Infinite Hope

by Anthony Graves

  The handcuffs were tight, as they always seemed to be. My feet were chained in such a way that I couldn’t walk very easily. I hunched and lurched my way out in a kind of humiliating shuffle to the Bluebird bus that waited to take us the fifty miles to Livingston, Texas.

  The scene on the bus was like the one in Forrest Gump. The seats were full, three men squeezed into spaces meant for one. My immediate seat-mate was Tony. I didn’t know much about him, other than that he struggled a bit. The officers took advantage of him because his intellectual disability left him slow to respond to their many commands. Tony had to use the bathroom. He told the officers again and again. I watched as he squirmed in his seat, rocked back and forth, and practiced those tired methods of simply holding it. An officer told him he’d get to use the bathroom when we got to Livingston. Never mind that the bus had its own bathroom in the back. The officer was insistent that Tony wouldn’t be standing up on that ride. I could tell he couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Tony, I understand,” I told him. “You go ahead and do what you need to do.”

  I watched there as a nineteen-year-old man peed himself because an officer refused to take him to the bathroom twenty feet behind us. In another world, I might have intervened. But I was sick, and weak, and beaten down from my own time on death row. The best I could offer Tony was my understanding, the assurance that whatever he needed to do right then and there, he could do without my judgment or condemnation. The indignity of our collective experience was so great that any tiny momentary expression of individual dignity toward another prisoner took on a larger significance than the act itself. We all held on to these small moments, trying to piece together a way to feel human overall despite our awful daily plight.

  The move to Terrell Unit (since renamed the Polunsky Unit, after its original namesake asked to remove his family name when it changed from a tightly secured unit for troubled youth into a death row facility) ushered in a new era of death row incarceration in Texas. Whereas previous units provided some semblance of vitality, Terrell Unit offered little more than a small space where men could choose whether they wanted to give up and die, or fight for life. For twenty-three hours every weekday, we stayed in our cages. On the weekends, we weren’t let out at all. Long gone were the televisions, the basketball courts, and group recreation of any kind. We were crash-test dummies in a Texas-sized sociology experiment. How long can a man go without human contact before he breaks? Terrell Unit revealed that the answer to this question, like most, is that it all depends on the man.

  Living in this new realm came with many changes, nearly all of them unwelcome adjustments. We began going on lockdown more often than I could count, based on some real, perceived, or manufactured threat or risk escalation. During lockdown, the entire death row unit was locked in their cells twenty-four hours a day. Prisoners were only allowed to shower three times a week, and most lockdowns would last between three weeks to a month. During this time we weren’t given a hot meal. We ate food in a bag, or “Johnny sacks,” which only contained a bologna sandwich, a peanut butter sandwich, and a small box of raisins. Most guys would refuse to eat their Johnny sacks and stick to the ramen noodles they purchased from commissary before lockdown.

  Other privileges were taken away too, as a form of indirect punishment for the others’ attempted escape and also so it could be made known to the public that things were under control on Texas’s death row. For example, we were no longer able to exercise together as we once had done. Necessity breeds ingenuity, however, and we made adjustments to stay sane. We found ourselves working out in sync with our neighbors in the cells next door. I would hit on the wall, and my neighbor in the adjacent cell would start running in place with me for the next thirty minutes. We would then move to push-ups and sit-ups. All of this would start around 5 a.m., after breakfast was served, and became something to look forward to in an otherwise lonely day.

  The harsh conditions were manifest in other ways at Terrell Unit, though we all continued to do our best to remain resilient. One of the creative things we worked out was a way to play chess while in isolation from one another. We would number our chessboards on one side, and use alphabetical letters that would run across the bottom of the board. If someone was playing for stamps (which we used instead of money), we had a referee keep up with the moves called out by the players. For example, if I were going to move a pawn to a particular spot, I would call out my chess piece, and then announce where I’d be moving it. “Pawn to Bravo Four” meant that my pawn should move to those coordinates on the board. Men played chess in this way over the run all day until nighttime. It worked because others would either be listening to the players play, or reading and writing at the time they were playing. Guys became really good at playing chess on death row.

  Small privileges were eliminated along with the larger ones. No longer were we able to watch television, and we could no longer piddle (a form of craftwork using matchsticks, toothpicks, or similar objects) in our cells to help pass the day. Guys used to be able to purchase piddling supplies from outside vendors to make gifts such as jewelry boxes, picture frames, and beaded necklaces to send home to friends and family. No longer could we watch sports or play sports with one another. If there is one thing men in prison have in common, it’s sports, and I didn’t want us to lose that, so I started a fantasy football league in the unit. None of the guys had heard about it before, so here I was introducing fantasy football to death row. Once everyone understood the rules, it spread like wildfire. Every wing started a fantasy football league of its own, and for the next several months, guys would talk fantasy football nonstop. When we had our first draft as owners of our fantasy teams, there was pure excitement in the air. We’d go into the dayroom to start drafting our players to form our teams. Guys came out with their pens and paper along with notes on players and deals they would try to make. I remember when one guy, Oggie Doggie, who had been on death row for about eighteen years, came up to me all excited. He said to me, “Man, I haven’t had this much fun since I was a little kid living in Germany!” He was a military kid. And then I thought to myself, if people only knew how important the little things are in life, they wouldn’t take them for granted.

