In the
mid-1990s, I was commissioned by Terry Clegg to write a pilot for a TV project.
I don’t drop Terry’s name lightly. He’s retired now, but even the most cursory
search would reveal that Terence A Clegg brought some of the finest British
films to the screen, usually in tandem with Lord Attenborough, with whom he had
a long and brilliant association. When the man who produced Gandhi comes calling, you pay attention.
The
project I was engaged to write was a drama based on the memoirs of Albert Pierrepoint, probably Britain Britain Britain Germany
But this
post is not about them, or about Ruth Ellis, or about any of the famous/infamous
unfortunates Albert helped on their way to the next place. This post is about
me and another lost soul.
In
writing what eventually sprawled to scripts for six two-hour episodes based on
Albert Pierrepoint’s life and work, I found myself sinking deeper and deeper
into the minutiae of death by hanging and the mechanics of breaking someone’s
neck by dropping them through a hole. If it sounds soulless, it’s because it
must have been. Each candidate for execution had to be weighed and measured, to
calculate the length of the drop. Sandbags would be hung on the rope overnight beforehand
to stretch it to its optimum length to do the job cleanly. As I waded through photocopies
of Albert’s notebooks and tables of figures, I realised that I had to objectify
the dead. Their role in this drama was only to provide context. The theatre
derived not from their misfortunes and tragedies but from the process by which
their own lives were ended. The dead were, in a way, simple props used to dress
the set on which Albert lived.
It was
this realisation that made me stop and consider what I was doing. Underneath
each execution was a human story, usually a tragedy. By stripping the condemned
of their humanity and equating them with bags of sand, I realised that I was
losing my own.
While the
writing continued, I pursued a parallel agenda to rebalance myself. Even in
these days when the internet was a relatively new thing, I was able to use it
to find directories of Death Row prisoners who were seeking pen pals. I wanted
to connect with someone in that situation. I needed to remind myself that whatever
they had done, they were human beings too, as frail, vain and ridiculous as me.
It was a selfish whim perhaps, to regain my own balance by reaching out a human
hand to someone who had been reduced, in the same way I had reduced their
historical counterparts, to weights, measures and numbers.
I struck
up a correspondence with #999149. I’ll not use his name, it’s not really
relevant. You can find out easily enough through the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website, should you wish. I wrote him a non-committal but
upbeat letter and waited.
Some
weeks later, I got a reply and that began a chain of correspondence that
fulfilled my selfish needs and, to a degree, his. I learned he had a child he
rarely saw that was born after his arrest and incarceration. I learned that he
was a talented sketch artist with an interest in dark things. I sent him money
occasionally – airmail stamps cost money and $10 to an inmate is a fortune and is
not much to me. He sent me a drawing. We never discussed his crimes or his
appeals. Everything that passed between us was read by the authorities and our
correspondence was based on that understanding. So, conscious in part of what
he was alleged to have done and of the fact that he had been tried and
convicted, I never asked any questions.
I learned that the densities of black and Hispanic inmates,
particularly on Death Row, are much higher than in the general population
outside. I learned that the possibilities for self-improvement or redemption for
inmates are scant. And on Death Row, at the end of all this denial and
oppression is the final denial itself. That’s the system.
#999149
and I kept up our correspondence. His big issue never overshadowed his little
ones. He was interested in mine. Two men rapping about their families. What
could be more natural? Through our correspondence I realised that violent crime
is never inevitable, that in societies where success is measured by how much
stuff you can acquire and where opportunity doesn’t knock very often if you’re
poor, the easy-looking path must sometimes be appealing. I should point out
that #999149’s conviction was for a violent coke-fuelled robbery that went tragically wrong.
It was the pursuit of easy money that brought #999149 to Death Row. I would not
have been able to correspond with anyone who derived gratification from the act
of killing in itself.
And so I
came full circle. I delivered my scripts (nothing ever came of them), #999149 delivered my balance. As I
got to the point of being OK with myself about capital punishment again, I
diverted myself by looking more closely into what #999149 had done. I shouldn’t
have. While he never lied to me, I discovered (damn you, internet) that the
foundation of our relationship was built on sand. There was a lot more darkness
in #999149’s soul than he could allow himself to reveal. The main criterion
considered by prosecutors seeking the death penalty is the ongoing threat to
society if the offender was to be released. I understood, chillingly, why
#999149 would not receive any mitigation in that regard. All his appeals failed.
But we’re
not the jury here. I made my own judgement. Based on what I had newly discovered,
I brought our correspondence to a close. That’s another denial. My decision to stop corresponding was harsh perhaps. Selfish?
Definitely. I felt used and angry. My liberal rage against state murder was overlaid
by fear and, frankly, a little revulsion. Now, with distance and sharpened by the fact that a man I kind of knew was killed on purpose, I'm solid on my opposition to capital punishment again.
I kept an
eye on my former correspondent #999149. Maybe his sentence would be commuted
after all. Would he have learned enough in the care of the TDCJ to avoid the
wrong path if he had ever been released? We’ll never know now, because as of about 12:31am our time 22 January 2015, he is dead.
