Death Row The Final Minutes

Author : Michelle Lyons
Publisher : Bonnier Publishing Ltd.
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2018-05-03
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 9781788700443

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Death Row: The Final Minutes by Michelle Lyons Pdf

IN 12 YEARS, MICHELLE LYONS WITNESSED NEARLY 300 EXECUTIONS. First as a reporter and then as a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Michelle was a frequent visitor to Huntsville's Walls Unit, where she recorded and relayed the final moments of death row inmates' lives before they were put to death by the state. Michelle was in the death chamber as some of the United States' most notorious criminals, including serial killers, child murderers and rapists, spoke their last words on earth, while a cocktail of lethal drugs surged through their veins. Michelle supported the death penalty, before misgivings began to set in as the executions mounted. During her time in the prison system, and together with her dear friend and colleague, Larry Fitzgerald, she came to know and like some of the condemned men and women she saw die. She began to query the arbitrary nature of the death penalty and ask the question: do executions make victims of all of us? An incredibly powerful and unique look at the complex story of capital punishment, as told by those whose lives have been shaped by it, Death Row: The Final Minutes is an important take on crime and punishment at a fascinating point in America's political history.

Author : Michelle Lyons,Michelle Lyons Carman,Larry Fitzgerald,Ben Dirs
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1911600621

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The Witnesses by Michelle Lyons,Michelle Lyons Carman,Larry Fitzgerald,Ben Dirs Pdf

Author : Michelle Lyons
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 145 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2018-11-27
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781612438900

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Death Row, Texas by Michelle Lyons Pdf

“Tells the story of a traumatic life spent witnessing hundreds of people being executed in Texas’ most infamous prison.” —Daily Beast “I can’t remember his name or his crime. What I remember is the nothingness. No family members, no friends, no comfort. Maybe he didn’t want them to come, maybe they didn’t care, maybe he didn’t have any in the first place. It was just a prison official and two reporters, including me, looking through the glass at this man strapped fast to the gurney, needles in both arms, staring hard at the ceiling. When the warden stepped forward and asked if he wanted to make a last statement, the man barely shook his head, said nothing and started blinking. That’s when I saw it: a single tear at the corner of his right eye. A tear he desperately wanted to blink away, a tear he didn’t want us to see. It pooled there for a moment before running down his cheek. The warden gave his signal, the chemicals started flowing, the man coughed, sputtered and exhaled. A doctor entered the room, pronounced the man dead and pulled a sheet over his head.” —Michelle Lyons, from the Prologue Michelle Lyons witnessed nearly 300 executions at the Texas State penitentiary. This “haunting, dark and hard to put down” behind-the-scenes look at those final moments of life relates shocking true stories of the inmate, his/her family members, prison officials, the death-row chaplain and the victim’s loved ones—all of whom come together in the death chamber (Houston Chronicle).

Author : Michelle Lyons,Larry Fitzgerald
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Death row
ISBN : 1911600699

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Death Row by Michelle Lyons,Larry Fitzgerald Pdf

Author : Bill Crawford
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2008-01-29
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0452289300

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Texas Death Row by Bill Crawford Pdf

A chilling catalog of the men and women who have paid the ultimate price for their crimes The death penalty is one of the most hotly contested and longest-standing issues in American politics, and no place is more symbolic of that debate than Texas. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977, Texas has put more than 390 prisoners to death, far more than any other state. Texas Death Row puts faces to those condemned men and women, with stark details on their crimes, sentencing, last meals, and last words. Definitive and objective, Texas Death Row will provide ample fuel for readers on both sides of the death penalty debate.

Author : Steven Hale
Publisher : Melville House
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2024-03-19
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781612199238

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Death Row Welcomes You by Steven Hale Pdf

In the vein of Waiting for an Echo and Dead Man Walking, a deeply immersive look at justice in America, told through the interwoven lives of condemned prisoners and the men and women who come to visit them . . . In 2018, after nearly a decade’s hiatus, the state of Tennessee began executing death row inmates, bucking national trends that showed the death penalty in decline. In less than two years, the state put seven men to death, more than any other state but Texas in that time period. It was an execution spree unlike any seen in Tennessee since the 1940s, one only brought to a halt by a global pandemic. Award-winning journalist Steven Hale was the leading reporter on these executions, covering them both locally for the Nashville Scene alt-weekly and nationally for The Appeal. In Death Row Welcomes You, Hale traces the lives of condemned prisoners at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution—and the people who come to visit them. What brought them—the visitors and convicted murderers alike—to death row? The visitors are, for the most part, not activists—or at least they did not start out that way. Nor are they the sort of killer-obsessed death row groupies such settings sometimes attract. In fact, in most cases they are average people whose lives, not to mention their views on the death penalty, were turned upside down by a face-to-face meeting with a death row prisoner. Hale’s access to the people that make up that community afforded him a perspective that no other journalist has been granted, largely because Tennessee’s Department of Correction has all but shut off official media access. Combining topics that have long fascinated readers—crime, death, and life inside prison—Hale writes with humanity, empathy, and insight earned by befriending death row prisoners . . . and standing witness to their final moments.

