In The Place Of Justice Part 13

"But the thirty-two guys currently on death row and those who will be sentenced to death during the coming year are not affected by the law," Ron said. "They have to die in that chair."

"I doubt that any newspaper in Louisiana would publish those photos," said Whitley.

"That's all the more reason we need to do it," I said. "And as publisher, you might want the distinction of having your your magazine publish what even the professional outside press is too squeamish to print." He asked how many photos we wanted to use. I said I intended to publish only two photos of Williams to make our point-one of his head and the other of his leg, in black-and-white. magazine publish what even the professional outside press is too squeamish to print." He asked how many photos we wanted to use. I said I intended to publish only two photos of Williams to make our point-one of his head and the other of his leg, in black-and-white.

"You're saying you're not good enough writers to make your point without the pictures?" he asked.

"No writer is ever as good as a photo," said Ron. "These pictures grab your attention and make the point-without words."

I reminded the warden of his own philosophy, that if he couldn't stand having people see what he was doing, then maybe he shouldn't be doing it.

He smiled and nodded in agreement. "I just wanted you to defend your position. I think the photos will make for a great story. But you do understand there are people who are not gonna want this published," he said.

As word of the photos got around, those people did indeed arrive. Annette Viator, attorney for the Department of Corrections, came to the prison and implied I wouldn't be allowed to publish the pictures. Her boss, corrections chief Bruce Lynn, strongly suggested to me that it was not in my best interest or that of the department.

Ottinger and Trenticosta filed their lengthy legal challenge in the 22nd Judicial District Court of Louisiana, in which they included the Williams photos. There was also a report by Theodore Bernstein, a national expert on electrical engineering who had traveled to Angola and spent hours studying the chair and its equipment and found significant problems: "The buckle on the wet straps is too close to the flesh and acts as an additional conducting path to cause burns at the buckle. The buckle and leather cause arcing of the electrical current to other areas of the flesh, resulting in additional burns. The sponge utilized is too thin and therefore does not spread the current uniformly over a sufficient area, which leads to greater burns. The rough underside of the electrode and the sharp edges of the metal, as constructed, burn right into the skin because of the close s.p.a.cing permitted by the thin sponge." Bernstein's conclusions were supported by another expert, Fred Leuchter, Jr., the nation's only provider of execution equipment, who stated that the Angola electrodes were "the most poorly designed... I have ever seen."

Bernstein told Ron and me that he was surprised to learn Louisiana's electric chair had been "put together by electricians" instead of electrical engineers. The biggest problem was the electrodes, which he said "contributed to excessive, completely unnecessary burning of the person being executed." The burns and mutilations suffered by Williams were not unique to him but were experienced by other prisoners electrocuted in Louisiana, he concluded; he predicted similar results in the future.

The court stayed the execution of Frederick Kirkpatrick. No news media in the state mentioned the photos. We decided to hold up publication of our next edition so that we could include the outcome of the pardon board's October 8 clemency hearing for Robert Sawyer, a mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded inmate scheduled to die in the electric chair two days later. He was now being represented by Ottinger and Trenticosta, who had become involved in his case only the month before.

When the Louisiana Supreme Court refused to stay the execution, Trenticosta had to remain in New Orleans to file legal motions for Sawyer in the federal courts, so Ottinger had to handle a challenging presentation to the pardon board alone. After presenting evidence of Sawyer's mental r.e.t.a.r.dation, which she contended had made it difficult for him to consider the prosecutor's plea bargain offer prior to trial, Ottinger prepared to present evidence of design problems with the state's electric chair. Bernstein was to be her first witness. "I don't know where else to bring this," she told the board, "but I bring it to you because you're the conscience of the community."

The board, forewarned by Annette Viator, declared itself an improper forum. "We are not technical people. That's not our function," pardon board chairwoman Yvonne Campbell said. She disallowed Ottinger's argument and evidence of a design flaw in the chair, evidence that would have included the post-execution photos of Williams and made them part of the public record.

