A Prisoner Under Sentence Of Death, Appeals The Denial: Fill & Download for Free

Yes. American Justice “Presumed Guilty”.I spent most of my childhood in Naperville, Illinois. In 1983 it was far from the enormous Chicago suburb it is today. There were still open fields. Kids were fine staying out with their friends until the street lights came on.Even though our town was still small and pretty idyllic, us kids knew to not talk to strangers. And as we really didn't have a lot of strangers in the area - none of us really thought much about it.In February 1983 that all changed. A girl from my year in school was kidnapped, raped and murdered. She and I had been in the same class some years and we had some extracurricular stuff together, too. It's hard to just call her a classmate; she was one of the friendliest people I've ever had the privilege to know in my life, so it's hard to not call her a friend, even though we weren't very close.To this day the thing that freaks me out the most about Jeanine's abduction is that she wasn't grabbed from a park while she played. She wasn't lured into a van with a promise of candy. She didn't wander off with a stranger looking for a puppy that didn't exist.She was at home, sick.She was 10 ½ years old. She wasn't terribly ill. She wasn't at risk, she'd just be alone a matter of hours until her older siblings came home from school, and her mom regularly checked in with her by phone.But when her sisters arrived home they found the door kicked in and Jeanine missing.My family had gone away for the weekend before it had been widely reported that there had been an abduction. I remained blissfully unaware until we were on our way home again on Sunday. My parents turned the car radio on and I heard Jeanine's name. Actually, I heard the reporter absolutely butcher the pronounciation of her name and thought, “That’s funny… that sounded a bit like Jeanine's name.” I had started to tell my parents this when we heard the name of our town and the name of the school I'd attended with her. I think my mom was fully in denial. She insisted we'd heard wrong - and there was enough arguing if I'd heard her name or not that we (or at least I) weren't even 100% certain why a Chicago station was talking about her. My parents turned down the radio volume in the back of the station wagon where I was sitting and I was told to take a nap for the last 45 minutes or so of our ride. But I'm sure they were listening in the front as I kept hearing little bits of their hushed conversation.By the time we reached home, I'm sure they'd heard the news story in full at least once. My mom, still in denial, insisted on phoning the mother of my best friend to verify. She did and she said they were just getting ready to go to the prayer service at a nearby church being held in the hopes Jeanine would be found. I begged to go to the prayer service. My mom refused saying it wasn't for our benefit. I was dumbfounded - I didn't understand how she could say that. I knew damn well it wasn't for our benefit - it was for Jeanine's - and I had an unflappable belief in God at this point in my life. I wanted to be a part in the big prayers being said. I wanted to help those prayers be heard. Instead, I sat home on my own and prayed my heart out.But by the end of the prayer service the police had come and removed the family and the priest. They'd found the body of a little girl. The priest apparently told those at the service, “They were 99.9% sure it was Jeanine.” My best friend's mom phoned mine after the service to share the news. Then they put my best friend and I on the phone together. I don't recall our conversation. I think we were probably too shell shocked to really say much. We'd been fortunate - we'd made it to the 5th grade without any classmates dying through accident or illness. But this was an awful way to experience the first death of a peer. (Sadly, we lost another classmate in an accident a couple of months later. It was a truly awful year.) The day of Jeanine's funeral, my parents took me to buy my first 10 speed bicycle. It was an attempt to distract me. I wanted to go to the funeral, it would have been the first one I'd understood, but my parents insisted we'd be intruding on the family's grief. It was way too early in the year for bicycles, but they didn't know what to do about my grief. I wonder how many of my classmates got extra gifts that year.From the moment the town knew about the abduction, life changed. More doors were kept locked (despite a locked door not preventing the kidnapping). Parents were more aware of where their kids were and who they were with. I'd changed to a different school the year before and suddenly the parents of my new friends were seemingly being vetted by my parents before I could go to play. Overnight trips with school, church and scouts were cancelled. Summer activities were cancelled or had many more chaperones and parents in attendance.But 13 months later we celebrated because arrests had been made. 3 men from neighboring Aurora had been charged with her abduction, rape and murder. And for as happy as us kids were to think we were going to see the bad guys punished - I don't think any of us were really ready at age 11 to be following the court case. “Rape” and “sodomy” shouldn't be stuff kids are looking up in