Author : Maurice Chammah
Publisher : Crown
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2022-01-18
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781524760281

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Let the Lord Sort Them by Maurice Chammah Pdf

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America “If you’re one of those people who despair that nothing changes, and dream that something can, this is a story of how it does.”—Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times Book Review WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment. Then, amid a larger wave of criminal justice reform, came the death penalty’s decline, a trend so durable that even in Texas the punishment appears again close to extinction. In Let the Lord Sort Them, Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched. We meet Elsa Alcala, the orphaned daughter of a Mexican American family who found her calling as a prosecutor in the nation’s death penalty capital, before becoming a judge on the state’s highest court. We meet Danalynn Recer, a lawyer who became obsessively devoted to unearthing the life stories of men who committed terrible crimes, and fought for mercy in courtrooms across the state. We meet death row prisoners—many of them once-famous figures like Henry Lee Lucas, Gary Graham, and Karla Faye Tucker—along with their families and the families of their victims. And we meet the executioners, who struggle openly with what society has asked them to do. In tracing these interconnected lives against the rise of mass incarceration in Texas and the country as a whole, Chammah explores what the persistence of the death penalty tells us about forgiveness and retribution, fairness and justice, history and myth. Written with intimacy and grace, Let the Lord Sort Them is the definitive portrait of a particularly American institution.

Author : 578 Men and Women Executed on Texas Death Row
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 1186 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2023-11-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780813198323

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Final Words by 578 Men and Women Executed on Texas Death Row Pdf

In 1976 the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the legality of capital punishment in their ruling on Gregg v. Georgia. In the forty-six years since the decision was handed down, 1,551 convicted prisoners have been executed. The United States is the only Western nation—and one of four advanced democracies—that regularly applies the death penalty. While the death penalty is legal in twenty-seven states, only twenty-one have the means to carry out death sentences. Of those states, Texas has executed the most prisoners in recent history, putting 578 people to death since the 1976 ruling, beginning with Charlie Brooks in 1982. Texas retains the third-largest death row population, behind California and Florida. In the summer of 2020, the Trump administration broke a nearly seventeen-year stay during which the federal government did not sanction any executions when it put thirteen inmates to death over six months. Seventeen of the forty-five current federal death row inmates, the highest proportion of any state, are incarcerated in Texas. Final Words addresses the death penalty in the United States as a violation of human rights. Consisting of a collection of government documents relating to the 578 executed Texas inmates, this sweeping project presents a portrait of each life brought to a violent end, including final moments that are often spent expressing words of love for family and friends, sorrow for victims, and even gratitude. The compilation stands as a stark indictment of institutions that are rampant with racism, classism, and sexism. Each entry, each story, each utterance will challenge readers to answer the question: is there room for humanity in the American justice system?

Author : Ty Treadwell,Michelle Vernon
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 136 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2011-05-26
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1530623162

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Last Suppers by Ty Treadwell,Michelle Vernon Pdf

One condemned man requested 24 tacos, 6 enchiladas, and 6 tostadas. Another wanted wild rabbit, biscuits, and blackberry pie. And a two-time murderer asked for a can of SpaghettiOs then complained to the press when he didn't get it! Newly revised and updated, the 10th Anniversary Edition of Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals from Death Row contains dozens of intriguing last meals ranging from succulent steak and lobster to the lump of dirt ordered by a former voodoo priest. But Last Suppers is more than just a list of meals; you'll also be treated to weird execution facts, prison recipes, and other tidbits of trivia from America's toughest cell blocks. Ever wondered how the last meal tradition began, or what the most popular entrees are among condemned diners? Curious about the lives and loves of capital punishment's fairer sex, the Death Row Dames? Are you craving a taste of Texas Jailhouse Chili, but don't have the recipe? Dying to know what Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and other famous serial killers ate before their demise? Then pull up a chair, tuck in that bib, and enjoy!

Author : Robert K. Elder
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2010-05-15
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 9780226202693

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Last Words of the Executed by Robert K. Elder Pdf

Some beg for forgiveness. Others claim innocence. At least three cheer for their favorite football teams. Death waits for us all, but only those sentenced to death know the day and the hour—and only they can be sure that their last words will be recorded for posterity. Last Words of the Executed presents an oral history of American capital punishment, as heard from the gallows, the chair, and the gurney. The product of seven years of extensive research by journalist Robert K. Elder, the book explores the cultural value of these final statements and asks what we can learn from them. We hear from both the famous—such as Nathan Hale, Joe Hill, Ted Bundy, and John Brown—and the forgotten, and their words give us unprecedented glimpses into their lives, their crimes, and the world they inhabited. Organized by era and method of execution, these final statements range from heartfelt to horrific. Some are calls for peace or cries against injustice; others are accepting, confessional, or consoling; still others are venomous, rage-fueled diatribes. Even the chills evoked by some of these last words are brought on in part by the shared humanity we can’t ignore, their reminder that we all come to the same end, regardless of how we arrive there. Last Words of the Executed is not a political book. Rather, Elder simply asks readers to listen closely to these voices that echo history. The result is a riveting, moving testament from the darkest corners of society.