During a break in the session, board member Sally McKissack came over to where I was standing against the wall to say h.e.l.lo. Yvonne followed her. "Heard you've got copies of those photographs," Yvonne whispered.

I nodded. "They'll be in the next issue."

"The Department of Corrections isn't gonna let y'all publish that," Sally half declared, half asked.

"Whitley's the publisher. We'll see."

"You heard what we've heard, Wilbert," said Sally. "What would you do?"

"Sarah and Nick have already filed this issue in court," I said. "Having seen the pictures, I'd find a reason to dodge this execution, because if something goes wrong with it after you've refused to hear their complaint, you're going to catch flak from everywhere. But you know that."

At the end of the hearing, Campbell announced that the governor, upon the board's request, had granted Sawyer a reprieve to allow the board more time to acquire additional doc.u.ments needed to make a decision.

The September/October 1990 issue of The Angolite The Angolite featured "The Horror Show," with the postmortem Williams photographs. The magazine was being printed when we learned the closely guarded ident.i.ty of the state's executioner. We asked Whitley to convey an interview request to him and stopped the presses to postpone publication of Williams's photos until after we interviewed the executioner. featured "The Horror Show," with the postmortem Williams photographs. The magazine was being printed when we learned the closely guarded ident.i.ty of the state's executioner. We asked Whitley to convey an interview request to him and stopped the presses to postpone publication of Williams's photos until after we interviewed the executioner.

"He'd have to be crazy to talk to you," Whitley said, "and once he sees those photographs in The Angolite The Angolite, he definitely won't talk to you."

"That's why we want to interview him before before the magazine is published," I said. I asked Whitley to let the man know that we already knew who he was, but weren't going to reveal his ident.i.ty. "At least invite him to the prison; let us make our own appeal to him, and let him make his own decision." Whitley agreed to extend an invitation to the man to meet with us. the magazine is published," I said. I asked Whitley to let the man know that we already knew who he was, but weren't going to reveal his ident.i.ty. "At least invite him to the prison; let us make our own appeal to him, and let him make his own decision." Whitley agreed to extend an invitation to the man to meet with us.

A couple of weeks later, a.s.sistant Warden Dwayne McFatter, the new Angolite Angolite supervisor and Whitley's right-hand man, met Ron and me at the door of the death house at Camp F and showed us into a room, where Whitley introduced us to a bearded, dark-haired man dressed in camouflage pants, snakeskin cowboy boots, and a black T-shirt. He was a Baton Rouge electrician who had volunteered for the job of executioner and was dubbed "Sam Jones," after the governor who presided over the state's first execution by electric chair. So far, he had killed nineteen men from Angola's death row. His predecessor, Grady Jarrett, had died during the two-decade moratorium on executions, after dispatching sixty-seven men. I was intensely aware that had my death sentence stood, this man would have thrown the switch on me without batting an eyelid. supervisor and Whitley's right-hand man, met Ron and me at the door of the death house at Camp F and showed us into a room, where Whitley introduced us to a bearded, dark-haired man dressed in camouflage pants, snakeskin cowboy boots, and a black T-shirt. He was a Baton Rouge electrician who had volunteered for the job of executioner and was dubbed "Sam Jones," after the governor who presided over the state's first execution by electric chair. So far, he had killed nineteen men from Angola's death row. His predecessor, Grady Jarrett, had died during the two-decade moratorium on executions, after dispatching sixty-seven men. I was intensely aware that had my death sentence stood, this man would have thrown the switch on me without batting an eyelid.

Just as many people expect me to be somehow different from them because I killed someone, I found myself expecting a man who had coolly killed nineteen people to display something in his appearance or behavior that hinted at his chilling avocation. But he appeared to be the kind of nondescript, white, working-cla.s.s guy you'd find sitting at a bar, on a bus, at the supermarket-a carpenter, a locksmith, a repairman, even a cop, all of which he had been during his life.

