Written April 30, 2017
Although
all death sentenced prisoners are kept in continuous solitary
confinement as a means of segregating us from others under the pretense
that it is for our own good - prison officials seem to think that if
those under a sentence of death are allowed to physically be around
others, they would be targeted for assault and even murder by other
prisoners - this prolonged solitary existence does not necessarily
completely isolate us from all others.
Granted,
many choose to retreat into their very own world and not interact with
others. Some deal with the isolation better than others. I've been here
now for well over 3 decades and I've seen only too many who while once
willing to interact with others, they gradually retreated into their own
world and no longer want to talk to others around them.
But
for most of us, some more than others, we do need that limited ability
to interact and while physically segregated from those around us, we
hold long conversations with others within our immediate proximity,
talking about whatever might come up around these concrete walls that
separate us. Some of those conversations would undoubtedly surprise many
out there in the real world, as they are anything but what one might
expect to hear given societies propensity to stereotype all condemned
prisoners as something less than human and certainly not capable of
moral reflection.
The
past few weeks a few conversations about stories in the news even
surprised me, but not because of the initial conversation itself, but
rather what caught me by surprise was where the conversation went from
there.
Often,
almost daily, me and a few others within proximity of me will get up on
our cell door, usually sitting on our footlocker, and pass a few hours
just talking about whatever comes to mind.
This
past week there were three issues that seemed to dominate these
conversations. First, there was the widely reported story in the news
about the elected state attorney in Orlando (Aramis Ayala) who publicly
announced that she would no longer seek the death penalty in her
circuit, which brought an immediate response from governor Scott - in an
unprecedented move Governor Scott publicly denounced her and used his
executive power to strip her office of jurisdiction over the 22 pending
capital murder cases, reassigning these prosecutors to Brad King, a
state attorney in Ocala who is widely known for his aggressive pursuit of
the death penalty.
But
then one of the guys engaged in this open conversation pointed out what
the mainstream media didn't mention - Governor Scott never took action
against former Jacksonville state attorney Angela Corey in the past when
he was in office and Corey made it clear that she would seek the death
penalty in all capital cases and categorically refused to allow any to
plea out to life without parole to avoid death. During the first four
years that Governor Scott was in office Angela Corey sent more people to
death row than any prosecutor in the entire country. But Governor Scott
never had a problem with that.
Of
course, in 2016 the voters kicked Angela Corey out of office in large
part because of her fanatical overzealous prosecution, and of those
record number of people Angela Corey had condemned to death with very
few exceptions every single death sentence imposed by Corey's office has
been subsequently thrown out as "illegally imposed" - her overzealous
prosecution of capital cases cost Florida taxpayers tens of millions of
dollars.
Then
the conversation shifted to the widely reported stories about how the
state of Arkansas announced it's intention to put 8 condemned prisoners
to death within the next few weeks for no apparent reason but that the
drug used to carry out executions would soon expire and they could no
longer obtain this drug legally.
Keep
in mind that Arkansas hasn't executed anyone in 12 years - and now they
want to expedite 8 executions within a matter of days, a rate of
executions not even Texas ever attempted.
One
of the guys too the position that the death penalty today is a lot like
Ralph Reed's "moral majority" during the Reagan administration a
generation ago...they never were the majority and they damned sure were
not moral - rather, they simply had the biggest mouth and knew that the
vast majority of voters are sheep, only too willing to blindly follow
their "pied piper", even to their own destruction.
But
the the open conversation took an unexpected turn as we confronted the
third topic of the day - Florida's push to amend it's "stand your
ground" law to place the burden of proof upon the prosecutor of the
preliminary stage, making it much more difficult to prosecute those who
kill another under the claim of being in imminent danger.
At
this point I sat back and listened to the ongoing discussion as others
debated the ramifications of this change of law. One would think that in
a micro community of condemned prisoners, each convicted of "cold
blooded murder" and implicitly labeled by society as "the worst of the
worst", that there would be uniform support for any change of law that
would make it more difficult to prosecute for murder...but you'd be
wrong!
Without
exception, every single person taking part in this open conversation
agreed that this "stand your ground" law should NOT be changed. While
each had their own reason (several pointed to the highly publicized case
of when George Zimmerman gunned down Trayvon Martin, killing him for no
apparent reason but that he was a black kid wearing a hoodie - and then
Zimmerman got away with it by exploiting Florida's "stand your ground"
law that allows anyone to murder another as long as they
can claim that they had a subjective fear.
At
his point I joined the conversation again. Anyone who has ever been
around me knows that I place great weight in the importance of
confronting the conscious decision to take any human life. If the
republicans want to impose substantial limitations on abortions (which
by the way I agree with) then why won't they support that same measure
of conscious reflection when it comes to carrying out an execution?
Here's
the thing...as I've often shared with others, nothing has haunted me
more through all these years than the knowledge that I took another
life. I have to believe that that measure of humanity within each of us -
the inner essence that makes us human - becomes our greatest persecutor
if and when we take another person's life, as I have dealt with that
myself.
Those
familiar with my case know that I have consistently claimed that I was
compelled to act in self defence in the case that put me on death row.
See, http://www.save-innocents.com/save-michael-lambrix.html
but
even with that qualification, it has not spared me that haunting
memories and remorse, and that never ending soul searching as I ask
myself if I could have done anything different that night.
And
so I once again expressed my opinion that taking a life should never be
easy and often it's far too easy to find reason to kill, while refusing
to even confront reasons not to kill. Why is that? What part of our
inherent human nature refuses to evolve as it continues to be
predisposed to finding reasons to take a life whenever possible.
Then
I proposed something that I've advocated for years...if we insist on
having the death penalty, then rather than carry out the execution in
the manner it is today(by prison officials); what I propose is this..the
prosecutor and the governor should be legally required to be the
executioner. They should not be allowed to hide like cowards hundreds of
miles away in their office, but rather they should be
responsible for inflicting death - and not behind a distant curtain, but
look the condemned in the eye as they carry out that execution. And
both the jury and the judge that imposed that death sentence should be
legally required to witness that execution.
What
it comes down to is that we cannot make taking any human life too easy.
When anyone makes the conscious decision to take any one's life, they
must bear the responsibility of inflicting that death, as I know from my
own experience that if they are forced to confront the reality of their
own actions, it will change them. And others around me uniformly agreed.
And maybe then - but only then - they will at least consider reasons
not to kill.
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