Letters written on death row were given to the Hankyoreh by Lee Sang-hyeok, the attorney who set up the Council for the Abolishment of Capital Punishment in South Korea in 1989.
For more than 2 decades, from Mar. 1994 until this past July, Lee received 63 handwritten letters running for more than 200 pages that record the fear of death, guilt for crimes committed and remorse for family members left behind.
"Even the most heinous of criminals should be given a chance to sincerely repent for their crimes and apologize to their victims," said Lee while showing the letters. Lee's correspondence with Kim Jin-tae, 52, offers insight into the life of inmates on death row.
Kim Jin-tae was a death-row inmate until his death sentence was commuted to life behind bars by a special amnesty on the last day of 2002. During the decade between 1993 and 2002, he wore a red name badge on his chest and spent each day waiting for death. In 1992, Kim was arrested by the police on charges of killing his father and abandoning his body, and he was sentenced to death the following year. That happened when he was 27 years old.
When Kim's father drank, he habitually resorted to violence. After getting married at the age of 18, Kim's mother endured this violence for nearly 30 years. On the day of the incident, his father had been drinking heavily, as usual. His intoxicated father struck his mother in the head with a blunt object, knocking her out. Seeing this drove Kim out of his mind. He shot his father with a shotgun and dumped his body in the Han River.
Arrested on charges of patricide, Kim said that he meekly confessed his crime to the police. This resulted in his incarceration and induction into death row at the Seoul Detention Center, where he has been doing time for 26 years now. Kim went behind bars in his 20s and is now in his 50s.
While on death row, Kim was referred to as a "maximum-sentence prisoner" rather than a "death row prisoner." The meaning is the same, as the term means a prisoner receiving the maximum sentence. The term "death row prisoner" is not often used in prison. The words "death penalty" exacerbate the inmates' fear. Referring to death row prisoners as "maximum prisoners" is normal practice in prisons.
Every passing day a step closer to death
Of course, use of the term "maximum-sentence prisoner" does not make the death penalty any less of a reality. While in prison, death row prisoners are constantly close to death. Every day could be their last. While most prisoners hope for the days to go by quickly, death row prisoners see each passing day as one step closer to death.
"We death row prisoners can't really be said to be serving sentences. I suppose it's like getting bonus life," Kim wrote on Mar. 17, 1997. "You could say that while people serving time get closer to their release as time passes, for us it means the day of our death is drawing nearer. It's been 6 years since I was put on death row. I came in as a 27-year-old, and now I'm 32."
Since every day is a "bonus," it is not considered strange that execution day eventually will arrive. This does not erase the fear of death, however. The life of a death row prisoner is one of constant uncertainty. Prisoners start at even the smallest noises. Every guard's footstep, every prisoner number that is called is a nerve-racking moment that could signal their ushering to the execution chamber.
That sense of day-to-day anxiety for prisoners was apparent in a 2009 piece Kim wrote from prison about his experience on death row. Its title was "Waiting in a Cold Prison Cell for the Death Penalty System to Kill Itself."
"The shoes of the approaching prison guard echoing as he strode through the corridor were like the ticking of a time bomb, the sound of the angel of death drawing near. When they finally called out a prisoner's number for a visit, chapel, or trip to the infirmary, cold sweat would stream down my spine and my heart would drop through my stomach. I would confront this fear of death several times a day.” (Dec. 3, 2009)
Kim could still vividly remember one moment when he seemed to be staring death in the face. It happened on Dec. 30, 1997, during his 6th year of imprisonment. That morning, he woke up earlier than he ever had before. "Human beings are spiritual animals, and I just had a sense," he explained on why that morning in particular seemed so chilling to him.
From the moment his eyes opened, Kim felt that this was to be the day. He took a cold shower early in the morning. With his head now cleared, he wrote a final message and silently prayed. After some time of praying and waiting, a guard called out his prisoner number.
"4088, Kim Jin-tae. Visit."
Thinking his time had finally come, Kim said a final goodbye to the "brothers" sharing his cell and stepped outside, a Bible in his hands. He also said a last farewell to the people he saw as he walked down the corridor. But the place the guard escorted him to was the visitors' room, not the execution chamber. Standing there was Rev. Moon Jang-sik, the Seoul Detention Center's head pastor at the time. Seeing Moon’s bloodshot eyes, Kim vaguely sensed that someone else's execution had been carried out, not his. On that day, the Kim Young-sam administration carried out death sentences against 23 death row prisoners, including 6 members of the "Chijon family" gang, who kidnapped and cruelly murdered 5 innocent people. It was the last day executions were carried out in South Korea. One of the people who died that day was a fellow "maximum prisoner" Kim had been close with. He too had been baptized as a Christian. The fellow prisoner had his organs and body donated when he was executed.
Death row prisoners often pledge to donate organs
Many death row prisoners make pledges to donate their organs before their final day arrives. While it may have been a crime that brought them to prison, they feel they should save other people's lives when their time comes. Kim was one of them. In 1995, 2 years after his death sentence was finally confirmed, he signed a pledge to donate his organs and allow the use of his body for medical science experimentation. He reached the conclusion after pondering ways to ensure his death was "not in vain."
He asked for his organs to be donated to those in need, his body to be dissected in a medical school, and the remains to be cremated and spread on his father's grave.
"Please donate my organs and bodies as needed and cremate the rest so that I can at least fertilize the ground on the grave of the feather who died because of me. I hope that what can be used is put to use and the rest can serve as fertilizer on my father's grave as some small form of atonement to my departed father and my remaining family as a depraved person who killed the father who gave birth to me because he had become a servant of evil satanic demons and beaten and abused by mother," he wrote on Mar. 27, 1995.
