Spending time on death row

Living on death row is a tougher punishment than death, he said.

"It's a 24-hour a day torture," the 40-year-old Richey said. "You have no life. You're just existing from one day to the next. Believe me, it's an ... existence you don't want."

Richey spoke to The Lima News recently in a telephone interview from death row.

Richey maintained his innocence, saying he never started the fire that killed Collins.

On the inside

On the outside it could be any other cell block until you see the black stenciled sign on a solid-steel door - "Death Row."

It's the place where condemned men spend the last years of their lives. There are 206 people on death row in Ohio.

Death row is a prison inside a prison, a separate housing block at Mansfield Correctional Institution away from the general population.

Entry to the cell blocks is gained through three solid steel locked doors and a security gate. A careful identity check awaits along the way, with no free passes, not even for the warden.

Death row is strikingly quiet, eerie in comparison to the noise that comes from the areas housing the general prison population.

Inmates meet with their attorneys, spiritual advisers or reporters in a small conference room on the administrative wing of death row. Inside the room is a table, several chairs and ring bolted to the floor used to chain the inmate, who remains cuffed.

Although inmates can meet face to face with their attorneys, spiritual advisers or reporters, and may even shake their hands, they cannot do the same with family and friends. Those visits are through a glass window, with a phone to talk.

Death row inmates are locked in a 10- by 12-foot cell 23 hours a day. They get out for an hour each day to exercise if they want it. It's the only time they see other inmates, talk to them or play games such as basketball or cards.

A toilet, sink, shower and desk are crammed into their cells. Inmates are allowed a television if their family purchases it but they only get three channels local to Mansfield.

Death row was moved to Mansfield in 1995 after state prison officials felt having death row and the death house at the same prison could cause undue stress on the staff, said JoEllen Culp, a spokeswoman for the state prison system.

The change came after prison officials believed stress levels in employees would increase if the same staff who dealt with inmates on a daily basis also executed them, she said.

The death house where executions take place is at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Death row has its version of a merit unit where 36 inmates are out of their cell uncuffed for six hours a day. This dorm is for inmates with a minimum of three years on death row without a disciplinary problem, Culp said. During the time these inmates are out of their cells, they can work on community service projects.

Once an inmate is given an execution date he is moved back to the main cell block where he is locked down 23 hours a day, Culp said.

None of the six inmates from the region has a scheduled execution date since their appeals are pending.

Death row is the former solitary confinement cells at the prison. The walls are concrete with no windows and the doors are solid steel with a food chute.

Death row inmates are allowed five visits a month from family members or friends. Inmates welcome the visits but it can be an emotionally tough time.

Richey's never been able to touch his wife, whom he met through a penpal relationship after he went to death row. She also is from Scotland and lives there.

"I haven't held a family member, a woman, made love to a woman in 18 years. I haven't even had a simple caress," he said.

Death row inmates are under tight security. Inmates are shackled with ankle cuffs and handcuffs attached to a chain around their waist every time they leave their cell.

The chains only are removed when the inmates are in recreation or returned to their cells, said Rod Johnson, a spokesman for the Mansfield prison.

Passing time

Richey has a routine.

"I watch TV, sleep. I draw, write poetry, letters, listen to the radio. That's the only things I do in here," he said.

When Richey gets his one hour of recreation he often spends it talking on the phone to his wife, Karen, from Scotland.

In an interview with The Lima News on death row, Jeronique Cunningham said he spends a lot of time praying for himself and other inmates.

"I pray I don't end up being taken to Lucasville," he said.

Cunningham, 32, and his half brother, Cleveland Jackson, 26, are on death row for the Jan. 3, 2002, murder of two girls in Lima. The men entered an Eureka Street apartment to rob a man of drugs and money. They shot eight people and killed a 3-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl.

In recreation, Cunningham said he uses the time to try to stay fit. He enjoys playing basketball with other inmates, he said.

"It's something to do," he said. "I don't get the mindset that just because I'm on death row all hope is lost."

Cunningham said life on death row is extremely boring. He has no television to keep him occupied, he said.

"I try to mix it up. I try to stay busy writing, reading," he said.

Cunningham writes letters with a pen and pad for children to read in a publication called "Surviving the System." His letters focus on trying to help children and keep them from taking the same destructive path he took in life, he said.

"Most of my day is spent writing," he said.

Cleveland Jackson, whom The Lima News also interviewed on death row, said he likes to work out during recreation by doing exercises such as pull-ups and dips. He also likes to play cards.

Sometimes, Jackson said his spirit is low and he doesn't feel like leaving his cell and declines recreation for the day.

Jackson, 26, and convicted as Cunningham's partner in crime, said his only visitors have been his ex-girlfriend who brought his daughter who was born after the crime.

Jackson said his television is broken so he doesn't have much to do. He spends a lot of his time pacing and thinking inside his tiny cell, he said.

He also sleeps a lot.

"All you can do is sleep," he said.

Cunningham and Jackson are half brothers who have the same mother, a fact mentioned numerous times at their trials. Their mother is in a nursing home in Lima following years of drug abuse, according to court testimony. Both men write their mother but she is unable to visit. Cunningham has not had a family member or friend visit during the more than two years he's been on death row.

Cunningham's father is in a mental hospital in Alabama. Jackson's father was killed by his mother when he was 4, according to court testimony.

Cunningham and Jackson each maintain their innocence blaming the other for the murders and denying they shot and killed the girls. Neither, though, denied they were at the scene of the crime.

Friends on death row

Richey said he has friends on death row and sees fellow inmates as normal people.

"Death row inmates are like everybody on the outside. There's no difference from them than anybody on the outside. They are not monsters - they are human beings," he said.

Jackson sees no one on death row as a friend. More like acquaintances, he said.

"You got people you're locked up with. I didn't come to death row to make friends," he said.

Jackson said inmates don't care for each other and would stab another in the back if it meant being released from death row.

"I know for sure I would," he said.

Death row changes inmates

During the 18 years Richey has spent on death row he has watched his body transform from that of a healthy and strong 21-year-old to a 40-year-old diabetic who has had two heart attacks. He's also gained 60 pounds, he said.

"I've become a hell of a lot more angry. More hateful. I have a lot of rage and bitterness in me," he said.

Cunningham said that time alone wears a man down so much so he can lose all hope.

Cunningham has used a recently found deep faith to help him cope with life on the row - something he didn't have before, he said.

"I know Jesus," he said.

Jackson agrees that death row has a way of whittling away at the mind.

"You just got to accept it's how it is," Jackson said. "They aren't trying to make you feel comfortable. They're just looking for a place they can put you."