Post by Anja on Jun 21, 2006 1:02:43 GMT -5
Life on 'X-Row'----Death row inmates tell their stories to national TV
program
Sun shone through the thin, tall, three-story windows on a brisk May
morning, bathing what most see as a dank, dark, almost morbid hallway,
with bright, warm sun light.
Men stood next to their toilets pulling small, plastic brushes through
their hair, listening to the faint call of unfamiliar voices and the
unmistakable sound of metal slamming against a concrete floor.
Some loudly called out to anyone who would listen. Others were only
noticeable by the glaring eyes reflected in the small, rubber-lined
mirrors jutting out from between steel bars.
They just wanted a piece of the action. Anything to break up the mundane
lives lived each day by men who know their time is coming.
"I don't think anyone deserves to wait to die in such a long, drawn-out
process," said Mark Allen Wisehart, a convicted murderer who has sat on
death row at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City since Sept. 26, 1983.
"It doesn't do anybody any good."
Wisehart is one of 24 men currently on the prison's "X-Row." He's been
appealing his death sentence - he was accused of murdering a 61-year-old
Anderson woman in 1982 - almost since he came to ISP in 1983.
Like many of the condemned men on "X-Row," Wisehart was eager to tell his
story. Many men awaiting certain death - most often for causing death -
want to tell their story or lobby for a sympathetic ear.
When they find that ear - which isn't often - they want to talk about
their life inside. In May, some told their stories to a production company
filming an episode of the MSNBC television show "Lockup."
"Death row is your first and last stop here," Erik Wrinkles, who was
sentenced to death for the 1994 murder of his wife, his wife's brother and
her brother's wife, said when asked what life is like on death row. "So
you have to find guys inside with something in common to keep from going
insane.
"I've lost friends in here, though. So I keep to myself anymore. When you
get to know them, most guys on 'X' are pretty decent people."
They sit in isolation, day after day, complaining about cold food and dark
cells. They wish they could spend more than an hour a day - alone, but for
an accompanying corrections officer - outside the walls.
Some will proclaim their innocence to the last day, when an IV is inserted
into their arm and they make one last statement to the people gathered in
the small, cold room that houses the death chamber.
Others won't talk much.
Wisehart knows he likely won't meet with much sympathy, and he understands
that. But nonetheless, he pleads his case.
"We talk cell-to-cell, but there are so few of us left in here, it's hard,
anymore, to even do that," he said. "Some people say I've already lost my
sanity, but I say I'm hanging on by a thread."
Derek Boyan, a 30-year-old sergeant and supervisor of "X-Row," has had to
balance his job with his sanity for years, reconciling the fact that he's
gotten to know convicted killers on a personal basis with the fact that
those people are, in fact, convicted killers.
He restricts his knowledge of the inmates's crimes so he can treat the men
simply as prisoners.
"I'm human. I'll have a certain judgment about them if I know what they
did. I can't do that in this job," he said. "But it's also strange
because, when you think of people on death row, you think of monsters.
"They just don't come off like that. I know they did terrible things. But
it's different to be around them every day because they seem like everyday
people."
Boyan tries not to let himself be "taken in" by the offenders, who unnamed
prison officials claim will say "anything" to find a sympathetic ear.
"You still have in mind that these guys have done terrible things," he
said. "That doesn't go away."
The date of when ISP will be featured on "Lockup" has not been released.
AT A GLANCE
- 38 states, the federal government and the military have a death-penalty
statute on their books.
- Nearly 2/3 of the world's nations have abolished the death penalty in
law or in practice, including more than 30 in the past decade.
[source: http://www.in.gov]
(source: News Dispatch)
program
Sun shone through the thin, tall, three-story windows on a brisk May
morning, bathing what most see as a dank, dark, almost morbid hallway,
with bright, warm sun light.
Men stood next to their toilets pulling small, plastic brushes through
their hair, listening to the faint call of unfamiliar voices and the
unmistakable sound of metal slamming against a concrete floor.
Some loudly called out to anyone who would listen. Others were only
noticeable by the glaring eyes reflected in the small, rubber-lined
mirrors jutting out from between steel bars.
They just wanted a piece of the action. Anything to break up the mundane
lives lived each day by men who know their time is coming.
"I don't think anyone deserves to wait to die in such a long, drawn-out
process," said Mark Allen Wisehart, a convicted murderer who has sat on
death row at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City since Sept. 26, 1983.
"It doesn't do anybody any good."
Wisehart is one of 24 men currently on the prison's "X-Row." He's been
appealing his death sentence - he was accused of murdering a 61-year-old
Anderson woman in 1982 - almost since he came to ISP in 1983.
Like many of the condemned men on "X-Row," Wisehart was eager to tell his
story. Many men awaiting certain death - most often for causing death -
want to tell their story or lobby for a sympathetic ear.
When they find that ear - which isn't often - they want to talk about
their life inside. In May, some told their stories to a production company
filming an episode of the MSNBC television show "Lockup."
"Death row is your first and last stop here," Erik Wrinkles, who was
sentenced to death for the 1994 murder of his wife, his wife's brother and
her brother's wife, said when asked what life is like on death row. "So
you have to find guys inside with something in common to keep from going
insane.
"I've lost friends in here, though. So I keep to myself anymore. When you
get to know them, most guys on 'X' are pretty decent people."
They sit in isolation, day after day, complaining about cold food and dark
cells. They wish they could spend more than an hour a day - alone, but for
an accompanying corrections officer - outside the walls.
Some will proclaim their innocence to the last day, when an IV is inserted
into their arm and they make one last statement to the people gathered in
the small, cold room that houses the death chamber.
Others won't talk much.
Wisehart knows he likely won't meet with much sympathy, and he understands
that. But nonetheless, he pleads his case.
"We talk cell-to-cell, but there are so few of us left in here, it's hard,
anymore, to even do that," he said. "Some people say I've already lost my
sanity, but I say I'm hanging on by a thread."
Derek Boyan, a 30-year-old sergeant and supervisor of "X-Row," has had to
balance his job with his sanity for years, reconciling the fact that he's
gotten to know convicted killers on a personal basis with the fact that
those people are, in fact, convicted killers.
He restricts his knowledge of the inmates's crimes so he can treat the men
simply as prisoners.
"I'm human. I'll have a certain judgment about them if I know what they
did. I can't do that in this job," he said. "But it's also strange
because, when you think of people on death row, you think of monsters.
"They just don't come off like that. I know they did terrible things. But
it's different to be around them every day because they seem like everyday
people."
Boyan tries not to let himself be "taken in" by the offenders, who unnamed
prison officials claim will say "anything" to find a sympathetic ear.
"You still have in mind that these guys have done terrible things," he
said. "That doesn't go away."
The date of when ISP will be featured on "Lockup" has not been released.
AT A GLANCE
- 38 states, the federal government and the military have a death-penalty
statute on their books.
- Nearly 2/3 of the world's nations have abolished the death penalty in
law or in practice, including more than 30 in the past decade.
[source: http://www.in.gov]
(source: News Dispatch)