The organ donation was meant as a small gesture of atonement to Kim's father. Donations have already become a customary way of expiation for Kim. Every year, he donates 1 million won (US$890) from his custody holdings to relief groups for underfed children and other causes. He also uses some of the money to buy needed items for prisoners without family. "I feel so happy and grateful to be able to help others from here," he wrote on Aug. 25, 2000.
Inmates performing penitence and turning to religion in prison
Death row prisoners often perform penitence for their crimes in prison. Many turn to religion while behind bars, or awaken to the brutality of their crimes on the outside during conversations with correctional commission members and volunteers.
One example is Seo Chae-taek, who received a final death sentence in 1987 on charges of homicide during a robbery. Seo became a Buddhist while in prison and sincerely repented his acts. The wife of the man whose life Seo had taken submitted a petition asking that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison. But in 1994, he was put to death. In his final message, he wrote, "I am sorry to [the victim's] family. I hope I will be the last, and there will be no other executions." Seo too donated his body to science.
Death-row prisoners who choose suicide before execution
Living in daily fear of death, some death row prisoners opt to take their own lives. In 2015, a prisoner surnamed Lee sentenced to death for killing 5 relatives was found hanging in his Seoul Detention Center; he died of related injuries 2 days later.
Another death row prisoner surnamed Jeong hanged himself in 2009 in a solitary confinement cell at Seoul Detention Center. No note was found, evidence suggests Jeong was fearful of his execution. A notebook he kept included a message that read, "They say there are no plans to abolish the death penalty right now. Recently, the death penalty has been issued once again. [. . ]. Life is like a cloud, coming and going all too soon." The Ministry of Justice speculated Jeong may have taken his own life out of fears stemming from public calls for enforcing the death penalty in the wake of the Cho Doo-soon assault case.
After hearing the news, Kim sent a letter to his attorney saying, "I can understand how he feels in some sense, having lived in fear of the execution that might come at any time during 10 years as a death row prisoner."
"Many of the prisoners who heard about it said something like, 'Good for him choosing to end his own life cleanly instead of living in fear of death every day,'" he added.
"If it weren't for religion, something might have happened to me too," he wrote.
"I've met with 70 to 80 death row prisoners over the years, and most of them have shown some potential for rehabilitation," said attorney Lee Sang-hyeok, who has devoted more than 3 decades to fighting for abolition of the death penalty.
"In some cases, prisoners turn over a new leaf and sincerely ask for and receive forgiveness from the victim's family," he added.
A model prisoner, Kim had his death sentence commuted to life in prison in 2002. At times, he seemed to have given up on life during period on death row. "I'm astonished at my bizarre attachment [to life] when I think about the crime I've committed," he wrote on Mar. 8, 1994. "I'll live an eternal life after death."
But after his sentence was commuted in 2002, he vowed to live life to the fullest. "After 10 years of waiting for execution day with a red prisoner number on my chest, I have been granted life by the grace of God," he said. Possessing 8 certificates that he earned in prison - as an auto mechanic, boiler technician, and hot-water heating technician - he is committed to a new life in the off chance he ever returns to society.
"There's something I used to imagine every time I crawled in my sleeping bag to escape the cold that seemed to scrape into my flesh - that this prison was a repository for human garbage, that I was garbage inside a trash bag. But while some garbage is completely unsalvageable and gets buried or incinerated, other garbage can be melted down and recycled," he wrote on Apr. 21, 2006.
"Sometimes I promise myself that I will be recycled, melting my ugly and foul past crime away in the furnace and becoming usable again, if a little worse for wear."
Dreaming of the day when the death penalty is abolished
In addition to his return to society, Kim also dreams of the day the death penalty is abolished. Though he is no longer technically a death row prisoner, he sees himself as "eternally a death row prisoner" in spirit, and he hopes to see the system abolished so other prisoners are given the opportunity for remorse for their deed and atonement to the victims. His hopes for the death penalty's abolition were apparent throughout his letters.
"It was very welcome and inspiring news to hear that the Ministry of Justice is re-examining the death penalty law. It was tremendously gratifying to think all of your efforts over the years are beginning to bear fruit, and I sincerely hope for and cautiously look forward to nothing unfortunate happening before it is fully achieved," he wrote on Apr. 1, 2006.
"People like us who have been sentenced cannot speak for ourselves. We can only await the disposition of the public and government," he added later in the same letter.
Kim, who said he collects newspaper articles on the death penalty, also voiced his hopes for the system's abolition in a letter from this year.
"I saw an article in the paper a few days ago saying the President was pushing for a moratorium on executions within the year, and I thought my wish and prayer was finally coming true," he wrote on July 3.
Inmates fear life in prison over death; the importance of redemption
Attorney Lee Sang-hyeok, who has been exchanging letters with death row prisoners for decades, said, "What the death row prisoners really are afraid of is not actually execution, but a life sentence."
"We need to abolish the death penalty and institute relative life sentences as an alternative while allowing for parole according to very strict standards," he recommended.
"What inspires [the prisoners] to truly repent is hope, even if it's just the eye of a needle in terms of possibility. It's a mistake not to grant opportunities for rehabilitation to offenders who have committed severe crimes," he said.
Kim's 71-year-old mother (surnamed Jang), who lost her husband as a result of her son's crime, tearfully pleaded for him to be allowed to return home.
"It is true that my son did wrong, but he has repented for his past deeds, he has lived an upstanding life in prison, and he has helped people in need," she said. "I hope to hear some good news."
Having witnessed her son imprisoned for over 25 years, Jang is now over 70 years old. She has set up a small home where she hopes to spend the rest of her life with the oldest son who committed an ineradicable crime to protect her. She currently lives there alone.
Source: hani.co.kr, October 16, 2018
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
