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NCSue
Guest
On a related note…
I’ve been writing to several death row inmates for 10 + years now. I try to share my faith with them, and one has since joined the Church (due to the grace of God… not my doing, I assure you). One of the inmates I write to is in Florida but is originally from West Virginia. He has an unusual last name.
We lived out in the boondocks several years ago, and a woman moved across the street. She’s originally from West Virginia. Her last name was one of those Slavic names - difficult for me to remember, pronounce, or spell. She told me to call her by her maiden name… the same last name as the inmate I was writing to.
I contacted the inmate I write to and mentioned that I’d met someone who was from his home state with his last name. He gave me permission to tell her about him. It turns out that they were first cousins, and had lost touch many years ago. They wound up corresponding with each other, and ultimately she and I went down to Florida to visit him.
While waiting to visit, we talked with family members of the inmates. For the most part, they seemed like nice people. Genuinely nice people. And I remember talking with one woman in particular who traveled 800 miles or so from her home at every opportunity to visit with her son. (He has since been executed.)
At that time, Florida was the only state I’m aware of that permitted “contact visits” with death row inmates. After we we “frisked”, we were conducted into a room that had tables, chairs, vending machines, and guards. There were probably 15 or so inmates who came in to visit, and probably 40 or so people altogether in the room. People were playing checkers, talking, visiting with their children, milling around, eating chips… The really odd thing to me is that the room and the people in it seemed so ordinary. Had there been no guards, and had the prisoners been in street clothes rather than prison uniforms, it would have seemed just like being in a cafeteria at a factory. Except for the prison uniforms, there really wasn’t much to distinguish the inmates from anyone else.
Now, let me say right off that very likely the inmates in that room were guilty, and they were most likely guilty of a heinous crime. I do not advocate letting them out on the streets. But they are human beings with wives and children and parents. I felt tremendous sadness for their families and for the families of their victims.
These men have taken aHUGE wrong turn, and they will rightfully pay a price for that in our legal system. But as I left that room, I felt much like the words spoken by Fulton Sheen in an earlier post in that thread. Rather than wanting to condemn these men, I recognized that “there but for the grace of God, go I.”
I’ve been writing to several death row inmates for 10 + years now. I try to share my faith with them, and one has since joined the Church (due to the grace of God… not my doing, I assure you). One of the inmates I write to is in Florida but is originally from West Virginia. He has an unusual last name.
We lived out in the boondocks several years ago, and a woman moved across the street. She’s originally from West Virginia. Her last name was one of those Slavic names - difficult for me to remember, pronounce, or spell. She told me to call her by her maiden name… the same last name as the inmate I was writing to.
I contacted the inmate I write to and mentioned that I’d met someone who was from his home state with his last name. He gave me permission to tell her about him. It turns out that they were first cousins, and had lost touch many years ago. They wound up corresponding with each other, and ultimately she and I went down to Florida to visit him.
While waiting to visit, we talked with family members of the inmates. For the most part, they seemed like nice people. Genuinely nice people. And I remember talking with one woman in particular who traveled 800 miles or so from her home at every opportunity to visit with her son. (He has since been executed.)
At that time, Florida was the only state I’m aware of that permitted “contact visits” with death row inmates. After we we “frisked”, we were conducted into a room that had tables, chairs, vending machines, and guards. There were probably 15 or so inmates who came in to visit, and probably 40 or so people altogether in the room. People were playing checkers, talking, visiting with their children, milling around, eating chips… The really odd thing to me is that the room and the people in it seemed so ordinary. Had there been no guards, and had the prisoners been in street clothes rather than prison uniforms, it would have seemed just like being in a cafeteria at a factory. Except for the prison uniforms, there really wasn’t much to distinguish the inmates from anyone else.
Now, let me say right off that very likely the inmates in that room were guilty, and they were most likely guilty of a heinous crime. I do not advocate letting them out on the streets. But they are human beings with wives and children and parents. I felt tremendous sadness for their families and for the families of their victims.
These men have taken aHUGE wrong turn, and they will rightfully pay a price for that in our legal system. But as I left that room, I felt much like the words spoken by Fulton Sheen in an earlier post in that thread. Rather than wanting to condemn these men, I recognized that “there but for the grace of God, go I.”
