Viewpoint Hope scarce on death row
By JEFF GUNTZEL
Its my first visit to death
row, and everything so far is just as I imagined it would be. In every
direction I see stone-faced guards and steel bars. I feel cold. Every footstep,
every slamming door and every holler echoes off the concrete and collides. The
sound of it all makes silence seem impossible.
My assignment, as part of a visiting team from the Illinois
Coalition Against the Death Penalty, is to visit with six inmates. The first
guy on my list is asleep. The next guy is using the legal phone to get an
update on his case from his lawyer. On my way to the next cell I am called over
by an inmate who wants to talk to me. He is not on my list. He wants to make
sure I know about a new state-issued directive that has all the inmates upset.
I begin taking notes. Documenting inmate grievances is one of my jobs as a
visitor.
We are barely 10 minutes into our exchange when suddenly, as if
someone had thrown a switch, everything freezes, and the dizzying sound of 60
simultaneous top volume conversations ceases. Every television set in the unit
is turned up and fixed to the same channel. Andre, the man I am visiting with,
turns his on. Illinois Gov. George Ryans voice resonates throughout the
gallery. He is announcing a moratorium on executions in Illinois.
The governor is speaking from the James R. Thompson Center in downtown Chicago,
but from where Im standing he might as well be broadcasting from another
planet.
Andre, eyes fixed on his television screen, leans against one of
the three empty white walls in his cell and listens patiently. I am standing
just outside his cell. I rest my head against the bars. Elsewhere in the
gallery a small number of inmates applaud the initial announcement.
Andre is silent. He looks skeptical.
I had heard news of the governors decision the previous
morning as I was leaving Chicago for Chester, a small Mississippi River town in
Southern Illinois that is home to the Menard Correctional Center, which houses
51 of the inmates condemned by the state to die. I had imagined that the mood
in the gallery would be one of excitement and hope; that Id be able to
feel the good news hanging in the air. I was naïve.
When the announcement is over, two news anchors appear for
discussion of the governors announcement. Andre turns his back to the
television and faces me again. He is an intense guy, a small-framed but stocky
African-American man with eyes that look right through me. Hes warm, too,
even though he doesnt offer a single smile the entire time we are
together.
He tells me hes been in prison for more than 30 years. When
I ask him what he thinks about the governors announcement, Andre cocks
his head and says that the moratorium wont be long enough. Someone had
heard 18 months on the news the night before (the governor made no mention of a
time frame in his announcement).
Andre said if inmates and activists dont use this window of
opportunity to put extra pressure on the states policymakers, little will
change, and soon it will just be business as usual on Illinois death row.
Andre was not celebrating.
Later I asked another inmate what he thinks of the moratorium. He
shook his head and said, They say they dont want an innocent person
to be executed. They say theyre going to check into it. Thats what
they always say when theres a problem: Well check into
it, but nothing ever happens.
He was not hopeful. For every innocent person let off death
row, the state should be charged with attempted murder, he said.
I did not expect this reaction. I had to ask myself, what should I
expect from death row? After teaching themselves to survive months, years and
decades captive to an equation that can only equal death, can these inmates
afford hope?
I had anticipated that the inmates I visited would want to talk
about the moratorium and little else when in fact the story was quickly buried
by a much older story that seems to be rewritten every day on death row -- the
story of survival in a completely unnatural environment.
Still, Ryans move may have started something. Since the
announcement Jan. 31, several of the 38 states that currently employ the death
penalty are said to be considering their own moratoriums.
I am just thankful that God chose Illinois to be an example
to the rest of the country, said another inmate I visited. Whatever
happens now is in Gods hands.
Jeff Guntzel, who works for Voices in the Wilderness, a group
that opposes the U.S. sanctions against Iraq, writes from Chicago.
National Catholic Reporter, March 17,
2000
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