Jones said he agreed to come and hear us out because of the reputation of The Angolite The Angolite. Had he wanted anonymity, he would not have come to meet with us. So we appealed to his ego, telling him that we wanted to put his picture on our cover. He agreed to an interview and to being photographed. Whitley turned away in disgust as he and McFatter stepped outside the room, leaving us to our interview. We first took Jones into the execution chamber to get photos of him standing next to his instrument of death, the oaken chair that had done duty since the year before I was born. I gave him an Angolite Angolite to hold in his hand as I snapped his photograph. to hold in his hand as I snapped his photograph.

Jones was a divorced father who didn't socialize much. He called himself "a loner" but a.s.sured us that he was just a typical citizen who lived a normal life-except for his occasional trip to Angola to push a b.u.t.ton to kill someone. He was paid $400 each time. He insisted the money had little to do with his being an executioner. He said he did it for the victims of crime. "They don't have anyone else speaking for 'em," he said. He didn't sound convincing. He said that neither he nor his family nor anyone close to him had ever been victimized by crime. Yet it seemed clear that he liked being an executioner.

Jones said he knew nothing about executions, had never seen one performed, much less conducted one, when he executed Williams in 1983. "I didn't know what to expect," he said. We asked him about the ongoing legal challenge, the claim that the electric chair was poorly designed and caused excessive pain and mutilation to the inmate. He said there had been no problems with the chair Angola used. "I see 'em when they remove them from the chair. I haven't seen any of them burned or mutilated in the eighteen or nineteen that I've done."

"But you just admitted that you had never seen an execution before," I said, "so how would you know what the inmate was supposed to look like physically after being electrocuted?"

"I had seen people electrocuted accidentally," he said.

Ron showed him the postmortem Williams photos. "Is that the way he looked after you executed him?" Ron asked.

Jones looked through the color photographs, then shook his head. "No, I've never seen that," he said. "That's the first time I've seen that. I didn't see that on him when they had him in the chair. It may have come up later. I don't know what happens to 'em, what procedure the body goes through after they're electrocuted."

"Did any of the other inmates have burns like this on them?" Ron asked.

"No," he replied. "I don't remember seeing it on 'em. As soon as they take 'em out of the chair, they put 'em in a body bag and they're gone."

Jones admitted he had never examined the electric chair. He relied upon prison electricians-whose execution expertise was acquired, like his own, through on-the-job training-to have it in perfect working order when he arrived to perform his deed. The only test of chair readiness occurred a couple of days prior to each execution, when prison authorities put the electrodes into a tub of water to see if the electricity was flowing through them.

Jones believed the inmates he executed were human garbage, guilty and beyond redemption. Although he was highly critical of the justice system, he felt it had so many safeguards built into it that it was virtually impossible for anyone on death row to be innocent. He believed that electrocution was too quick and easy a death. "They don't feel no pain," he said, basing his statement on his own experience of having once been shocked. "It knocks them out." Yet he confessed that if he had to be executed, he would choose lethal injection over the electric chair.

"Does killing these guys bother you, just a little?" I asked.

"Nope-not at all," he replied nonchalantly. "It's never bothered me. There's nuthin' to it. It's no different to me executing somebody and goin' to the refrigerator and getting a beer out of it."

"What if it was your son?" Ron asked.

"If he did something, they sit him in the chair, he was convicted of it, I'd execute him," he said.

We left the death house convinced that Sam Jones was as remorseless a killer as any of the men he executed. And he was a free man.

"That f.u.c.ker is crazier than I thought he was," said Whitley, having overheard much of the interview.

"And he's about to learn the power of the press," I said.

"No matter how this ends," said Whitley, "whether we have the needle or the chair, we won't be needing his services anymore. He talked himself out of a job."

