LifeLines (AKA My Friend Bob)

I have a penfriend called Bob. His other name is #0153856.

I have been writing to my friend on Death Row now for about two and a half years. We were brought together by a charity called LifeLines, a UK-based befriending service for prisoners. They also publish a quarterly magazine which goes to all members and their penfriends, and help to campaign against the death penalty.

When I first started writing to Bob, he had been on Death Row for over 13 years, and was hopeful of securing a retrial on the strength of new evidence that he felt would clear his name. Bob has always maintained his innocence, although innocence of what I do not know. I have never asked and he has never offered. 

Unfortunately, earlier this year, the courts refused to consider new evidence in his trial using the term 'time barred', meaning that the evidence was not submitted in a 'timely fashion' by his counsel. Like Guantanamo Bay, these legal rulings are beyond the realm of comprehension, both to those inside and outside of the American legal system. What this does mean, however, is that Bob is now entering what may very well be his last year on Death Row before his sentence is carried out.

Bob is an intelligent man. He's 58, a former dentist, and he likes dirty jokes. He is as you would imagine most blokes to be who have been locked up for over a decade with no visitors, in an all-male environment. Writing to a prisoner can sometimes feel like writing to another world. But Bob and I have a laugh, we talk about our families, our day-to-day experiences, and the current legal climate in America that may affect his case.

At present, a number of states have declared a moratorium on the death penalty, ceasing all executions whilst an in-depth debate is held to resolve a number of issues. One of the biggest issues is that the Medical Board has declared that it is against the Doctor's Code (or Hippocratic Oath) for doctors to participate in an execution. Doctors are supposed to save lives regardless of age, race, sex or background. 

A number of doctors have refused to administer a lethal injection. This has been further highlighted recently when a lethal injection failed to kill a man in the time prescribed, causing a slow and probably painful death. 

Prisons are arguing that a doctor is not needed to deliver the injection, but should be on hand to monitor vital statistics. However, the Medical Board says that any participation beyond simply being present and observing is unethical. One newspaper clipping that Bob sent me reported on this debate raging in North Carolina, where executions are still taking place. A proposal was put forward that doctors should not administer the lethal injection, but should be allowed to monitor the inmate's vital statistics and intervene if the process went awry:

In other words, the doctor would be obliged to help save a life that the state was trying to take - so that it could be taken later. That is...well, it's absurd. The Medical Board, thankfully, refused to come to terms with prison officials. - American News Clipping

As with my previous article on Moazzam Begg, the question of guilt or innocence really has little to do with this. The point is that no human being, guilty or innocent, should be subjected to such appalling circumstances or procedure. In an article that I wrote for LifeLines a couple of years ago, I said that:

One thing that is said to separate us from animals is the ability to recognise our urges and attempt to change our course of action. Another key feature of humanity is the ability to show mercy, even if somebody commits an atrocity against us, we can choose a different course of action when we come to be in a position of power over them.

That some of these people are, as with Guantanamo Bay, quite probably innocent, having never committed the crime for which they are paying their life, just adds to the horror of an already horrific situation. It sells humanity far short of what it should be.

I severely doubt that the execution of a prisoner after 15 years is going to bring peace to victims who have, by that time, not found peace in any other way. You have to then question whether execution is about ‘peace and healing’ or whether it is about a far baser human desire for revenge.

Even if you believe that a murderer should be murdered, that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is a means to justice and peace of mind, by the time ten, fifteen or even twenty years have passed, you are not executing the same person. If a dog bites a man you put it down within a week. If a human kills a human, he serves a life sentence and then you kill him, or her. To live for twenty years knowing that this month, or next month, or maybe the one after that, you will be told when you should expect to die - to have that hanging over you every morning when you wake...

So, I think what I’m saying is, if you have a few hours a month and a sunny disposition, go sign up for a penfriend. They really need you. There's a list far longer of prisoners requesting penfriends than there are penfriends to write to them. It's not always a barrel of laughs, it's not all doom and gloom either, but it's always appreciated.