Thy Will Be Done: The Plight of a Young Man Sentenced to Die in North America's Electric Chair
156
Thy Will Be Done: The Plight of a Young Man Sentenced to Die in North America's Electric Chair
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504948593 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 09/15/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 156 |
| File size: | 186 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Thy Will be Done
The Plight of a Young Man Sentenced to Die in North America's Electric Chair
By K. C. Kennedy
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2015 K. C. KennedyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5049-4860-9
CHAPTER 1
The Execution
Death lived to be fed behind the green steel door. Death-- in all of its full fist-clenching, wisp-o'-smoke rising, purple foam-choking form. Knowing that the next clanging of the cold, metal keys, the next hollow footsteps he heard might be those of the guards leading him to his execution, prisoner number S0023 closed his eyes and prayed.
He opened them to absorb a scene more grotesque than his mind had previously been able to conjure. The slick, oaken chair, with a ghoulish henchman, soaking electrodes in a tub of brine behind it, loomed dark against the sea of foam grey walls.
Two guards adjusted electrodes to the prisoner's ankles and wrists as the condemned man slouched, staring at the five silence signs on the walls, the only forms of deference in an otherwise humanly debasing death ritual. A young, blond-haired man, in his thirties, adjusted the wet sponge and electrode to the prisoner's newly shaven head and placed a dark brown leather mask over his head and face, forever fading from his view the six official witnesses and five newspaper men, all seated on cement benches with brass spittoon "vomit pots" in front of them. Except for the bodies in it, the room was sterile, barren, hospital-deadly clean.
The young blond-haired executioner twisted a knob in the black box on the wall. Four times in a row the lights went up, then down, accompanied by a hum. The first turning was at 8;02 A.M.; the last was at 8:04 A.M. Dr. T. B. Miller, physician at the Mount Rock Prison, Rougher County, New York, examined the man in the chair.
"I pronounce Jerry Spade dead."
These were the only words spoken in the chamber except for those of Reverend Last. As the dream of death drew to a close, he continued to chant:
"Though like the wanderer,
the sun gone down
Darkness be over me
My rest a stone; yet in
my dreams I'd be
Nearer, my God, to Thee."
Nathan closed his eyes again and prayed, "Lord ..."
"Hey, Nathan, whaddya' doin'?" Vito Savio's Lower East Side savvy rang across the cell block from three doors down.
"Readin'."
"Reading' what?' joked Vito in a half-mouthed, half whisper, mocking his neighbor's fully hushed tones.
"I'm readin' that article you gave me when I firs' got here--you know, the one 'bout Jerry's execution. Boy, that article really did it for me, but I don't have to worry no more. They's goin' to get me some real help. I heard the lawyers talkin' in court during my second trial." Nathan spoke in tones barely audible. Little did he know that the guard standing watch on the row that very evening was the same guard who smuggled that New York News article of March 4th, 1962, in to Vito. Only the Bible and a few institutionally selected articles were allowed on Death Row in those days, and Nathan wasn't taking any chances.
"Whadda they gonna do for ya?" With pointed finger slid between the bars, Vito leaned his 5'8" slim, muscular frame forward, remembering all of the broken promises the D.A.'s had made to him in the past.
"Oh, listen to this. In the courtroom, during my trial, at the big, wooden table, Spears, the D.A., came over and shook Cain, my lawyer's hand. Then Cain said to him, "We'll run this along the lines of the Hatfield case." Cain finally did it that time; he finally stood up to that ol' Spears and tol' him how things were gonna' be for a change. Don't you know-- I got all excited inside, knowing that Cain was finally doin' somethin' for me."
Frantically, Vito began pacing there in his 8'x10' white-washed cell, his steel blue eyes flaring, as he ran his fingers through his wavy, dark,strictly-Italian hair. "No, no--they got you set up, those slimes. Don'tcha see, man? You're a sheep bein' led to the slaughter."
"What?!"
"Hatfield!"
"Who's Hatfield?"