Our September/October 1990 magazine was finally published around Thanksgiving. The photos of Williams, the medical diagnosis of his burns, and the conclusions of expert electrical engineers that Louisiana's electric chair was defective made news throughout the state. It was our hottest, fastest-selling magazine ever. Everyone wanted to see what an electrocuted person looked like, it seemed.

The corrections department, without acknowledging anything was wrong with the electric chair, announced it would ask the legislature to mandate that the present death row population be executed by lethal injection.

Our interview with the executioner was published two issues later, after which he was relieved of his duties.

A couple of weeks later I was summoned to a meeting with Governor Roemer at the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge. Whitley and McFatter accompanied me and, as usual, I wore no restraints.

Whitley said he didn't know what the governor wanted. I was concerned that it might have something to do with the post-execution photos, that the governor might want to shut down The Angolite The Angolite. I would contest that in the most high-profile way I could, and I knew, win or lose, that would bury me in prison forever.

When I was shown into the governor's office, Whitley and McFatter waited outside with a state trooper. An attractive blonde and an old man in a suit sat on a couch to the left. Roemer stood behind a desk, a small, wiry man, dressed casually in jeans and shirt.

I recalled how he had phoned Dalton Prejean moments before his execution-causing hope for a reprieve to surge through the condemned man-only to tell Prejean he was going to let him die. I wondered now if he had been deliberately callous. He invited me to a chair in front of the desk and we both sat. He said he was honoring his promise not to make a decision on my application for clemency without meeting with me and listening to my side. "If there's anything in particular that you want to say on your own behalf, now's the time to say it," he said dispa.s.sionately.

I thanked him for meeting with me. "I don't know what to tell you that you don't already know," I said. "I've traveled throughout this state for years and could have physically taken my freedom at any point. The fact that I didn't should tell you something." I shrugged. "But perhaps you have questions for me."

"My understanding is that you took three people all the way out of the city, out into the woods, lined them up on the side of the road, and shot them execution-style." He stopped, studying me.

"No, sir," I said, shaking my head, "it didn't happen like that. I never intended to hurt anybody. If I had wanted to kill those people, I would have done it right there inside the bank, instead of running all over the place with them. In fact, they even testified that I told the bank manager to get his coat because he'd be cold walking back to town. I did not line them up and shoot them execution-style, like the DA claims. Mrs. McCain leaped out of the car and I sprang out of the other side, slipping and losing my balance. Everybody took off running and I panicked, firing impulsively as they fled."

"Why did you slash Mrs. McCain's throat?"

"I did not slash Mrs. McCain's throat."

"Don't tell me you didn't," he said, an edge to his voice. "She told me you did. She sat right there where you're at and showed me the scar on her neck."

I realized from his tone that he had granted me this audience only because of pressure from the media. This was the face-to-face version of his call to Prejean. My gut clenched.

"I don't know why she said that, Governor. In four decades, I have never heard that before. I can only tell you that it's not true."

"Wasn't there a confession?" the old man on the couch asked.

"There were two confessions," I replied. "What I'm telling you today is exactly what I told the sheriff that night at the jail. The FBI got me to sign a second one several days later that gives a different version of the crime. One of the agents wrote it himself, and had me sign it, on the promise that they would protect my mother from the lynch mob."

"You're saying the FBI statement isn't accurate?" Roemer asked.

My mind searched frantically for something he might relate to. "That statement has me eating lunch in Youngblood's Cafe in the shopping center next door to where I worked. It was an all-white area of town, before the civil rights movement and racial integration. It was against the law for a black person to eat in a white cafe. Had I tried to do so, the crime I'm in prison for would've never happened, because the whites in that place would either have killed me on the spot or the police would have locked me up." I paused, trying to gauge whether or not my words were having any impact. "There are other falsehoods in that statement."

"Why haven't you refuted any of this before now?"