Author : Helen Prejean
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2011-02-02
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780307787699

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Dead Man Walking by Helen Prejean Pdf

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment and an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty • "Stunning moral clarity.” —The Washington Post Book World • Basis for the award-winning major motion picture starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn "Sister Prejean is an excellent writer, direct and honest and unsentimental. . . . She almost palpably extends a hand to her readers.” —The New York Times Book Review In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier’s death, the Roman Catholic nun came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. She also came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job it was to execute—men who often harbored doubts about the rightness of what they were doing. Out of that dreadful intimacy comes a profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment. Here Sister Helen confronts both the plight of the condemned and the rage of the bereaved, the fears of a society shattered by violence and the Christian imperative of love. On its original publication in 1993, Dead Man Walking emerged as an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty. Now, some two decades later, this story—which has inspired a film, a stage play, an opera and a musical album—is more gut-wrenching than ever, stirring deep and life-changing reflection in all who encounter it.

Author : Roger Smith
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 113 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2015-02-03
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781681461038

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Prisoners on Death Row by Roger Smith Pdf

Capital punishment is one of the most divisive and emotional debates in the United States today. Both sides claim they are literally fighting for life-either the life of the condemned criminal or the lives of potential victims; and both sides claim to be upholding practices essential for a healthy society. This book presents an engaging and balanced account from a variety of perspectives on this most important issue: trends and statistics are here, but also the personal stories of convicts, victims, law officials, and activists. This book makes for fascinating, challenging, and informative reading.

Author : Anthony Ray Hinton,Lara Love Hardin
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2018-03-27
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781250124722

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The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton,Lara Love Hardin Pdf

Oprah's Book Club Summer 2018 Selection The Instant New York Times Bestseller A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit. “An amazing and heartwarming story, it restores our faith in the inherent goodness of humanity.” —Archbishop Desmond Tutu In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty–nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free. But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence—full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next twenty–seven years he was a beacon—transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty–four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015. With a foreword by Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty–year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

Author : David Von Drehle
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 500 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2006-06-26
Category : Law
ISBN : 0472031236

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Among the Lowest of the Dead by David Von Drehle Pdf

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Author : Bob Alexander,Richard K. Alvord
Publisher : University of North Texas Press
Page : 601 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2020-10-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781574418163

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Tall Walls and High Fences by Bob Alexander,Richard K. Alvord Pdf

Texas has one of the world’s largest prison systems, in operation for more than 170 years and currently employing more than 28,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of people have been involved in the prison business in Texas: inmates, correctional officers, public officials, private industry representatives, and volunteers have all entered the secure facilities and experienced a different world. Previous books on Texas prisons have focused either on records and data of the prisons, personal memoirs by both inmates and correctional officers, or accounts of prison breaks. Tall Walls and High Fences is the first comprehensive history of Texas prisons, written by a former law enforcement officer and an officer of the Texas prisons. Bob Alexander and Richard K. Alford chronicle the significant events and transformation of the Texas prison system from its earliest times to the present day, paying special attention to the human side of the story. Incarceration policy evolved from isolation to hard labor to rodeo and educational opportunities, with reform measures becoming an ever-evolving quest. The complex job of the correctional officer has evolved as well—they must ensure custody and control over the inmate population at all times, in order to provide a proper environment conducive to safety and positive change. Alexander and Alford focus especially on the men and women who work with diligence and dedication at their jobs “inside the walls,” risking their lives and—in too many instances—giving their lives in a peculiar line of duty most would find unpalatable. Within these pages are stories of prison breaks, bloodhounds chasing escapees, and gunfights. Inside the walls are deadly confrontations, human trafficking, rape, clandestine consensual trysts, and tricks turned against correctional officers. Famous people and episodes in Texas prison history receive their due, from Texas Rangers apprehending and placing outlaws in prison to the famed gunfighter John Wesley Hardin’s time in and out of prison. Tall Walls and High Fences covers numerous convict escape attempts and successes, including the 1974 prison siege at Huntsville and the 2007 prisoner gunfight and escape at the Wynne Unit. Throughout this long history Alexander and Alford pay special tribute to the more than 75 correctional officers, lawmen, and civilians who lost their lives in the line of duty.