"They executed him. Last year, they took him to the Pardons Board, the Pardons Board turned him down, and seven days later they fried him. Case closed."
"What?! I gotta get rid of that lawyer. Ol' dumb Nathan. They's probably sittin' somewheres laughin' 'bout me right now."
"Naaa, you ain't dumb. Those slimes played the same game with me. Tol' me if I pleaded guilty, they won't send me to the chair. And you see where we's both goin'."
"Yeah, Spears, that D.A., he tol' me that same story, too. Boy, oh boy, oh boy! Vito, how do I get rid of that lawyer and get me a new one?"
"Yo, don't worry, I got a plan. I'll write it down on paper and slide it on the floor to you." Nine years Nathan's senior, Vito was a seasoned veteran, who had learned how to play the game rather well. In fact, once, in the courtroom when he had played the game too well, even better than the D.A., the judge had accused him of "making a mockery of the justice system."
Nathan, on the other hand, had always had a childlike trust in people of authority, even though he was at times disobedient. Paradoxically, Vito Savio believed, it was this same trust that was leading prisoner number S0023 to the Electrocution Room, faster than you could call the state police to take him there.
As Nathan splashed water on his face from his ash green, toilet-face bowl combination, he glanced up into the piece-of-tin mirror on his grey-green walls. True, he looked the same--that same young, well-built, admittedly handsome black male, who had entered the system without bail two years earlier at the age of 20. Then again, on second glance, he felt that maybe his head was just a little too big, which is why the kids on Uber Street had called him "muscle-head", along with the fact that they feared his toughness and his willingness to do anything to protect those whom he loved. Still he was happy with his outward appearance, and the number of young females who had been attracted to him told him that it was justifiably so.
It was his internal nature he loathed--the person he was inside. After he was discharged from the Marines, he even believed that he had become "a real animal."
But now all of that had changed, too. It happened on December 26, 1963. Before Nathan went to sleep that dark December night, on his thinly-mattressed frame of steel, he prayed, as always. He asked God to give him strength, to let him see the next day. When he woke up on December 27th, he felt he was a different man, a man whose prayers God had answered, a man whom God had strenghthened.
Now, on March 7th, 1964, as he lay waiting, waiting for what seemed the inevitable, he couldn't help but reflect upon the events leading up to his dramatic conversion. It certainly was far better, a necessary escape route, than thinking about his fate in New York's leather-strapped death chamber.
On March 7th, 1963, Nathan remembered being transferred from the Bluetone County Prison to the Restricted Housing Unit, to the section known to the layman as Death Row, to the inmates as "the hole" at Western State Penitentiary. He had been waiting at Bluetone since December 7th, 1961, for his second trial, won on appeal, to commence. Oh, there had been the visits every fifteen days and the fifteen minute showers every third day. His mother and brother Truman had visited him and warned him, even at Bluetone, that the only way out was to get himself right with God. Nathan had heard and even agreed, but there was just too much happening at that time for a total miracle to occur. The gravity of his situation simply hadn't taken root yet.
But Western was different. He was in the big leagues now. He was placed on Death Row. These people meant business.
During his first week in cell 7 on block 8, convict S0023 was visited by Chaplain Alfred Fallon, a tall, slender, refined Protestant pastor, who gave him a Scofield Reference Bible, then hurried on, trying to meet the needs of the ever-growing prison population at the ten-acre institution.
Western State Penitentiary, John Ayre's 's gloomy, medieval fortress, had first opened its doors on October 30th, 1800, and was renowned the world over, consequently becoming a prototype for Gothic prisons from New York to Rome. Thus, it was over a century ago that Benedict Samson had written concerning Western, "May the iron prison doors bang and clang and create a sound that will pierce the unrepentant soul." However, contrary to Samson's proclamation, it was not the banging of the prison doors, but the word of God, "sharper than a two-edged sword," that opened the doors of convict S0023's heart and pierced his soul so deeply that he could never be the same again.