"I never testified in any of the trials. My lawyers wouldn't let me. Since I had already served the required ten years, six months on a life sentence when I got off death row, I tried to get out through the clemency process, which is how all lifers get out." I told him about why I didn't challenge the facts of my case before the pardon board. "While the policy no longer exists," I said, "it's too late now for me to start refuting things. My opponents' version of the crime has been repeated in hearings and in the media for so long that it's taken on a life of its own. But that aside, what would I look like arguing that, no, I didn't cut Mrs. McCain's throat, I only shot her? What difference does that make? It certainly doesn't make me less guilty. But it would change the question from whether I merit clemency, given the amount of time I've served and my efforts to redeem myself, to a controversy over details of the crime and who's telling the truth and who's not."

Roemer switched the subject. "I guess you've seen a lot of changes at Angola during the years you've been there," he said.

"Oh, yeah-like going from night to day," I said. I started telling him about the prison and some of my experiences in it. The conversation between us relaxed, and he seemed to warm to me, asking questions about my trip to Washington and my plans if he granted me clemency. He asked about my traveling and remarked at one point, "Maybe I should make you the goodwill amba.s.sador for the Department of Corrections." I could not tell if he was serious or joking. I remembered reading that he was a poker player and reputed to be a good one. I understood why: He was elusive and difficult to read.

Since I was doing most of the talking, in response to his questions, I lost track of time, but when he ended the meeting, he told me he was glad that we had had our talk, that it had given him a different perspective, and that he needed to reevaluate his position. He encouraged me to continue my good works and generally left me with the impression that he would do something for me. He walked me back to the door and shook my hand in a friendly fashion.

"Is he gonna do something for you?" Whitley asked as we returned to our vehicle.

"He said he was glad we met because he learned a lot that he hadn't known," I said, not wanting to divulge anything that might get back to the governor. I convinced myself that the meeting had gone surprisingly well.

In the following days, Whitley told me that the word from corrections headquarters was that the governor was going to free me. Then Department of Corrections secretary Bruce Lynn told me the same thing. Yvonne Campbell and Sally McKissack told me the pardon board had been advised that Roemer would sign their recommendation, but not until after the next year's gubernatorial campaign, because he was going to run for reelection. I was ecstatic. The wait didn't bother me a bit. The knowledge that I was going to be free made all the difference in my life. I was free to focus on making a life after prison. I felt felt free. I had hope and a future. I was on top of the world, and it was a beautiful sight. free. I had hope and a future. I was on top of the world, and it was a beautiful sight.

Angola authorities dread summer. The oppressive Southern heat brings the prospect of irritated inmates who might flare up and express smoldering discontent in violence or rebellion. When a Baton Rouge judge scheduled Andrew Lee "Flash" Jones to be electrocuted on July 22, 1991, for the 1984 rape and murder of the eleven-year-old daughter of his estranged girlfriend, the pardon board recommended that Governor Roemer delay the execution until September 15, when the legislature's mandated switch to lethal injection would take effect. The governor, who was facing a tough reelection bid, refused.

Rigor mortis had not yet stiffened Jones's body when, hours later, the supervisor of the metal fabrication plant in the Main Prison industrial compound approached two inmate welders, Dan Goodson and William Stone, and instructed them to build a "restraint table" purportedly to be used on patients at the state mental hospital. He neglected, however, to remove the logo of the Colorado State Penitentiary from the photos and blueprints he provided to guide them in their work. The inmates realized they had been given the task of constructing the lethal-injection gurney that would replace Angola's electric chair. They told the supervisor they would not do anything to help the state kill an inmate. They were both locked up for disobeying a direct order.

The following morning, Tuesday, plant supervisors tried again, instructing each of the other thirty-seven inmate welders in turn-among them Eddie Sonnier, whose brother had been electrocuted in 1984-to build the gurney. But they had all decided to follow Goodson and Stone to the Dungeon. As word of what happened spread to the farm workers emerging from the dining hall and preparing to go out in the sizzling midday heat-it was over 90 degrees in the shade-there was spontaneous combustion as large numbers of them opted to join in protest, turning a collective deaf ear to the orders yelled at them to go to work.