dictionaries. But we did. I'm just glad the internet didn't exist in it's current form in 1984. We were traumatized enough just by the definitions.I'm going to assume those reading have actually seen the episode of American Justice that focused on this case (and the others that were later connected.) If you have not, let me sum it up for you:It was an utter shit show.In a nutshell, the investigators were under pressure to make an arrest, get a conviction, bring justice for Jeanine and return the sense of security the town had lost. But the best leads they had were shaky, at best, from three young men in Aurora who had all provided information to the police regarding the case. The problem is that the info they'd provided was done in the hopes they'd get some of the reward money offered. Instead, the police arrested them and built a case with no actual physical evidence.And in February 1985 two of them were found guilty. Both were sentenced to death. The third had a deadlocked jury and his charges later dismissed in 1987.In 1988, the convictions were overturned as the men had been tried together. At the conclusion of his second trial in 1990, Rolando Cruz was again found guilty and given the death sentence. Alejandro Hernandez's second trial ended in a hung jury in 1990. He was tried for a third time and didn't fare much better than Cruz - he was also convicted again in 1991, but sentenced to life in prison instead of death.Meanwhile, a bunch of 10 year olds have grown into teen-agers. And at the time, I didn't know a single one who wasn't wishing these two men a lifetime and death filled with anguish. We'd gone from the trauma of losing a classmate and friend to years of the media covering the mistrials, trials and appeals of these men.But also meanwhile, by 1985 a man named Brian Dugan had been arrested in Illinois for the separate murders of a 7 year old girl, Melissa Ackerman, and a 27 year old woman, Donna Schnoor. He accepted plea deals for these crimes - resulting in a sentences of life in prison. Dugan admitted, via his attorney, that he murdered Jeanine Nicarico as well. But he would not make a formal confession unless he could be guaranteed that he won't be given the death penality. No agreement meant no confession - and the prosecutions of Cruz and Hernandez continued through multiple trials and appeals, in spite of the lack of physical evidence.In 1992, Cruz' conviction appeal failed and his victim was upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court. But in 1994, Cruz was granted a third trial. It was during this trial that new information came to light. DNA found at the scene of Jeanine's murder had been tested. It matched neither Rolando Cruz or Alejandro Hernandez. Rolando Cruz was acquitted in November 1995.In December 1995, Hernandez's conviction was overturned by the Illinois Appellate court, all charges dropped and he was released from custody.If this wasn't messy enough, now the courts wanted answers. How and why were Buckley, Hernandez, and Cruz repeatedly charged and tried when not only did the prosecution have no physical evidence of their involvement - but while they were aware of evidence (Dugan's admission, and later DNA evidence) which could have exonerated them entirely in 1985. Three prosecutors and four sheriff's deputies found themselves now charged with conspiracy to convict Cruz despite exculpatory evidence. By 1999, all 7 had been tried and acquitted of these charges.In 2002, Rolando Cruz was issued a pardon by the governor.In 2003, the future of Illinois, in part due to the shambles made of the prosecution of Cruz and Hernandez and the lingering concerns that obtaining a conviction may have been deemed more important than convicting the actual perpetrator, issued a moratorium on executions in the state.It wasn't until November 2005 that Brian Dugan was indicted for the abduction, rape and murder of Jeanine Nicarico. He refused to state his plea, so the judge entered a plea of Not Guilty at the start of his trial in 2006. In July 2009, Dugan entered a plea of Guilty. In November that same year, the jury voted in favor of the death penality. The judge set a date of execution as February 25, 2010, 27 years after Jeanine's body had been discovered. Of course Dugan appealed, so the execution didn't go ahead in 2010.In 2011 the death penalty was abolished in Illinois. Dugan's death sentence was commuted to life with no chance of parole.He's lucky - he got what he wanted. If he'd been tried for Jeanine's murder in the 1980s, or even the 1990s, as a twice convicted murderer I suspect he wouldn't be breathing today. Some of the kids I knew back then were absolutely in favor of someone being executed for her murder. But at the time, those death wishes were aimed at the wrong men. So at the very least I'm happy that they weren't executed - because as kids, I think some of us felt a bit bloodthirsty because we wanted the bad guy(s) to pay for what happened and we had absolutely no control or say in the matter. If they'd been executed and it later came to light that Brian Dugan had been teasing a confession since 1985 yet they continued to push for murder convictions and the death penalty of innocent men - that would have done additional damage to our faith in the justice system. It did plenty of damage to it without.

