Death Row, Texas by Michelle Lyons

Author:Michelle Lyons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ulysses Press
Published: 2018-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

Larry Fitzgerald

Napoleon had been on death row almost as long as I’d been at TDCJ. The first time I saw him, I was amazed at how young he looked. It was his age that bothered me most: he was a kid of 17, who couldn’t vote or buy liquor or cigarettes when he committed the crime, yet he was old enough to be executed. After they locked him up in county jail, I heard he wouldn’t sleep on the bunk, he’d sleep on the floor instead. I think that was him trying to punish himself. When death row was at the Ellis Unit and they gave the offenders jobs, they made him a porter. That tells you that he was somebody the warden could trust. He was like his mom and dad raised him, was always polite and followed every order. He was what we call in the prison system “a good convict-citizen.” He deserved a second chance.

On the day of his execution, me and Michelle went back there to take him through the process and I suddenly had this feeling that he needed to write out a last statement, rather than mutter a few words on the gurney, because he was such a smart person. So I said to him, “If you’ve got something you want to say, write out what’s in your heart and I’ll make sure it’s transcribed and handed out after this thing is over.” He agreed. Then, just before we left, I turned to him and said, “Napoleon, you look pretty calm.” He replied, “Look again.” I shook his hand and left, but I was never able to flush that final conversation out of my mind. The next time I saw him, he was on the gurney with straps all over him. I had some pretty strong feelings about it. Napoleon’s death had a profound effect on me. He was my friend. I was sad to see him go, and getting awfully tired of executions…

Later that afternoon, I had to type up Napoleon’s statement for the media. He’d written it in less than an hour, but it was so sincere and an impressive piece of penmanship. As I was typing, I was hoping he’d get a stay, because I didn’t want to see him die, while feeling guilty for thinking that way. It was a complex day. The Board of Pardons and Parole usually voted unanimously not to commute an inmate’s sentence to life imprisonment or grant a reprieve, but in Napoleon’s case they voted 10–7 and 13–4 respectively, which showed they were still deeply divided. Then news came in that the Supreme Court had voted 6–0 against staying Napoleon’s execution.

I didn’t have any choice but to hold my emotions in check, because that was the first time Larry had let me do a press conference, and I didn’t want to let him down. We didn’t have a press conference after most executions, because there wasn’t enough media interest, and when we did, they were usually small affairs held inside.

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