[Terre des Hommes, A lire**** 04] • Le Quartier De La Mort

As each state moves to restore the death penalty, the old debate is renewed.

Experts pro and con testify, but no one ever asked the convicted what the

death penalty means to those on death row. That is, no one until Bruce Jackson

and Diane Christian interviewed the inmates on The Row at the Texas State

Prison at Huntsville. The result is a shocking portrait of the living dead.

Many years after its first publication, the issue of ultimate punishment is

still widely argued and debated.When "Death Row" was written, 105 men were on

Death Row in Texas and another 9 were out on bench warrants for hearings or

new trials. The authors taped interviews with 26 of these men, and with four

Death Row porters, two custodial officers and one medical assistant. Most

names have been changed, and, to further prevent identification, dates were

altered as well as geographical locations. These changes were not made when it

seemed they would affect the substantive content of the statement. When a

statement could not be altered without also significantly changing its

content, it was removed. Therefore, what is presented here is a fair sample of

the things inmates say on Death Row.This is not a book intended to argue the

legitimacy or illegitimacy or the social utility or disutility of capital

punishment. The concern here is simpler; Death Row wants to add to the

dialogue about what the death penalty really means. There is long time between

sentencing by a trial judge and ultimate disposition - death, a prison term,

or release. Most capital cases consume only a few weeks of court time. The act

of killing takes only a few minutes.