thousands of children to Canada as indentured labour.

University of Central Florida researcher Timothy Colyer, who also spoke at the Toronto conference, argues death row offenders may adopt a deferential tone in their final statements because they’re trying to cling to whatever thread of dignity they have and because they fell into a habit of showing respect to prison staff to receive humane treatment.

Dead Men Talking

Canadians Judy Eaton and Anna Theuer analyzed the last statements of executed offenders, which are published on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website.

Their work was funded by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Here’s what some prisoners said:

Richard Dinkins, executed Jan 29, 2003

“If there were any way I could change things and bring them back I would."

Keith Clay, executed March 20, 2003

“I know you have suffered a great loss."

Douglas Roberts, executed April 20, 2005 (coded in the study as insincere)

“Okay, I’ve been hanging around this Popsicle stand way too long. When I die, bury me deep, lay two speakers at my feet, put some headphones on my head and rock and roll me when I’m dead."

Michael Hall, executed Feb. 15, 2011 (after the study)

“I would like to give my sincere apology to Amy’s family. We caused a lot of heartache, grief, pain and suffering, and I’m sorry. I know it won’t bring her back. I would like to sing. I would like to sing, for that person’s dead. The old is gone. I am not the same person that I used to be . . . As for my family, I am sorry I let you down."

Source: The Star, March 2, 2011

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