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dimanche 16 octobre 2016

The Final Message Of Many Death Row Prisoners

By Patricia Burns


Death is never anything that becomes planned. This is a different case when you are a criminal in death row. Their last words are something that leaves quite the mark considering that they have lived knowing the day of execution will come. It could be professing their innocence or saying something completely existential. There is no beauty to this but they are able to find out what they have left to say is interestingly ominous.

Texas is famous for having the most death penalty executions. The last one happened October 5,2016. While giving the inmates their last meal does not happen anymore in the Huntsville Unit, they do have to chance to say a message right before getting executed. The final message Texas prisoners have are available for viewing on the website.

You might think everyone who knows they have death looming above their heads want to say some lasting words. Just like how some who are to be executed are given their last meal and are not able to eat it, they are given the chance to say something but choose not to. Maybe that is due to the anxiety of knowing you are going to die in 5 minutes.

The whole ordeal must be very emotionally difficult to go through for all those involved. This includes relatives, the victims, the loved ones, the friends these inmates have made in prison, and maybe even the guards and the warden. It makes you think if the prison staff feels anything while these executions are being performed on people they have seen day in and day out for the past 9 to 10 years or more.

Most of their messages also involved God and other religious matters. They seem like they just all wanted forgiveness and an escape from the pain. Some inmates also showed their peaceful resolve with death. Ironically, there were never many mentions of hell and more were said about going to heaven and how they have found God.

In total there has been 538 executions done in Hunstville, the death row facility in Texas. Almost, always they make a statement about their God and respective religions. They show either their regret, if they are guilty of the crime, or they say their peace about what was about to happen. They also shower people with their messages of love.

There were some inmates who had a dash of humor even in their last moments. At such a young age, Vincent Gutierrez, 28 was sentenced to capital punishment. The 28 year old, believed to be bipolar said his final touching message then mentioned that the moment would have been perfect to have a stunt double.

This comical attempt does not make the matter any less morbid or sad. There were some cases that professed their innocence even when they were about to undergo lethal injection. Some make a final go at their convictions. A memorable statement was by someone convicted for murder and has confessed to 13 cases of rape. His name was Johnny Johnson.

With the number of experts that say this is not an effective method of deterring crime, maybe there would be some sense in reconsidering using ending a life as a form of punishment. After all, these are criminals who probably already know that death was part of the business they were in. With that premise, dying should not scare them from doing more criminal acts.




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