Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row

set up for Jason and me, so I began taking courses from a local college here in Arkansas. At first I was interested mostly in psychology, but I mixed in a few other subjects, such as sociology and reading German, for good measure. Psychology seemed infinitely interesting to me, with all of its experiments and nature-versus-nurture debates—but I don’t think anyone’s surprised at this point to hear I became interested in psychology. . . .
    I later realized psychology was not my love at all—it was history. I’ve grown to love history more than any other subject, and I have come to believe you can understand far more about the world through history than you can through psychology, especially military history. At first I delved into every aspect and every era of history, but gradually my scope narrowed as I began to realize what I was drawn to.
    My love is Italian history, specifically the history of the cities of Florence and Venice, in the period between 1400 and 1800. My role model is Cosimo de’ Medici, though I also like his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent. What I love about the span of time during which the Medici were in power is the social structure and all the intrigue that accompanied it. Among aristocratic circles, life was like a chess game. You had to weigh your every word, as conversations were filled with subtlety. Social success or failure could hinge on whom you were seen making eye contact with. Not to mention the decadent styles and fashions that were all the rage. No one wore baggy jeans and backward baseball caps. These days no one makes an effort.
    And yet no routine or spiritual practice in the world will dim the reality of daily life on Death Row. A normal person does not commit murder. For almost seventeen years I’ve waited for someone to walk through the door whom I could have a conversation with, but it just doesn’t happen. The people here are all mentally defective in ways that range from mild retardation to extreme schizophrenia. Others are stuck in some no-man’s-land between sanity and delusion. There are no criminal geniuses walking these halls. Most not only are culturally illiterate, but also can barely manage to express themselves in English. I have never met a prisoner with a college education, and I can count the high school graduates on one hand. Nearly all lived in absolute poverty, and most were abused in one way or another. Not a single one of them is capable of functioning normally in society, and it’s not a skill they’re likely to learn when locked in a cell among others who are as bad or worse. I’ve yet to see any sign of “rehabilitation,” or any program designed to bring about that aim. Most of the people you meet in prison have been here repeatedly. Some have been to prison three or four times before making it to Death Row. They claim to hate and despise everything about prison, but they always come back. It’s like they’re collecting frequent flyer miles in hell. They themselves can’t explain it, falling back on excuses such as “It’s hard to stay out once you’ve been in.” Why? How? It’s hard to refrain from snatching an old woman’s purse? It’s somehow difficult to prevent yourself from committing rape? Somehow you accidentally found yourself burglarizing a house and stealing a car? I don’t understand why they don’t learn their lesson the first time around. That in itself is evidence that they’ve got a couple screws loose.
    On Death Row we used to have television sets that were in stands about five feet in front of the cells. The guards were supposed to make security checks every half-hour, at which time they could change the channel if you wanted them to, but that never happened. I’ve seen up to eight hours pass without a single guard coming by. A convict once lay dead on the floor all night long after having a heart attack, and the guards didn’t find him until after breakfast.
    With no guards around we had to devise a way of changing the channel on the television for ourselves, so someone invented what quickly became known as the “channel checker.” A channel checker is made with construction paper, pencils, and bits of pilfered tape. You’d be surprised at what a sturdy spear you can make out of these materials, and in essence that’s what a channel checker is—a spear. With it you can reach through the bars of your cell and change the channel on the TV set.
    In the spirit of escalating warfare, a convict known