  Apart from the ways we kept our communication, and friendships, alive at Terrell Unit, it had become a much lonelier place than Ellis ever was. But we could still have visitors. The first time my boys came to visit me there, I noticed just how far away a few inches can feel when there’s a physical barrier between us. Like most, I came up with ways for showing my affection on visiting day. I’d move my hand from my heart to the glass, and my mother would do the same. A mother’s love was one of the few forces able to break through the state’s contrived obstacles. Visits on death row were permitted once per week for two hours, if your name was on the inmate’s approved visitation list. We all held on closely to those appointed hours, as a way to stay in touch with the outside world, and also to maintain at least a threadbare emotional connection to family. The importance of human contact cannot be overstated, and now we had to substitute eye contact and Plexiglas in its stead. We did the best we could, but it wasn’t easy.

  Once again, I ramped up my letter writing in Terrell because there wasn’t much else to do. Nick, Isabelle, Marina Vorlander, and my other friends from abroad would write me almost daily. I encouraged them to take their cameras wherever they went and share their days with me through their camera lenses. They walked around their towns taking pictures for me and would then write a letter describing each picture in detail. In this way, I could actually visit London, Paris, Sweden, and other cities through their photos and words. Their letters and occasional visits made me feel loved and supported by my European family.

  Death row is a test of wills, a battle to see who can remain strong against a tidal wave of anxiety. Suicide attempts were up. The state seemed to celebrate the growing number of volunteers in this sickening category. One man hanged himself in his cage. Often, the run descended into
late-night group-therapy sessions. Men would yell out familiar distress calls. I can’t take it anymore, they’d say. I’d tell them that tomorrow would be better, even when tomorrow held only the promise of more of the same. Some cut themselves with whatever they could find. It’s the sort of environment when you wouldn’t have blamed a man for giving up. I knew I had to keep fighting, and more, to find my purpose before death row came to steal my mind. It was naive of me to continue believing that because I was innocent there was no way my life would end so unjustly. Naïveté saved my life, because had I actually thought every day for six thousand four hundred and sixty days straight that the state was going to kill me for something I didn’t do, I would have lost my mind like so many others. I used to have moments where I would get tired of fighting, but I wouldn’t allow myself to give up. I knew what the alternative would be. I would be executed for a crime I had absolutely no knowledge of and nothing to do with. I could not let that happen; I would not let that happen. I reminded myself every day with every fiber of my being, and I was just barely able to hang on.

  APRIL 2000–FEBRUARY 2006:

  EXECUTION DATES

  THE NEXT SIX YEARS were spent coping as best as I could, while men I knew on the row were killed year after year, sometimes with alarming efficiency. The officers at the Terrell Unit were going to be a challenge to get along with at first because they hadn’t worked around us, so they didn’t know us at all. They were told that we were all very dangerous and they had to be careful when walking by our cells on the runs. I heard one black female officer tell her white coworker whom she thought was walking too close say, “You know, they told us not to walk too close to their cells.” I could only shake my head. She sounded totally brainwashed by a government system built to kill people. I knew then that this transition to the Terrell Unit was going to take some getting used to. As time went by, however, inmates and officers developed relationships that helped to de-escalate the tension and fear. Over time, the routine of living on death row at the Terrell Unit started to remind me of the same environment as Ellis One Unit. Officers began bringing in contraband, and flirting had started taking place between inmates and female officers. I learned that no matter what the circumstances are, men and women are attracted to one another, even in these surreal environs. Familiarity breeds not only contempt, as the saying goes, but also inevitable sexual tension between men and women.

  The State of Texas was still executing people at a shocking rate despite controversies in many cases. Odell Barnes Jr. was executed in 2000, a few months after we made it to the Terrell Unit. An African American man from Wichita Falls, Texas, he had done construction work before coming to death row. He was born in 1968, and at twenty-three years old and with an eleventh-grade education, he had been sentenced to death. He’d been charged once before for robbery and placed on shock probation. And then in 1989, he was convicted of robbery and murder of a woman who was beaten with a lamp and rifle, stabbed in the neck, and shot in the head. Her naked body was found on her bed, where she had been sexually assaulted prior to her death. A .32 caliber handgun and an indeterminate amount of money were stolen from the home. It was said that Barnes was later observed trying to sell the gun to different people. The only thing was, Barnes said that he didn’t do it. He claimed to have had a consensual sexual relationship with this woman. His case picked up some headlines in Europe. Attorneys started investigating and felt that they had done everything they could to prove his innocence, but the state wasn’t going to listen. Odell Barnes Jr. was executed on March 1, 2000. His last words on the gurney were these:

  I’d like to send great love to all my family members, my supporters, and my attorneys. They have all supported me throughout this. I thank you for proving my innocence, although it has not been acknowledged by the courts. May you continue in the struggle, and may you change all that’s being done here today and in the past. Life has not been good to me, but I believe that now after meeting so many people who supported me in this, that all things will come to an end and may this be the fruit of better judgments for the future. That’s all I have to say.