The question specifies death row inmates, presumably implying death row in a contemporary American prison. While it is interesting to read what other members say about last words and last acts of people put to death in other places and other times, that probably does not answer the question posed.A few years back I had extensive correspondence with a number of men on death row, in prisons in such places as California, Georgia, and Nebraska. I became sufficiently close to one, who had been waiting for execution for more than ten years, to pose this question to him. (I wrote a paper about that, later published, under the title "Inside Death Row".)He replied that, in his experience, men approach their execution in widely different ways. A few are angry, or belligerent, or defiant as they are led to the execution chamber. Some are completely silent. Others are social, nodding their heads toward the other prisoners, saying good-bye, expressing gratitude for friendship, and the like.Very few, he told me, show fear or anxiety -- the crying, screaming, protesting, praying, or begging that have been depicted in Hollywood movies. Generally, he said, men are stoic as they are led away. They have had plenty of time to cry, or pray, or object, or resist. And they have no reason to be surprised, because they all know their death date for a considerable time in advance.On the whole, for most it seems to be a relief, because all the waiting has come to an end; and they are leaving a very unpleasant environment (solitary confinement for years in a 6x9 cell, locked up 23 hours a day with one hour for individual, guarded exercise in a small, walled area).Surprisingly, and shockingly to me, the really bad behavior before an execution is by the guards. Not all, but some of them would taunt the prisoners in various ways, as their final day approached. One guard he told me about, when a final denial of stay of execution arrived, would walk up and down before the cells, singing "It's crispy critter time again" (the method of execution in that prison being electrocution).The prisoners rarely talk about execution among themselves, or with the guards. Nor do the prisoners sit around feeling sorry for themselves -- though of course some are genuinely sorry for their actions, and for their families and the families of their victims being left behind.Neither do the inmates go to their deaths, still proclaiming their innocence; they have already done that through numerous appeals, and they realize they are headed for death irrespective of guilt or complicity or actual innocence. They recognize that they have been convicted, and that their convictions have been upheld, however incorrect or unfair that might be.Related to this topic is the extensive correspondence and contact I have had with another man, for the past 25 years. He was released from prison a couple of years back, having served 28 years in two different sentences.He has told me about prisoners who make themselves unpopular in one way or another, who then are stabbed to death in the halls or exercise yards, by other prisoners using home-made knives, or "shanks"In other cases, as a long line of prisoners walks past the cell of some unfortunate victim, one will quickly wrap some baling wire around the door and its frame, preventing the door from being opened even if it should be unlocked. Then another prisoner tosses in a bottle of kerosene or something else flammable. Another will toss in a flaming cigarette lighter, and the victim burns to death before the guards can clear the prisoner line away and unwire the cell door.Other inmates are beaten to death, with various instruments. He himself was once attacked from behind, and struck with a blackjack made of a sock stuffed with some heavy steel washers. In his case, the assailant ran away before finishing the job, and my friend spent quite some time in the infirmary with a fractured skull.Worst of all, however, is the situation of those prisoners who give in to despair. They have no hope or belief that they will ever get out, and they find prison life (which is actually quite unpleasant) beyond their endurance. He reported that he has seen seven men commit suicide in their cells, within his sight -- but, of course, beyond his ability to interfere. And the guards cannot be called, soon enough to save them; the suicidal ones make sure their death will be quick.Those seven suicides, of course, are a very small fraction of the deaths that actually occurred in his State's prison system, during his confinement. Suicide is by far the most common way that people die in prison, much more frequent than execution or old age or even murder.Another form of suicide occurred with an inmate who was a close friend of my prisoner friend, and with whom I also had been conducting substantial correspondence. He was greatly overweight, and diabetic. Despair overcame him, and he gorged himself with candy from the prison's inmate store. His blood sugar soared, and he died of hyperglycemic shock. To our grief, we both recognized that it was a voluntary, tragic suicide.Death in prison, it appears, occurs quite often. But it is not preceded by the hysterics depicted in old movies. It may be an execution, which is usually a quiet affair. Or a sudden murder, with the victim unable to make much noise. Or, deplorably, a man feeling driven to end it all by his own hand, with no ceremony whatever.