Ron and I rushed to the scene. Ron talked to the rebelling inmates while I hurriedly photographed what was happening. It was only a matter of time before security reinforcements would rush from other parts of the prison to help deal with the uprising. We worked fast because we did not want to get caught in the middle of the potential physical clash, which could be dangerous. As we entered the Main Prison Office building, several guards stopped us and demanded my camera.

"Rideau, we got s.h.i.t kicking off, and we can't have y'all running around in there with that camera," a supervisor said. "It ain't safe."

"That's our problem, not yours."

He shook his head, reaching for the camera. "Naw, y'all go on to your office. You can get your camera back when this is over."

I gave him the camera. Then I phoned the warden's secretary to report its seizure, and asked that it be returned to us.

All inmate activity in the Main Prison was being shut down, traffic frozen, and all inmates sent to their respective dormitories-except the Angolite Angolite staff, which was allowed to remain in our offices. Soon afterward, a small army of guards in riot gear, led by Whitley, went to the Big Yard and methodically extracted more than three hundred striking farm workers from the thousand-man population there. The strikers went peaceably to the lockdown cells, where they were crammed four and five into each one. Still, in a world that broke down under stress to us against them, tension remained, with guards and the remaining seven hundred Big Yard inmates on edge. staff, which was allowed to remain in our offices. Soon afterward, a small army of guards in riot gear, led by Whitley, went to the Big Yard and methodically extracted more than three hundred striking farm workers from the thousand-man population there. The strikers went peaceably to the lockdown cells, where they were crammed four and five into each one. Still, in a world that broke down under stress to us against them, tension remained, with guards and the remaining seven hundred Big Yard inmates on edge.

Later that afternoon, Whitley phoned. "I'm sure you're aware of what's been happening," he said.

"I'm told you personally led the guards down into the Big Yard."

"You'd better believe I did," he said. "There would've been a h.e.l.luva lot more than three inmates injured if I hadn't." While most guards preferred to avoid conflict with prisoners, some did not. Some employees were just as radical in their viewpoint as the most radical prisoners, and the more rational always had to be on guard for them, which accounted for Whitley's decision. "If I'm going to be judged and held responsible for what my men do, then I'm going to make sure they do no more than I want them to do," he said.

"Chief, I can't believe that after executing Jones yesterday, you decided to order the inmates at the metal fab shop to build that deathbed," I said.

"Wilbert, this is so stupid that I'm I'm having a hard time believing it," he said. "I've just learned that Jimmy LeBlanc and that crew in Prison Enterprises tried to pull a fast one on the inmates. They wanted the contract to build the death gurney and planned to pa.s.s it off as a hospital table, figuring the inmates wouldn't know the difference." having a hard time believing it," he said. "I've just learned that Jimmy LeBlanc and that crew in Prison Enterprises tried to pull a fast one on the inmates. They wanted the contract to build the death gurney and planned to pa.s.s it off as a hospital table, figuring the inmates wouldn't know the difference."

Then he got around to why he had called: "Our information is that the Main Prison is going to stage a general strike in the morning. I don't have to tell you that puts the inmate population and the security force on a collision course, and people are gonna get hurt."

A general strike? That quickly? My instincts told me no. "It sounds like your people are either lying to you or functioning with bad information," I said. "Think about it-the inmates were all locked in their respective dorms right after the fieldworkers struck. A general strike has to have a basic consensus among all the inmates, but they haven't had a chance to meet and discuss anything. So how could they reach an agreement to strike in the morning? I don't believe it."

"What you say makes sense. Do you think it's too late to try to resolve this before it gets out of hand?"

