NO TITLE... JUST A NUMBER?

It never takes more than 3 weeks before any new prisoner on the row is faced with the unreal and surreal facts of where they are.. As if it hadn't been imprinted on them the day they arrived, cause it as burnt into our minds. Most new prisoners on the row will experience an execution shortly thereafter there arrival, or hear talk "there is an execution tonight". This has to be the worst wake up call ever. Personally in my time on the row I have indirectly witnessed, followed and watched and waited for news on hundreds of men's lives. In fact, to date, Texas has executed 150 human beings in my short lived tenor on the row.

The day your first appeal is denied a part of your false hopes in our justice system die, and further as on travels through this process he feels less alive. The basic construction of these super seg unit buildings, with gun slit windows 7 feet up on the wall (so you cant see out) to these isolated cages, crypts, it was all though out, planned and designed to break a mans will, punish him physically and mentally. Sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation and seasonal affective disorder (from lack of direct sunlight) also known as S.A.D, these are other clinical and in-depth traumas are experienced. Post traumatic stress disorders are rampid inside these walls. Men, friends, our fellow human beings - have died in these super seg's while serving time, waiting to die. In the rows 5 years in this segregation unit - several men have made attempts on their very lives.

The day you arrive in Huntsville, you're treated like cattle. As a D/Row prisoner takes his first walk down the hall at the diagnostic unit - his escorting guards yell "DEAD MAN WALKING", as other general population inmates scramble to clear the way, and get against the wall - backs to us - by order of police, and the guards yell to them, they're not to be looking at me - to turn around.

Dying becomes lonely and impersonal because the inmate is taken out of his familiar environment and rushed right into another, unknown jungle. Cuffed, shackled, caged, stripped searched, put through metal detectors, told to dress in new prison whites, and again cuffed, shackled and chained up like an animal. This process continues until a man's very walk to the executioner's gurney.

From observes point of view, many emotions appear on these men's faces - anxiety, fear, sadness, calm, some laugh, joke. others are concerned about their very adverse expediters of death - even excusing them, saying "you're just doing your job." Psychologically an inmate, goes through at least 5 stages of confronting there own immanent death. As the hour approaches his conditions change - and worsens for some. Denial is impassable, as it passes eventually, anger may be displayed. The "Why me" stage. This is followed by a bargaining period for some - "Yes they might kill me, but not today, I'll get a stay"! As the condemned is told there final appeal to our nation's highest court - the U.S Supreme Court - has been "Denied" reality sets in hard. It is in short, the warden's job to in so many words, tell the man - its last call - any request etc. When the inmate sees that nothings going to work, or possibly help, often depression sets in. The final stage for some - is acceptance, a passive period in which the condemned is ready to let go. At this point many act and react is respected personal moments, communications and final good byes. I only know a handful of men who fought hard, tooth and mail to the executioner's gurney.

Not all condemned follow the same progression, most do experience two or more of these stages. These are not normal "Life's Events" and are such traumatic events, as a death row prisoner can almost smell the death in the air, fear lingers, living it, watching it, witnessing those souls who've transverses, your average everyday men, to whom I've broke bread with, some shared their most private thoughts, news, lives, losses, heartbreaks, deceased family members, while buried in this dungeon of despair. Never to see them again - just as there condemned comrades. We wait, watch the clock.. See it, hear it, smell it - and live these traumatic events.

Indeed Post Traumatic Stress events occur daily. All too often in Texas - as the executioner's beck and call moves the wheels of justice of so called civilized society. Another number called - yet it is another human beings last and final call, as we all watch him take his final visit, his final march, with his head held high.. The state can take everything physical - but prisoners make and take with them, lives forever change - these men take their pride, dignity and humanity with them. As humanity cries, shouts, and bereaves in protest - these honorable warriors in the trenches with us, whose cries, call on deaf ears outside Americas busiest death house- The Texas Execution Chamber.

(source: C. Thompson, death row, Texas)