Sitting in his prison cell was not the first occasion on which Nathan had heard the Bible though. When he was child, his mother had taken him to Sunday School. He enjoyed seeing the little girls his age, keeping half of his offering to buy candy for himself, and he even remembered some parts of the Bible he had heard.
But this was different. As Nathan sat in his cell one spring day when March was going out like a lamb, he found himself reading the Bible. No great feat for one who can read, but for prisoner S0023, whose New York School District records to this day show a 6%, a 2-score for reading skills, with a dropout status in the tenth grade after refusing to take a remedial reading course, it was a miracle, a miracle as great, perhaps to him even greater, than the parting of the Red Sea!
Nathan rose, remembering his prayer that had led to such a miracle. "Father, if you want me to change, which I want to change, you have to teach me to read this Book. I want to study your Word lest I go crazy here. I want to really find out what it is all about, this thing in me that caused me to do those things. In Jesus' name, Amen."
Eventually, God Almighty did indeed teach him to read, right there in his cell. One day, as Nathan sat staring at the pages of the Bible, he wasn't even conscious that he was reading until it dawned on him; something clicked, and suddenly he exclaimed, "I'm reading, I'm reading!" Immediately, Nathan jumped up, "Turnkey, cell 7 needs a pen." To Mrs. Nadine Nelson, he wrote, "Mother, please come up on the next visit. I have something I want to show you, something I want to prove to you."
Mrs. Nadine Nelson, dressed in her son's favorite grey and pastel yellow-flowered suit, arrived right on time for her next visit, anxious to see what her son "Nate" had to show her. Through impenetrable wire mesh, topped by squared safety glass, Nathan could see the tears flowing freely from the wells of his mother's soul to the flowers on her lapel, as he read to her how Samson slew whole armies with the jawbone of an ass. If it were at all possible, Mrs. Nadine Nelson was happier about her son's miracle that he was himself!
Still, Nathan remembered, something had bothered him. Even though he continued to read his Bible for the next nine months, something was missing. He recalled his mother pounding into his head since he was a little boy, "Son, if you ever die without being saved, you will go straight to hell."
The problem as he saw it, that wintery day after Christ's birthday in 1963, was that he was pounding God's word into his head, but ignoring his heart. True, his mother had said, "I'm proud of you," as he read aloud, through the mesh screen in the visiting room. Still something wasn't clear yet. What was this "saving" she had hoped he had accomplished in his childhood?
Then, on the night of December 26th, with the silver-coned ceiling spotlight beaming in on him as always, Nathan came to John, Chapter 3 in his leather-bound Bible. Just as Nicodemus had wanted to know, he, too, wanted to know how could he be "born again?" "Jesus answered him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" (John 3:3) Yet, not really understanding it, prisoner S0023 went to sleep that night, asking God to let this "thing", this "born again" experience happen to him.
When Nathan Nelson woke up on December 27th, he knew he was different. He felt as light as a feather: Burdens were gone; hate was gone. There was only love.
When the guard came to serve him his breakfast, Nathan knew that the Word was beginning to manifest itself in his flesh. As he looked at the same old guard, with the same old streaks of white oily hair, and the same old hate sticking out of his eyes, chewing and spitting tobacco, Nathan kept right on singing. "God had given me a song and I was singing it." Nathan reminisced aloud.
While the jailer, in routine fashion, slid his oatmeal, flying off of the plate onto the cold cement floor, through the slit at the bottom of the cell door, he threatened, "Nathan, you should be crying rather than singing."
But that jailer did not know what had happened to convict S0023 on December 26th, 1963 in his Death Row cell at Western State Penitentiary in Warsack, New York. Nathan Nelson could no more stop singing in his cell than the apostle Paul could in the Book of Acts. Nathan's new found love in Christ drew a circle that took in even the most hateful guards. It was genuine love, and Nathan knew it. The old things were passing away as God Almighty had "cleaned him out."