"It's never too late. Like always, there are those who want to see it happen and those who don't." Despite their intimidating utterances and oft-threatened violence, most prisoners shied away from trouble; they wanted to be able to pursue their prison existences with a minimum of difficulty and disruption. But I didn't tell him that. "I do know that you should let at least the lawyers and officers of all the civic and religious organizations out of their dorms. Most have a stake in the established order. They need to return to their offices and resume their normal activities after the evening meal so they can meet and communicate with each other."

"What you're suggesting runs counter to everything that's taught in corrections about how to deal with prison disturbances-and that's not not to let inmate leaders get their heads together." to let inmate leaders get their heads together."

"But we both know, Warden, that all prison leaders aren't the same. Some are positive forces; others, negative. The problem will most times come from the ambitious who are trying to become leaders and the radicals," I said. "They function on emotion; they're opportunistic and will exploit any situation. If you want a solution, you have to create an opportunity for those vested inmate interests, the cooler heads, to pursue one."

Whitley was hesitant. "You're suggesting I put the welfare of a lot of people, both guards and inmates, on the line, people who could get hurt if this thing spreads and goes bad."

"Chief, you're already facing that prospect if you just wait it out and see what happens, which is what most of your colleagues would probably advise," I said. "What I'm suggesting is a small, calculated gamble that will give us a measure of the pulse of the population."

He was quiet for a while. "I really really hate this s.h.i.t," he finally said with force, exasperated. "This is one time the inmates hate this s.h.i.t," he finally said with force, exasperated. "This is one time the inmates are are right, and they're going to end up getting f.u.c.ked over because of some stupid s.h.i.t that should have never happened." He paused, then said, "We need to do whatever we can do to head this off, Wilbert." right, and they're going to end up getting f.u.c.ked over because of some stupid s.h.i.t that should have never happened." He paused, then said, "We need to do whatever we can do to head this off, Wilbert."

"Warden, I'm looking at getting out of here, and given my druthers, I'd really really prefer not getting involved in something as unpredictable as a strike." prefer not getting involved in something as unpredictable as a strike."

"Frankly, I don't see how you can stay out of it," Whitley said. "You know who's who, who to deal with and who not to. I don't." He was right, and he was trying to do the right thing. I agreed to help him try to resolve the strike, and we agreed to talk to each other only directly, without middlemen.

He ordered the resumption of normal activities for the sixty or so inmate lawyers and organizational officers, but the general population remained confined to their dormitories. "You can tell the fellows that the gurney issue is dead," he said. "It will not be built in this prison."

That evening, inmate lawyers and officers of organizations flooded the Main Prison Office and education building to escape the stifling heat and boredom of the dorms and gather in air-conditioned offices to swap information and learn more about the day's events. Ron and I circulated, gathering information and conveying Whitley's message that the gurney would not be built in Angola, and his desire to resolve the strike.

The leaders were pleased to hear the news. Everyone sympathized with the welders and hoped their release from lockdown could be won by the inmate counsels representing them in disciplinary court, where Angola prisoners challenged the disciplinary infractions they'd been charged with. Most leaders felt that an expanded strike was unnecessary, especially because if there was one it would be almost impossible to control the actions of the angry, the hateful, the crazy, the hopeless, and the ambitious political opportunists on both sides, which could result in disaster.

It had been a long time since Angola had been a violent place. Since 1977, violent deaths at Angola had averaged about one per year, which is probably as good as it gets in a maximum-security prison with more than 5,000 mostly violent offenders serving sentences that preclude their ever walking out, especially since the practice of paroling lifers after ten years and six months had ended. Indeed, contrary to popular perception, an inmate was now more likely to die of natural illness, execution, or suicide than to be killed by another prisoner. This was also true of prison deaths nationwide-thanks to the intervention of federal courts during the 1970s and 1980s, which forced state authorities to curb the violence. Of the 1,729 prisoners who died in the nation's prisons in 1990, the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that only 65 had been killed by another inmate. The major killers of prisoners in 1990 were illness (1,462) and suicide (134). And that was among a nationwide prisoner population that now topped a million for the first time in history.