~ The Woman Who Survived Her Own Beheading: Hélène Gillet ~Hélène Gillet was born around 1605, the only daughter of a lord of Bourg-en-Bresse, France. Hélène was a sheltered and reserved girl, reportedly seldom seen in public except at church.According to Hélène, when she was about 20 years old, her brothers' tutor became obsessed with her. She rebuffed his advances, but he convinced one of her mother's maids to assist him in getting Hélène alone. The maid locked Hélène into a room with the tutor and he raped her.Hélène was too ashamed to tell anyone about the attack. But it seems her rapist had made sly allusions to what had happened and smeared her character, because the town was soon awash with whispers that Hélène was unchaste.But Hélène didn't seem to notice. She was in a state of shock and denial about what had happened to her. She ignored her growing belly. Perhaps her innocence and the way she'd been sheltered by her parents, combined with the trauma, made her refuse to believe she could possibly be pregnant.What happened next is somewhat murky, but all sources agree that the infant was found dead, stuffed in the cavity of a stone wall. A soldier saw a crow pecking at a bit of cloth, and became curious enough to investigate. That's when he found the baby. The tiny body was wrapped in a blanket or shirt that had Hélène's monogram embroidered on it. The child apparently had no obvious injuries, or that would have been noted in the records.One tale has it that Hélène's mother assisted her in the birth and that while she was tending to Hélène, who was was passed out from exhaustion afterward, a man came in and took the child, wrapping it in the nearest piece of cloth that came to hand. It was thought later to be the child's father, who had been lurking around Hélène's home in the last few weeks, but the tutor disappeared and could not be questioned.Because of the persistent rumors she had been unchaste and the monogrammed blanket, the local authorities investigated and Hélène was examined by matrons, who determined that she had given birth recently.Hélène always stoutly denied she had killed the child, but the law stated that any woman who concealed a pregnancy and let a child die without the sacrament of baptism would be considered guilty of that child's murder.Hélène was found guilty and sentenced to die on February 6, 1625. Because of her noble blood, she would not be hanged, but instead would be beheaded.Hélène's father disowned her and ordered his family not to assist in her defense, but her mother stood by her and appealed the sentence. The execution of this noblewoman was contentious and the case went all the way to parliament of Dijon, which confirmed her sentence on May 12, 1625. Hélène was told she was to die the next day.Hélène's mother was in a state of agony over her daughter's fate and spent hours in the nearby convent chapel, face-down on the pavement before the altar, praying for Hélène to be saved. Her religious devotion impressed the convent's nuns, and they were soon ardent supporters of Hélène's cause.The elderly abbess, a woman of famed piety, made a rare public statement, prophesying that Hélène would not die at the hands of the executioner, but would instead live to be an elderly woman, dying after a long and edifying life.But that didn't seem to be what was going to happen on the 13th of May. Hélène was led from her prison cell to the scaffold. According to one account, she was dressed all in white, proclaiming her innocence, but a noose was tied around her neck, which was intended to humble her.As she walked toward the tall scaffold, a large lock of her braided hair fell loose from its pins, concealing the noose from the audience, which some thought was a sign of God's blessing on the girl. That lock of hair would turn out to have greater import in just a few moments.The guards led her to the top of the tall scaffold and left her there, joining the line of men that stood around the base. For a long moment, Hélène stood there alone. The executioner, Simon Grandjean, was still in the nearby chapel, praying, having taken communion that morning. He was clearly uncomfortable at having to execute a noblewoman, especially