Unit 32

Death Row: two words that can send shivers down the spine. We have all seen movies like The Green Mile or Dead Man Walking and the sense that accompanies Death Row is that of deprivation, inhumanity and loss.

When u agree to do an internship with Amicus (sometimes known as a death row internship), you know there is a real possibility that you will visit inmates on death row, it’s just part of the job.

I had my first visit to death row, aka Unit 32 at MS State Penitentiary, a few weeks ago. The State Penitentiary is located in Parchman. It’s about a 3 hour drive north from Jackson which means an early start.  The drive to Parchman is essentially a straight line and I was happy to be driving as it is not the most exciting scenery. Mississippi is a very rural state which means that much of the landscape is flat farmland. In winter this results in a lot of brown – scrubland, dead grass, and barren trees. What saved the drive for me was the bright sunshine and blue sky. 

I think part of me had been expecting Parchman to be an impenetrable fortress, a bastion of death, an evil blockhouse thrust from the depths of hell itself (just to be dramatic!). However, quite the reverse turned out to be true. No guardhouses, or high impenetrable walls, just a big gate staffed by guards. Inside the gate was a sign for ‘children playing’ and a series of white clapboard houses, that presumably are homes to prison guards’ families. Not quite what I was expecting! The facility itself seemed to comprise of a number of ‘units’ and ancillary buildings spread out over what I can only imagine to have been many hectares. We drove past various units, down a number of roads of flat scrubland until we arrived at Unit 32.

Another security check, akin to airport security, and we were directed, through some outdoor caged corridors to the visitation area. As a visitor, you don’t really get far into the unit. On your way in though you can see the exercise cages. Cage is an apt term to use, as even in exercise they are kept like animals. The cages are no bigger than cells and leave no room for any form of exercise. What they offer, I suppose, is fresh air and the opportunity to look up at the sky.

As part of my LLM I visited a number of prisons, Mountjoy being one of them. For those of you unfamiliar with ‘The Joy’, Mountjoy is a relic from the Victorian age. Based on the design of London’s Pentonville prison, not much has changed at Mountjoy in the intervening years and inmates are still subject to ‘slopping out’ and overcrowding.  I found Mountjoy to be dark, dank, miserable and generally scary - exactly what one imagines prisons to have been like in the Victorian age (just not in the noughties).

 Parchman, in comparison, seemed practically hospitable. As I said, it was a bright sunny day, and perhaps it affected my impression of the place, but the most striking thought I had was that it was like an old hospital. White walls and linoleum floors; it was just very clinical. To be fair, I am sure that on a grey day, it would be a different story. I am also sure that behind the scenes things are not quite so bright and visitor-friendly. Inmates spoke of leaking cells, limited access to showers and unkind guards, of isolation, loneliness and fear.

Once inside the unit the visitation area is directly in front of you:  A glass paneled box, inside of which are the ubiquitous glass-divided visitation booths. Inmates are brought to the visitation room in shackles. The shackles remain on for the duration of the visit; hands are bound at the wrists to a chain round the waist and feet are chained to the floor. The cuffs at the wrists cut into the skin and leave red marks.

Visits are so important for the moral of inmates. They spend 23 hours of the day in their cells with an hour allowed for exercise in the cages. Many of the inmates don’t get many visitors and so attorney visits are a real opportunity to get out of the cells and talk to people.

Over the course of about 2 hours I spoke to a number of our clients. It was not easy. Those who know me know that small talk is not my forte and what these men needed most was someone to just talk. Talk about normal things, the world outside, music, TV and their families. Some were easy to talk to, others weren’t. I was surprised by how upbeat and positive some of the inmates were. I was surprised, in some ways, by how normal the conversations were. We could have been friends in different lives. It was challenging though, especially when talking to inmates who were having a bad time of it. Trying to engage with them and take their minds off things was difficult and by the time we left I felt completely drained.

Leaving unit 32 I felt many things. I was glad that had I come and met these people, glad that I had decided to do the internship. I was exhausted by the experience and I also felt overwhelmed by the obstacles we faced in getting even one of them off death row. 

Obviously I oppose the death penalty and my work here is to help get people off death row. This does not mean that I believe people on death row are innocent of crimes or that I want to see murderers running free about the place. I simply disagree with the form of the punishment. Even if I didn’t oppose the death penalty in principle, I would still disagree with it as it is currently practiced. It is supposed to be for ‘the worst of the worst’, those crimes so heinous no other punishment will do. However the inmates I have met and the cases I have read about have shown me that all too often the death penalty is used in spurious circumstances and applied to cases which, for lack of a better term, were that of ‘ordinary murder’.

Prison in one thing, death is another. The two should not be bedfellows and I stand by my opposition to the death penalty. None of the inmates I met were the ‘worst of the worst’. So many factors come together to result in an imposition of death – lazy criminal investigations, poor forensics, politics, racism and poverty, among others. I have seen them all in the cases I am involved in. What I have not seen is a verdict so secure, or a man so monstrous that the death penalty should be imposed.

A little bit of Americana

On a day-to-day basis my life in Jackson is not that different to my life back home in the UK. I get up and I go to work. In the evenings I watch tv, read a book or hang out with friends. We live in such a connected world now that there are limited differences between cultures. Popular music and tv, the internet and 24 hour news cycles mean that there is less of the ‘new’ here than there might have been had I journeyed across  50 years ago. It also means that when there is a chance to experience something particularly American or Southern, you jump at the chance. 

For me, so far, that has been Superbowl Sunday and the Rodeo.

American football is not something I know anything about, but I had heard of the Superbowl and perhaps more importantly the half-time show. 

Here is what I can tell you about my Superbowl experience -  

Superbowl Sunday requires a gathering with lots of food (fried where possible!) and beer. Those are the essentials. 