  And just like that, he was executed, with so many unanswered questions remaining in his case.

  On May 31, 2000, the state executed the man whose lies had put me on death row. I didn’t know how to feel about Robert Carter’s execution. On the one hand, his lies had put my life in the hands of a state that believed in killing its citizens, despite the inherent room for error in this deadly machine. And here I was, an innocent man. The possibility that the same could happen to me suddenly got real in my world. Carter’s execution made me think about my own mortality. I was in my cell the day he was killed by Texas. It was customary among the inmates that when an execution was taking place, everyone vowed to remain silent and refuse the meals from the state throughout the day, unless the inmate got a stay of execution and returned to death row. Everyone was silent the day of Carter’s execution. I was in my cell thinking about what the state was about to do. I wasn’t sad or happy about his situation. I was more reflective about the turn my life had taken because of Carter.

  In 2001, it was more of the same. Jermar Arnold, who had stabbed Maurice on the rec yard, along with Young Lion, whom he had stabbed Maurice for, were both executed. Young Lion didn’t go out without a fight. When the officers came to get him from his cell to take him over to be executed, he fought them with everything he had left. They had to pepper-spray him and hogtie him to take him away to his death. Death row was total insanity, it felt to me. Young Lion offered the following as his last statement:

  Okay. I guess I’ll address the Morgan family. To Mrs. Morgan, the sister from the trial. Thirteen or fourteen years ago, I had a non-caring attitude at the time. I’m sorry for shooting your son down during that robbery. Politicians say that this brings closure. But my death doesn’t bring your son back—it doesn’t bring closure. I wish that I could do more, but I can’t. I hope this brings you peace. Ursula, Mano, and Irene, I love y’all—take it easy. They’ve gotta do this thing. I’m still warm from the pepper gas. I love you. I’m ready to go. Call my mom and tell her that this particular process is over. Tell all the brothers to keep their heads up, eyes toward the sky.*

  And with that, he was gone.

  Texas had executed forty death row inmates the first year we got to the Terrell Unit, although it wasn’t as bad as the previous three years, during which Texas set and broke its own execution records.† In 2001, the killing rate slowed down considerably. Texas executed only seventeen that year. It was still more than any other state, but by Texas standards, it was a slow year for killing.

  But 2002 became a bloodbath of executions again, with thirty-six executions in total. This was the year Napoleon Beazley and Monte Delk were executed. They did not claim their innocence, but mitigating circumstances should have resulted in a different outcome. Not all men are innocent, but not all men deserve to die.

  In 2003, Texas executed twenty-four people, including my friend and neighbor from J-23, Granville Riddle.

  In 2004, the state executed twenty-three people. One of them was a highly controversial case. Cameron Todd Willingham, a white man from Navarro County, was convicted in the death of his three young children in a house fire. He told the authorities that the fire started while he and the children were asleep. An investigation revealed that the fire was supposedly intentional, and Todd was arrested. He was only twenty-three years old, with a tenth-grade education. New forensic technology revealed years later that the fire was caused by faulty wiring in the house—it wasn’t arson at all. Yet, on former governor Rick Perry’s watch, the state still moved to execute Willingham, a sickening pursuit. On February 17, 2004, Todd made his last statement: “Yeah, the only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for twelve years for something I did not do. From God’s dust I came and to God’s dust I will return, so the earth shall become my throne. I gotta go, road dog.
I love you Gabby.” He issued a tirade of profanity and then took his last breath. Todd Willingham had been proven innocent, but it didn’t matter to Texas.

  I began to notice that most of the guys who were on death row when I arrived were now being executed. Some of them had become like family to me, and now they were being taken one by one: Dominique Green. James Allridge. Andrew Flores. Kia Johnson. The list goes on and on. I also noticed that the men coming to the row in those years were very young—many were between nineteen and twenty-two years old. This really bothered me, because I was meeting these young kids and they weren’t the monsters that the media made them out to be. Most were kids from broken homes struggling to survive in a grown person’s world, with odds stacked against them from the times of their birth. How could we turn our backs on these kids? I kept thinking.

  In 2005, Texas executed nineteen men. This year also brought the execution of Frances Newton, an African American woman from Harris County. She had been an accountant with a twelfth-grade education. In 1987, she was accused and later convicted of killing her husband for insurance money, along with her son and daughter. She claimed her innocence, and many around the world believed her, but that had made no difference to the State of Texas and Governor Rick Perry. She was executed without giving a last statement.

  There are many more stories of men, and some women, put to death in Texas during these years. Many of them I knew personally, but everyone there had some story to tell. Most we’ll never hear. It’s painful for me to wonder how many of them were innocent of the charges, like me, but had come to a very bad place through the circumstances of life. How many stories would go untold, how many lives were wasted? Death row claimed them all. When, I wondered, would it be my turn? It was becoming more real with each execution of one of my friends, each killing a stark reminder of where I was, and why I was there.