FEATURED POST

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

North Carolina House committee votes to remove TVs for death row inmates

Published
RALEIGH - A divided House committee agreed Wednesday to prohibit North Carolina death-row prisoners from watching television despite the warning by Central Prison's warden that removing TVs could increase violence among the condemned inmates.

The measure is a direct response to a convicted killer's letter - printed in a newspaper in January -in which he boasted of being a "gentleman of leisure" on death row, watching color TV and taking frequent naps. He wrote, "Kill me if you can, suckers."

Republican Rep. Tim Moore, who is shepherding the bill through the House, said Danny Hembree's letter was galling and caused a ruckus in Gaston County, where Hembree was convicted last year of killing a 17-year-old girl and dumping her body in South Carolina. Moore told the judiciary subcommittee hearing the bill none of the 156 prisoners awaiting execution should receive the TV privilege.

"To think he's there watching TV, that other murderers are there watching television, having that benefit, that's just not right," said Moore, who lives in nearby Cleveland County. "Anything we can do to make death row a less pleasant place, we should."

Central Prison Warden Kenneth Lassiter told the committee that television is a management tool for prisoners and its privilege is already limited. Lassiter said the bill, if approved, would have "the potential to escalate security issues at the facility."

"It will create an environment that violence could increase due to the fact that the inmates are idle," he said. "It's an isolated situation on death row, so inmates don't have the normal movement of other inmates inside the facility."

"They're not living the life of luxury," Lassiter said.

The bill's next stop is the House, where lawmakers are expected to weigh that warning against trying to make a get-tough statement on criminals.


Source: AP, FayObserver.com, June 7, 2012


LETTER: "Death row is no life of luxury"

I would like to respond to the recent to the recent media coverage concerning the conditions of life on death row.

Despite what has been suggested by Danny Hembree, who does not speak for nor represent the views and opinions of those of us on death row, this is no life of leisure. In fact, Mr. Hembree had been on death row only two months when he wrote his letter claiming that he was a “gentleman of leisure watching color TV in the AC.” This is certainly not what life is like on death row.

The true reality of life on death row is that every day is a life of fear, regret and humiliation. As a death row prisoner, my every day is consumed with the stress of waiting to die. Every moment is a countdown awaiting a court decision. I’m on edge every time my name is called for a legal visit. I’m afraid of receiving that letter stating that another round of my appeals has been denied, bringing me closer to that final moment. This is no life of leisure.

I am a man who is not trusted. Not believed. I am always a suspect. When an infraction is committed, I have no presumption of innocence. I’ve lost friends and associates in society who now view me disgracefully as a convicted murderer unworthy to live. I’m housed in a special management unit solely for the condemned.

I don’t enjoy the privileges that most general population prisoners are allowed. While most are allowed contact visits, all of my visits are behind glass with absolutely no contact. While other prisoners are allowed frequent telephone privileges, I am permitted one 10-minute phone call a year to my relatives. There are no rehabilitative programs to occupy my time like other prisoners are allowed. No AA, educational classes, no jobs.

Instead, I live in a cell the size of a bathroom. My window provides a view only of the prison. I am allowed no more than two cubic feet of personal property, and my every day is spent literally waiting to die.

Since I have been here, I have witnessed many men escorted to the death chamber over the years never to return. Mr. Hembree has no idea what it’s like to witness this walk of no return, and the hushed terror stamped into the eyes of every face that sees it.

This is no life of luxury, and I am no gentleman of leisure. I live every day with the fear of standing before my God and accounting for my deeds. My days and nights are filled with regret. Regret for the hurt I have caused and the lives I have ruined, including my own.

Any comforts that I have been afforded, whether it’s the privilege of being allowed to watch television or being protected from the elements of the cold or heat, are mercies that I am grateful for. Not something that I am audacious enough to say I deserve, but a mercy waiting for someone to die.

Michael J. Braxton
Raleigh

Michael Jerome Braxton, 39, was sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of another inmate at the Caledonia Correctional Center in Halifax. At the time of the killing, Braxton was already serving a life sentence for the killing of another person in a 1994 robbery in Wake County.

Source: gastongazette.com, June 8, 2012

Location: North Carolina
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.
Read more

'Better off without it': Washington closes execution chamber at state penitentiary

Published
Image
WASHINGTON STATE — Fourteen years after the last death sentence was carried out in Washington, the execution chamber at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla was closed in a ceremony held Wednesday morning. Gov. Jay Inslee, who issued a moratorium on the death penalty ten years ago, said shuttering the chamber was the ‘final closure’ of the controversial issue in Washington state law.
Read more

Texas | Broad Coalition Supports Robert Roberson’s Clemency Petition

Published
Image
On September 17, 2024, attorneys for Texas death row prisoner Robert Roberson filed a clemency petition accompanied by letters from hundreds of supporters, including eminent scientists and medical professionals, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators, and former lead Detective Brian Wharton, urging the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to reduce Mr. Roberson’s sentence. Mr. Roberson is currently scheduled to be executed on October 17, 2024. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, who medical experts have determined died from severe viral and bacterial pneumonia that doctors failed to diagnose, not from abuse or Shaken Baby Syndrome. Despite three new expert reports showing Nikki died of pneumonia, no court has been willing to consider the evidence that clears Mr. Roberson of any crime.
Read more

Florida | 5 things to know about how the Parkland shooter’s life was spared

Published
Image
This article was first published by The Marshall Project , a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook. Nikolas Cruz was the rare mass killer in America to have his fate decided at trial; many die during the shooting. It’s a bedrock principle of American justice that every defendant, no matter how serious the crime, is owed a robust defense.
Read more

Kuwait | Six Executed, Female Convict Spared at Last Minute

Published
Image
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 5: This Thursday morning at exactly 7:00 am, the Criminal Execution Prosecution carried out the death penalty for six convicts at the Central Prison. Among those executed were three Kuwaiti citizens, two Iranians, and one Pakistani. However, the execution of a Kuwaiti woman, convicted of killing her friend, was withdrawn at the last moment after the victim's heirs accepted blood money and pardoned her. 
Read more

"Death chamber" permanently closed at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla

Published
Image
WALLA WALLA, Wash.-The "death chamber" at the Washington "State Penitentiary where inmates sentenced to death were executed, the last remaining one in the Washington Department of Corrections system, was taken offline on Sept. 18.  According to KING 5 reporting on the closure of the small room within the penitentiary, the closing is largely ceremonial, as Governor Jay Inslee instituted a moratorium on the death penalty in Washington in 2014.  In use since 1904, death row inmates had the choice of hanging or lethal injection in the small room within the penitentiary. 
Read more

As another U.S. state closes its execution chamber, Trump muses about expanding use of death penalty

Published
Image
11 executions scheduled before 2024 ends, and a Trump win could see federal executions resume in 2025 Washington's governor is set to attend an event at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla on Wednesday to mark the facility officially shutting down its death chamber. That same governor, Jay Inslee, issued a moratorium on executions early in his term, in 2014. Since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in the 1970s — after an eight-year pause due to legal wrangling over the issue — Washington has executed five people, but none since 2010.
Read more

MHA survey finds growing support among Singapore residents for death penalty in most serious crimes

Published
Image
SINGAPORE: More Singapore residents support the use of the death penalty for the most serious crimes, according to the findings of a 2023 Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) survey released on Thursday (Sep 19). A survey was first conducted in 2021 to "better understand public perceptions" and the ministry conducted it again two years later. According to the latest survey findings, 77.4 per cent of respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the use of the death penalty for the most serious crimes, such as murder and trafficking a "significant amount of drugs".
Read more