David Hosier, who was executed on June 11 for a crime he insisted he didn't commit, described the harrowing conditions of Missouri's death row, where he spent the last 11 years of his life
During the last four months of his life,
David Hosier spent almost all of his time in a 7-foot-wide by 15-foot-long cell, completely isolated from everyone, only allowed to leave if he was shackled head-to-toe, had a full security escort and a legitimate reason to venture out into the rest of the prison.
He had been placed on "death watch," or a type of suicide watch for death row inmates designed to prevent them from hurting themselves or others as they count down the days until their executions.
During that time — and even the 11 years he spent in general population before that — Hosier told TheMirror.com that he was treated worse than an animal as he described the harrowing conditions at the Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point, Missouri, located about 70 miles south of St. Louis.
"The only way I could truly answer that is to tell you if you want to find out what it’s like to be on death row, do something stupid and end up on death row," Hosier said in one of the last interviews he gave before his death on June 11 at the hands of the state. "If I tried to tell you, I don’t really think you would believe me or understand. It’s not something you can describe. Everybody’s experience is different and yet the same."
He said it was "not something [he] would want to put anybody through." Every day, he lived in constant anxiety about when he would be put to death, never knowing if his execution date would be announced that day or the next, even as he fought tooth and nail for clemency or the overturning of his death sentence — a fight not helped by his federal public defenders, who he said missed his final filing deadline to the U.S. Supreme Court in February, essentially guaranteeing his death.
In Missouri, death row inmates are placed in general population and forced to share cells with other inmates in cell blocks, much like other prisoners serving reduced sentences or even life. Hosier said he was housed in what he called "Honor Wing," where he had contact with the other inmates and made friends.
Every morning, bright and early, prison personnel would wake the inmates around 6 or 7 a.m. for the daily count, and then after that, the whole wing was open.
"We could go out and visit in the wing," Hosier said. Everyone was in two-man cells, he said, which they could stay in, or they could go to other parts of the prison — the library, the kitchen, its recreational facilities — as they pleased, for the most part. Some inmates have jobs, he said, and they would go to work whenever they were scheduled and then enjoy free range of the facility until curfew went into effect and the cells were closed once more.
"We can go out in the wing and play cards with other guys. We can put puzzles together. If it's recreation time, we can go out to the recreation yard or the gymnasium. We can go to the library," Hosier said. "You get to know a lot of guys. So, you know guys who are on death row, other guys who are on death row. You get to know guys who are doing life without [parole]. You get to know guys who are doing short time — whatever, 5, 10, 15, 20 years."
Death Watch
That portion of his prison time was alright, Hosier said. But then, on Feb. 14 — just four days after his 69th birthday — they pulled him out of general population and threw him in his "death watch" cell for his last four months. "Yeah, happy birthday! Happy Valentine’s Day! Guess what? You’re going to die. Wow!" he joked, sarcasm dripping from each word.
He said his experience on death watch was "totally different" from his time in general population. "Once they put you on the death watch, everything changes. You can’t go anywhere without being shackled, handcuffed, whatever you want to call it, and you can’t go anywhere without being escorted," he said. "You’re just basically stuck in a cell by yourself 24 hours a day until they come and get you to take you wherever."
"You're stuck in a 7-foot-wide by 15-foot-long cell by yourself for 24 hours a day — your meals in your cell. Everything is right here in your cell. We have our shower, our restroom, our everything," he said.
He was granted a few privileges — he could speak with his family on the phone, including his sister and nephew, and he could call friends, too. "That is my keeping in touch with reality, talking to people in the outside world," Hosier said.
"That’s what you get when you’re sitting on a suicide or death watch — not a whole lot of excitement," he continued. "That’s it, other than having people who are nice enough to at least listen and try to get my story out, and if it prevents this from happening to one person, then I don’t feel like I’ve died in vain. Because if I can stop it from happening to one person, then that’s going to stop it from happening to another person after that and after that and after that."
He said he spent the majority of his day watching TV, speaking to friends when he could and counting down the days until his death, which, at the time, was just 12 days away.
"Boy, isn't that something to look forward to?" he sarcastically asked as he delved into his complex worldview about his fate. "Everybody, no matter what, is afraid of death. If they say they're not, something's wrong with them," he said. But he also welcomed it, saying that knowing his death date lessened his worrying and provided him with an imminent out from the messed up society under which he said America thrives.