Within two months, Satan put Western's newborn Christian to the test, shooting all of the fear, anger, and frustration he could muster in one fully flaming arrow. With handcuffs clasped and wrists behind him, prisoner S0023 was escorted along the open air path behind stone walls, 12 feet thick at the base and 35 feet high, presenting a most imposing facade to the world outside of the institution. Someone had once called New York's Western Penitentiary a place of "hopeless solitary confinement." Yet as the blue-uniformed guards escorted Nathan along the macadamed path, he was hopeful. He thanked God for a chance to see the sky. He remembered that it was his own Heavenly Father who hung the moon and the stars in their places. His life was in God's hands. He had read in Jeremiah, "Behold I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too hard for me?" (Jeremiah 32:27) He had asked God to forgive him for his past, and surely He would preserve him for the future. He was only 22 years old. Certainly, God had something more for him to do here before he entered eternity, however wonderful that eternity might be.
As he was led to an old, wooden chair, perched atop a black steel cone with a white number three on it in the visiting room, he peered through the double-layered mesh to meet the gaze of one, Iscariot Cain, court appointed lawyer and Yale graduate. Iscariot's elflike appearance accented by the crisp red bow tie always fascinated Nathan, even though he sensed that the feeling wasn't mutual.
Iscariot began, "You know we're doing all we can to save your life. The Supreme Court is in a certain stage right now, and we believe they're going to look favorably upon you; but if they don't, we'll be prepared to go to the Pardons Board. The papers are ready. All you have to do is sign here." Pulling a pink paper from his briefcase and walking towards the guard's window, Iscariot was stopped short.
"No, I'm not signing that!" Nathan remembered Vito Savio's story about John Hatfield. True or not, misunderstanding or no misunderstanding, Nathan wasn't taking any chances, anymore. For this lawyer, it was just another case. For Nathan, it was his only life, and he was petrified enough already.
"Do you want me to help you or not?" Iscariot was waxing irritable now. He couldn't understand it. Even before Nathan's conversion experience, Iscariot Cain had described Nathan as "polite, calm, steady, and 'always did whatever I told him'." Nathan appeared not to be himself today.
Nathan's reply came back calmer, yet stronger. "Yes, but I just can't sign them."
"You shot him right here," Cain pointed at his forehead. "I never wanted to save your life anyway." Suddenly, Iscariot's elf turned gremlin as Nathan's admittedly contrived, calm demeanor turned to panic. Not only did this man who took an oath to defend him faithfully wish him dead, but he didn't even have the facts straight after all this time. Dr. Hunter Howell himself had appeared in court along with his official report attesting to the fact that the victim was not shot in the forehead.
"I'm going to tell the courts what you said." Nathan's panic mixed with self-pity at the awful prospect of what lay ahead.
Pointing with one finger and slamming his other hand on the counter as he whisked himself toward the other door, Iscariot Cain, Esq., vowed, "If you do, I will fight it tooth and nail."
Prisoner S0023 was quickly escorted back to "the hole," still shocked by the startling turn of events. He decided that Vito Savio was right. He must find Vito's note, read it, and figure out how to get a new lawyer.
Locked in his cell, though, he decided to focus for a while on the mundane, strictly as a variant means of mental escape. Tooth and nail--he had never heard that expression before. But, then again, before he came to prison, he had never known what "under the table" meant either, even though a grocer once told him that that's how he was paying him. Still--tooth and nail--for the first time since the trial began, he pictured Iscariot Cain not as one of Santa's helpers, but rather as an animal, bent on destruction. Were they both no better than animals? But then, what was man? Nathan grew philosophical.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Thy Will be Done by K. C. Kennedy. Copyright © 2015 K. C. Kennedy. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
1. The Execution, 1,2. Lessons from Childhood, 12,
3. Building Men, 22,
4. Paying the Price, 34,
5. Death Row, 45,
6. The Waiting Game, 74,
7. Free At Last!, 103,
8. At What Price Freedom, 112,
9. The Tallest Tree, 122,
10. Blessed Assurance, 143,