You have a little iron bunk and a sink and commode combination. You did everything in that cell. You were allowed out of that cell for 2 hours once a week for recreation, weather permitting. If you violated any rules of the institution, whatever privileges you had, such as visitation and mail, were taken for 30 days. When my death warrant was signed, my mother suffered a heart attack and a stroke and she is still paralysed on the left side of her body today.
Death watch is a cell located exactly thirty feet from the electric chair.
This consisted of listening to that chair being tested twice a day, and knowing it was being done in your honour. I can t tell you how it is to stand outside of that cell and have a gentleman come and put a tape measure around your chest, around your waist, the inseam of your legs, and measure you for your burial suit. That s what happened to me. After fourteen and one-half years on death row and coming within fifteen hours of being killed I found myself in a Holiday Inn waiting on a ride to take me back to Gainesville, Florida. And once out, I m told to forgive, to forget what took place.