Death ​Row – The Final Minutes 2 csillagozás

My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison
Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes

In ​12 years, Michelle Lyons witnessed nearly 300 executions.

First as a reporter and then as a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Michelle was a frequent visitor to Huntsville's Walls Unit, where she recorded and relayed the final moments of death row inmates' lives before they were put to death by the state.

Michelle was in the death chamber as some of the United States' most notorious criminals, including serial killers and rapists, spoke their last words on earth, while a cocktail of lethal drugs surged through their veins.
Michelle supported the death penalty, before misgivings began to set in as the executions mounted. During her time in the prison system, and together with her dear friend and colleague, Larry Fitzgerald, she came to know and like some of the condemned men and women she saw die. She began to query the arbitrary nature of the death penalty and ask the question: do executions make victims of all of us?

An… (tovább)

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Blink Publishing, Chichester, 2018
304 oldal · keménytáblás · ISBN: 9781911600626

Kívánságlistára tette 2


Kiemelt értékelések

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Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

Azt kell mondjam, hogy sokkal jobb könyv volt, mint amit ebben a műfajban várhat az ember. Úgy értem, általában az ilyen típusú memoárok sokkal többet ígérnek a fülszövegben, mint amennyit valójában adnak. A Death Row esetében azonban ez nem egészen így van. Elég széles folyosót nyit a texasi büntetésvégrehajtási intézmények szövevényes működésének megértéséhez. Texasban a mai napig nem törölték még el a halálbüntetést, és ennek megléte hatalmas vitákat szül, pro és kontra. Azon témák közé tartozik ez, amiről jobb, ha nem nyilatkozik az ember, ha nincs közvetlen rálátása a dolgokra, ilyen-olyan okból kifolyólag. Michelle Lyons nagyon őszintén beszél a tapasztalatairól, a látottakról, arról, hogyan is működik valójában ez a rendszer. Bevallja, hogy volt olyan elítélt, akit őszintén kedvelt és akinek a kivégzésésvel még ma sem ért egyet. Ugyanakkor leírja, hogy a saját bőrén tapasztalta: vannak olyan borzalmas bűntettek amikért igenis a halál megérdemelt penitencia. Ettől függetlenül végtelenül együtt érez nem csak az áldozatok, hanem a bűnözők családjának veszteségével és bánatával is. Gyönyörűen kifejti, hogy mindez az őrület nem megállítható, viszont senki nem nyer semmit. A gyilkolás minden tekintetben csakis veszteseket szül és szomorúságot. Nagyon elgondolkodtató, és néhol el is érzékenyültem olvasás közben. Ugyan Michelle nagyon kemény, erős nőnek tartja magát, és minden bizonnyal az is, ehhez kétség nem fér, ennek ellenére mégiscsak egy jólelkű, érzékeny nő, aki borzalmasan kemény világban vetette meg a lábát a férfiak között és fantasztikusan helyt is állt. Gondolatait, érzéseit, kétségeit korábban soha senkivel nem osztotta meg. Az, amit leírt, terápiás jelleggel írta, gondolván, ha kiadja magából mindazt, amit átélt a halálsoron dolgozva eltöltött 11 éve alatt, talán könnyebb lesz feldolgoznia. Nos, szívből kívánom neki, hogy ez sikerüljön, tovább tudjon lépni és boldog életet éljen.


Népszerű idézetek

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That's why when I die, I want to be cremated and tossed somewhere pretty. There's nothing sadder than a little stone somewhere that nobody ever visits.

6. oldal, Prologue - A single tear

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

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But when I look up those early executions in my journal, it's the mundane details that jump out at me. Heiselbetz was 'still wearing his glasses'; Betty Lou Beets, who murdered two of her five husbands and shot another in the back (and was only the second woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War) had 'tiny little feet'; Jeffrey Dillingham, a hitman who had slashed the throat of a woman in Fort Worth, 'had these dimples and actually was a very good looking man'.

27. oldal Chapter 2 - Just a job

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

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Once the inmate had eaten his last meal, it was, in the words of Odell Barnes, 'a waiting game'. The inmate waited to die, his family waited for him to be saved, the victim's family waited for justice, the reporters waited to witness. Everybody waited.

107. oldal Chapter 5. - The party never ends

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

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There was a lot of gallows humour, which was irreverent, but not meant to be disrespectful. Larry would sometimes run a pool, where we'd try to predict the time of death. We'd make up joke headlines and think of songs to suit the occasion (for example, I still have a list Larry made before the execution of an inmate with one leg, including the songs 'Lean on Me' and 'You'll Never Walk Alone').

57. oldal Chapter 3 - A fork in the road

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

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These weren't people they just picked off the street and executed, these were friends of mine.

66. oldal Chapter 3 - A fork in the road

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

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While there were executions I saw that I didn't agree with and executions I saw that I wish I had not, I maintain that there are instances when the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for the taking of a human life. And if anyone has the balls to stand there and tell me why the death penalty is wrong, they should be preparred to hear my very personal take on why I think they are mistaken. If their 17 year-old daughter was shot in the face and killed, how would they cope knowing that her killer's life was spared? I know, from personal experience, that it is a bitter pill to swallow.

271. oldal Chapter 13 - No monopoly on grief

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

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He was the kind of guy who claimed he was on a hunger strike and yet actually gained weight. To most inmates on death row, a hunger strike meant that every time the prison system brought them a meal they turned it down – but they still are commissary. In other words, 'I rejected the breakfast you bastards offered me – but I then ate six Twinkies in my cell'.

46. oldal Chapter 2 - Just a job

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

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I came to feel that executions were just sad situations all round. It was sad that a murder had happened and an innocent person lost their life, it was sad that this was what people did to each other, it was sad that we were all standing there watching a man die. What part of that makes anybody feel good? Everybody loses. And I had to witness that sadness over and over again.

205. oldal Chapter 10. - A little bit darker

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

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Once the inmate was on the gurney and the needles were in, nothing was going to save them. It wasn't the movies.

108. oldal Chapter 5 - The party never ends

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison

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After raping Donovan, Cruz stabbed her to death. A priest, Father Emmanuel McCarthy, who was in town for the execution, told the reporter that because Donovan was wearing short shorts, 'nothing good was going to come of that'. In other words, the man of God thought she was asking for it.

31. oldal Chapter 2 - Just a job

Michelle Lyons: Death Row – The Final Minutes My life as an execution witness in America’s most infamous prison


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