There was plenty of food. Chips and dip, cookies and plenty of fried food were on offer. No use was made of any fancy deep fat fryer, and I learned that a big pot, a lot of oil, and a complete lack of concern for kitchen safety is all that is necessary to make fried chicken and cheese straws. A lack of concern for safety can be replaced with a lot of alcohol, but I found that only works on the chef and actually increases levels of concern in others!

The food was good, especially the dip. I love artichoke and spinach dip and this was no let down.

Of the football itself, I cannot say much except that it lasts forever (I think the game itself lasted for 3 hours). The pace is also slower than rugby and the game seems very disjointed – play for a minute or two and then stop for five, and so on. 

Beer, of the Bud Light variety, was also a mainstay of the event and it was in good supply! When I first arrived I thought it was too much beer for one game of football, but that was before I realized that how long a game lasts. A few hours in, I had changed my mind!

All in all, it was a good night. The football, it turned out, was of little import (I still know nothing about the sport) and just played away in the background. It seems to me that the biggest draws of the Superbowl are the adverts and the half-time entertainment. Sponsoring companies spend a fortune on celebrity commercials and they are treated almost like the newest blockbuster release. 

For half-time I need say no more than – Beyonce!

FYI, it was the San Francisco 49ers v the Baltimore Ravens, and the Ravens won.

…onto The Rodeo

I can’t think of anything more American than the cowboy. Be in John Wayne and his Dirty Harry blues, childhood games of ‘Cowboys and Indians’ or a gutsy rendition of ‘Oklahoma’, the cowboy is a familiar entity to us all that speaks of adventure, freedom and the open trail.

(By the way, ‘Dirty Harry Blues’ is a song by Jeff Daniels.Worth a listen.)

Alas cowboys do not walk the streets of Jackson and although ‘y’all’ is part of common parlance, it is rarely prefaced with a ‘howdi’. As such when I heard that the rodeo was coming to town, I knew it was time to put on some plaid, pull on some boots and get my cowgirl on :)

Along with cowboys, America is famous, perhaps unfairly, for rednecks and hillbillies. Well, they were out in force at the rodeo along with some ‘honest-to-god’ Christians and good old fashioned republicans. It really was ‘America the Great’ territory -  no liberal, baby-killing nonsense allowed!

The rodeo itself is a competitive sport based on the working practices of cattle herding and, in essence, is a test of those skills working cowboys and cowgirls would need to have on a ranch. The rodeo has events such as roping, steer wrestling, bronco riding, bull riding and barrel racing. We saw them all!

My favourite was the bucking broncos, for 2 reasons - (i) I love horses, they make me happy! (2) it was the  most exciting event. I had thought the bull riding would be the most memorable but none of the cowboys were able to stay on long-enough for it to really get going. They barely got out of the chutes. 

Bronc riding (and bull riding) is all about staying on for as long as possible and you really get into it. A cowboy has to stay on for 8 seconds for it to be counted. Watching, you really are willing the cowboy to stay on just a second longer and it can be quite ‘heart in mouth’ stuff. One cowboy got trampled by his horse when he fell off and he was taken off on a stretcher.

Watching the roping and steer wrestling is also really fun, although I sort of ended up rooting for the steer, especially this one –

Mostly though, I couldn’t get over the ‘real life cowboys’ aspect of it all. They looked like proper cowboys, right out of the movies! I never imagined I’d see real cowboys doing real cowboy stuff, I guess I didn’t think they really existed anymore :)

I will leave you with this (Can you name the musical?)…

“I'd like to say a word for the cowboy, the road he treads is difficult and stony.
He rides for days on end with just a pony for a friend.

I sure am feelin' sorry for the pony!”

MS 39202

Coming to the US, and in particular the South, felt a bit like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. Talk about not being prepared – I only got my visa the day before I left to go to Cork for Christmas. I had been so nervous that it wouldn’t come through on time, I didn’t really let myself think about the 3 months I would spend here. After a frantic few days packing (thank you Mr Bedford, your skills were much appreciated!) and an emotional farewell at the airport (not so much thanks for that one, Steve) I was suddenly on my way South. Reese Witherspoon said in a movie once ‘People need a passport to come down here’ and I certainly felt like I was voyaging into lands unknown.

Perhaps it was the gun-toting, bible-quoting stereotype that had me a bit concerned but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of Mississippi. As one of the other interns joked: Welcome to the deep south.  Bring your bibles, mind your Ps and Qs and please ensure that your truck is gassed up and your shotgun is loaded.

 

However having been here a couple of weeks now, I can happily say there is more to Mississippi that trucks, bibles and guns!

Jackson is the capital of Mississippi and although downtown has a somewhat beige and unpopulated feel to it (it is merely the business district and quiet even on a work day), the rest of Jackson is not without its charms. Belhaven, where I live, is a quiet old-residential area. Picture clapboard houses, porches and rocking chairs. Belhaven College is across the road from my house. The campus has a lake and seating areas and the pathways around the college provide for a useful jogging route (for when I’m feeling virtuous!). When the sun shines it is a lovely place to take a book, sit on a swing seat under the shade of a tree and while away an hour or so (I have actually not yet done that, but every time I pass by I think of it, maybe this weekend!)

Fondren is an area above Belhaven, and to me, most closes resembles ‘town’. Consisting of a 2 block radius, Fondren plays host to a few coffee shops, restaurants, antique and vintage stores as well as Brents Drugs (a 50s diner, as seen in The Help). I particularly like ‘Babalu’, a bar/restaurant with its own unique Southern take on tapas and the best margaritas I have had in ages! 

So far my Mississippi adventure has meant good food and friendly people, but more on that later…