"Missouri says it’s such a pro-life state, and yet, they want to kill us because we supposedly killed somebody?" he said. "We’re supposed to be such a Christian society, and we’re supposed to be such a pro-life society, but yet, the state sanctions murder to justify, oh, we did something wrong, so they’re going to kill us?"
While watching the news one day, Hosier said he became enamored by the story of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who came under fire a couple of months ago after revealing in her latest book that she had put down her 14-month-old hunting dog after she misbehaved and killed a family's livestock while Noem took her on a hunt one day.
Poor Cricket was shot to death in a ditch, put down for her "crimes" as Noem wrote that she was "worthless" and couldn't be controlled. That's exactly how Hosier said they treat death row inmates in Missouri and across the country.
"Oh my God, lo and behold, everybody is jumping all over this poor woman because she executed a dog. She put a dog down for harassing and killing somebody’s livestock," Hosier said. "But yet, the state can still say, ‘Oh, well, he killed somebody. We’re going to kill him, and it’s OK.’ And nobody thinks twice about it. Is a dog’s life worth more than a human life?"
He continued, "People say, ‘Oh, well, the dog could have been retrained. The dog could have been this, the dog could have been that.’ People can be reprogrammed, retrained, whatever, and I’ve seen guys in here that are not the same persons that they were when they committed their crimes."
"It’s been hard watching each one of them go and knowing that every time one of them goes, my time’s getting closer"
Hosier recalled his relationship with death row inmate Brian Dorsey, the first person executed in the state this year. Dorsey was put to death for killing his cousin and her husband and was killed by lethal injection on April 9.
"Brian, the last one who was executed — yeah, he made a mistake. He killed his cousin and her husband, and he made a mistake. But to know Brian and see Brian now, he was not the same kid who made that mistake," Hosier said. "He didn’t deserve to die. Granted, his cousin didn’t deserve to die, either, but killing him didn’t bring them back. It just added more grief to the family."
Dorsey's death came after widespread calls for clemency, including from many of the personnel at the correctional center. Hosier said his death watch cell was right next to Dorsey's before Dorsey's execution and that the two had gotten to know each other before that when they were housed in the same cell block in general population.
When Hosier first arrived at Potosi, the only facility in Missouri that houses male death row inmates, he said there were 34 of them. During the 11 years he spent at the facility, he said he got to know almost all of them, including all the ones who were executed before him like Dorsey.
"It’s been hard watching each one of them go and knowing that every time one of them goes, my time’s getting closer," he said during his May 30 interview with TheMirror.com. "I’ve known every one of them for the last 15 or so that they’ve executed. I’ve known them. And it’s hard to watch people that you know be executed. It didn’t matter what their crime was. The state says we committed a crime and we supposedly killed somebody or we did kill somebody, and yet, it’s lawful for them to kill us? It’s hard. It’s hard."
Claims of innocence until the end
Hosier was sentenced to death in 2013 for the September 2009 slaying of Angela Gilpin, 45, with whom he had been having an affair before she called it off to reconnect with her estranged husband, Rodney, 61. Both were found shot to death outside their apartment in Jefferson City, and Hosier became the prime suspect.
He was tracked down by police and apprehended in Oklahoma, where he told TheMirror.com he had been driving to clear his head. He insisted he didn't murder the Gilpins, holding onto that claim until his dying breath, but with no alibi or witnesses, his claims of innocence were hard to corroborate. His conviction and sentence were upheld by several courts over the years.
One of the reasons Hosier said he was innocent was because he couldn't fathom murdering someone and having their family experience exactly what he did as a child when his father, an Indiana state trooper, was killed in the line of duty. At the time, he said he was vengeful and hoped whoever killed his father got the death penalty — but after spending so much time on death row himself, he said he changed his tune.
"Had you asked me at the time my father was killed if I believed in the death penalty, I may have said yes. But after seeing how the criminal justice system actually works and the stuff that goes on, I cannot condone the killing of anyone," he said. "They treat animals better than they treat us."
"Something’s wrong with our society. Something is way wrong," Hosier concluded. "And I’ll be really honest with you, in a sense — I’m glad I’m going to go meet my maker, because I won’t have to put up with this mess any longer."
Source:
themirror.com, J. Hassel, June 14, 2024
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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
