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Photographing the Community on Tennessee’s Death Row

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From 2010 to 2015 I was incarcerated in Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, the Tennessee prison that houses death row for the men’s system. On one side of a gate, 250 of us lived in a “support staff” unit working maintenance, landscaping, kitchen service or whatever else kept the facility operational. On the other side of the gate were maximum-security prisoners and those in protective custody, and a unit just for the condemned.
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Georgia | Death row inmate’s last cigarette request 'denied over health concerns'

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Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has represented a number of clients who have been sentenced to death row across the USA and he's recounted some of their final moments

A human rights attorney has reminisced about the bitterly ironic moment his executed client was initially denied a last cigarette over health concerns. Clive Stafford Smith shared the poignant tale with LadBible, recounting how Nicholas Lee Ingram skipped his final meal in favor of a smoke.

When guards cited health risks as a reason to refuse, he informed the press, leading to a change of heart by prison officials. Reminiscing on their bond and shared origins in the same UK hospital, Smith said: "Nicky Ingram, he and I were born in the same hospital, Addenbrooks in Cambridge, and I had to watch him die. And I liked Nick, we'd been friends for 12 years when they killed him."

He expressed dismay at the penal system's hypocrisy, pointing out the absurdity in protecting a condemned man's health moments before execution: "You know they go through all that nonsense about last meals and Nicky said, 'I don't want a last meal because you're about to kill me,' and he said, 'I want a last cigarette'. So I ask if they'll give him a last cigarette and they say no because it's bad for his health."

Smith's revelation to the media shamed the prison into granting Ingram's request which was a stark contrast to the cruel fate that awaited him: "And I say, 'you've got to be kidding me, you're planning to kill this poor guy,' so I went out and told the media, and they were humiliated by that, so they gave him a last cigarette, but then they shaved his head and shaved his leg and put 2,400 volts through him, it's just disgusting."

In 1995, Ingram faced the electric chair for the murder of 55-year-old J.C, reports the Mirror. [Nicholas Lee Ingram (20 November 1963 – 7 April 1995) was a dual British and American national, executed for murder in 1995 at the age of 31 by the US state of Georgia, using the electric chair. — DPN]

Clive, who witnessed the execution, revealed to an interviewer that he still suffers from PTSD nearly three decades later, haunted by the images of that day whenever he closes his eyes.

The ongoing practice of the death penalty in the USA continues to spark heated discussions, with many tales emerging about inmates' final requests, last words, and last meals. In a poignant example from 2007, Philip Workman, sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer, asked for his last meal to be a vegetarian pizza given to any homeless person near the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

Although his request was denied by officials, the community of Nashville, Tennessee, where the prison is located, rallied to fulfill his wish. Homeless shelters were overwhelmed with pizzas donated throughout the day, as reported by the Daily Star.

Cliff Tredway, director of public relations for the Rescue Mission, commented on the impact of Workman's final request: "It's more than pizzas that helped that shelter. It's the story of a guy whose execution translated into a generous act."

Source: themirror.com, Staff, October 31, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________








"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde



Location: Georgia, USA
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