On watching the state kill your friend

I don’t write 700-word essays very often, but I choose to do so today in memory of a dear friend. I witnessed his death on March 20, 19 years ago.

Seeing someone take final breaths is not an unusual experience. Many people have been at the bedside of a friend or loved one for precious final moments. No, that isn’t the way this happened. I was behind a window at the State of Texas’ death chamber. I watched the state take the life of my friend Charles Anthony Nealy. He would have been 43 if he had lived three days longer.

It’s a long story, but worth re-telling as a reminder that capital punishment is sinister and evil and wrongful convictions are real.

The year was 2002, just 12 months after I had founded a little organization called INNOCENT…an agency that later became HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS. A support group for Mr. Nealy in England had contacted me for assistance. It was a sad story.

Anthony had been found guilty of murder by a Texas jury in 1998 in, what the Dallas Morning News, called the “fastest death penalty trial in the history of Texas.” Nealy swore he was in Oklahoma at the time of the armed robbery/shooting, but the state claimed that a grainy picture from a surveillance camera proved that he was the perpetrator. Never mind the fact that the perp wore a gold chain (Nealy was allergic to gold and never wore jewelry) or that he was wearing a cap (Nealy’s hair was styled in corn rows, so he rejected headwear). Never mind that a prosecutor who had been suspended twice before for his pre-trial misbehavior threatened Nealy’s nephew with the death penalty if he refused to sign a statement identifying Anthony in the picture.

I visited him for the first time on death row while in Texas for an Innocence Conference in 2003.  We became instant friends and remained in contact over the years.

The jarring news that an execution date had been set for set for September, 2002, was then topped by a personal request from Anthony that would change my life: “I am wondering if you would be willing to be my spiritual advisor?”  The spiritual advisor of a condemned inmate visits him during his final two days, spends a 30-minute period alone with the prisoner in the “death house,” and then witnesses the execution.

Why me? “I know that you are a writer. Executions are so common they do not make the news in Texas. I want you to tell the story as you see it.” That's exactly what I am doing today!

I didn’t enjoy visiting the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, where death row is housed, in 2003.  I enjoyed it even less in 2007. A dark cloud of death hovered overhead, and I could feel evil in the air.

Monday, March 19, and a nice visit at this hell hole of a prison, where bloodhounds bray in a nearby barn, cowboy-looking guards circle the grounds in pickup trucks with shotguns, and women guards laugh and chatter as though the shadow of death was non-existent. Anthony and I prayed together.

Tuesday morning, and an even shorter visit. Anthony was still in his upbeat mood, laughing and talking. Before I left he and I placed our hands on the glass separating us and I offered a brief prayer.  Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I walked to my car. Why was there no stay? Why wasn’t this nightmare ending? The fine Texas Innocence Network in Houston, led by Professor David Dow, provided last-minute legal work for Anthony. But it was too little, too late.

Later that day I was in Huntsville, home of the death chamber, for my final visit. Again, no personal contact allowed...no final hug.

Before the fatal injection he was asked if he had any comments. Anthony gave a rather lengthy statement. My name was in the opening statement as well as his final statement. He started out this way: “You are a good investigator. Doug…I thank you for coming from Michigan.”

Charles Anthony Nealy, 42, executed by lethal injection on March 20, 2007, in Huntsville, Texas.

His last words on this earth: “Doug, don’t forget Marcia.”

I didn’t.

I haven’t forgotten Anthony, either.

“What you do to these men, you do to God"
--Mother Teresa during her visit to San Quentin Prison