one whose innocence was fiercely supported by so many.Grandjean took up his heavy broad-bladed sword and headed outside. His wife — who seems to have served as his assistant — walked with him. She carried a pair of heavy shears, meant to cut off the hair of the condemned so it would leave their neck bare for the executioner's blade, but for some reason, when they reached the scaffold, she didn't perform this task.Grandjean addressed the crowd and told them he'd been ill for several months, and wasn't sure he could perform his duty. Some in the crowd shouted at him to get on with it. A representative of the king was present, and he also urged Grandjean to do his duty.Grandjean asked Hélène's pardon, as was tradition, and she granted it, kneeling down on the scaffold to whisper her final prayers. He lifted the sword and brought it down, but missed his target, slashing deep into her shoulder instead of her neck. Hélène cried out in agony and fell over onto her side.The crowd screamed at Grandjean. Not only had he brought dishonor on himself by failing to carry out the execution in one, clean blow, the girl was suffering. They shouted at him to finish it. Grandjean's wife picked up the sword he'd dropped in dismay and told him to be a man and finish the job.He lifted the sword again, and this time, the blow was deflected by the knot of hair that had fallen down as Hélène walked to the scaffold. A small nick on the side of her throat was the only result.The crowd was now in a frenzy. They began to throw things at Grandjean. It was traditional for souvenirs and food to be sold at executions, and the executioner probably found himself being pelted by the remains of people's lunch before more deadly missiles began to strike him — cobblestones from the road soon rained down.Grandjean fled for the safety of the chapel. His wife grabbed Hélène and dragged her down below the scaffold where the crowd couldn't reach them because of the line of soldiers surrounding the structure. But if Hélène thought she'd been brought down there for safety from the flying rocks, she was badly mistaken.Grandjean's wife decided to carry out the sentence herself. The stories vary here, too. One version says she put the noose back around Hélène's neck and tried to choke the life out of her, and when that failed, she attacked her with the shears she'd brought for the girl's hair.While this was happening, the enraged crowd dragged Grandjean from the chapel and beat him to death. Perhaps "beat to death" is a mild way of putting it, because the accounts say the crowd literally tore him to pieces. When they were finished with him, there was nothing left but a shapeless mass of bloody bits of bone.Two men managed to force their way past the soldiers. After watching what happened to Grandjean, the soldiers probably weren't in the mood to resist much. The men made their way beneath the scaffold and seized the executioner's wife. They dragged her out and thew her to the crowd, who finished her off as they had her husband.Hélène was bloodied and bruised, her face and shoulders gashed by the shears and her original scaffold wound. One of the stabs from the shears had barely missed her jugular, and another had pierced deep into her chest, barely missing her spine, but she was still conscious. "I knew God would come to my aid," she's recorded to have said. The two men gave her some water and took her to a local surgeon, who stitched up her wounds. Under the surgeon's care, she recovered.But Hélène's fate was still uncertain. She was condemned to die, after all, but Dijon no longer had an executioner. The appeals of the people reached the king. His sister, Henrietta Maria, had just married England's Charles I. He decided to use this occasion as a reason to dispense some mercy. “[A]t the recommendation of some of our beloved and respected servants, and because we are well-disposed to be gracious through the happy marriage of the Queen of Great Britain,” Hélène was given a royal pardon.The prophecy of the abbess came true. Hélène decided to devote her life to God after her pardon came through and joined the convent. There she lived to at least ninety years of age before passing away.Wow