About Us: Background

Hell is not the Dantean creation of eternal cacaphony, marked by the fevered screams of the tortured.

No.

Hell is quiet, still and chilled.

I know.

I live there.

It is a place of mind-robbing sameness, where days are pale echoes of the day before. On a day like every preceding one, I was lost in concentration, my fingers flying in mindless abandon over typewriter keys, writing a motion for a pending pleading, until my consciousness split to monitor the nearing jangle of keys.

The jangle ceased.

A moment of silence.

A cleared throat.

"Uh, Jamal...would you step over to the door."

"What's up, man?"

"The, uh, lieutenant would like to see you."

Eyes meet, and in a flash, an odd mixture of sadness and duty reflect.

(Damn. Here it comes.)

"What's up, lieutenant?"

"Mr. Jamal, your death warrant has just been signed. We're gonna handcuff you and strip you down."

At least five guards, a sergeant and a lieutenant crowd the blue-tiled hallway, their nerves afire.

I turn to the baldheaded Buddhist Swami, with whom I spent most of this morning's library period, and ask him to gather my legal material.

"We'll take care of it," a guard answers.

My wrists are shackled.

I am escorted by a silent, uniformed mob to Phase II, an area on B pod, where men under death warrants are placed.

(Yo...this is Phase II!)

Six cells, shielded by plastic and steel cages, with small five-inch rectangular boxes fitted to the front door of each cell.

The boxes are 24-hour remote cameras which monitor each man's every movement. The cells are bare except for a basin/toilet unit, a steel bed riveted to the right wall, a seat/desk arrangement and a property bin attached to the left wall.

The regulation strip search is conducted, leaving a naked man in a cold concrete cell. Every item of clothing taken is not to be returned to the naked man, so guards, unprepared for this rare morning warrant, scurry to find Phase II clothing.

On institutional uniforms, a mans name and number are emblazoned. Not so for Phase II uniforms, where, presumably, those with a date to die need no names.

"What's up, cuz?" asks 'Min, a tall, bald and bearded veteran of Phase II.

"What's up, 'Min? How you be, man?"

"Sheeit-Ya know how I be, cuz; I'm messed up!"

"Me and you both, huh?"

'Min is on his second death warrant and, as one of two men to have done so, is an authority among the five men caged on "the Faze."

The men make small talk among themselves, an attempt to chase the cold, constricting demons of fear away, as they clutch for the heart. In an odd equation of death, the more talk equals more fear: [>t=>f]. Small talk amidst the awesome reality of impending death. Approaching death, while waiting in an icebox. The small talk diminishes into tiny talk and vanishes in the hush of quiet. The omnipresent air blower rushes, its cool breath seemingly amplified by the stilled human voices. Body sense whispers that hours have passed since my 9:45 a.m. notice of my new status. I walk an empty cell, my footfalls an echo from the cold concrete walls. (So, this is what an empty cell looks like!) A rustle of "White Shirts" (or ranking guards) announces the arrival of news. As expected, the "White Shirt" has come to "officially" inform me of what I, and all others in the block, knew.

"Jamal-your death warrant has been signed...." He turns to a white piece of paper and reads:

The Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has signed your death warrant today, effective for the week of August 13,1995.

I have attached a copy of the warrant.

The Department of Corrections has set the date of Thursday, August 17,1995, to carry out this order at the state correctional institution at Rockview.

"Any questions?" the "White Shirt" asks, his blue eyes cool.

"I'd like to contact my family."

"Your block sergeant will take care of that," he announces, and with a sharp turn of his heels, he is gone after leaving a Xerox of the death warrant behind.

I look at it dumbly, seeing it, but not reading it.

'Min breaks me out of my reverie.

"Hey, Mu!"

"Yeah, 'Min-"

"Welcome to the club, baby!"

"Sheeit! Pardon me if I don't celebrate."

His high, nasal laughs careen off walls and plastic Plexiglas. I don't particularly feel much like yukkin' it up, but I remember how men talk to chase their fear, and before long, 'Min and I are talking-into the wee hours of the morning.

Walking into Memory

It has been over twelve years since I've walked into a county courtroom.

Twelve years since my banishment to the barren badlands of death row.

As I walk into this ancient, ornate, carpeted room, I notice the visages of long-dead jurists, their expressions cold and supercilious, all old White men, staring down from their framed perches on the wall but seeing nothing.

An expectant silence vibrates in the air, until a little boy shatters it.

"I love you, Grandpop!"

Laughter, and then, tentatively at first, until a little boy shatters it.

"I love you, Grandpop!"

Laughter, and then, tentatively at first, until building in confidence and crescendo, a round of applause breaks over the right side of the courtroom, long and sustained.

I am stunned by it, and when the thought strikes, I return the clenched-fist salute to many who offer this militant affirmation.

I sight my grandson, a reddish-brown dimpled munchkin who can barely see over the public rail, and tell him, "I love you too, son!," as a sweet smile bursts forth like spring sun- shine.

He is nearing 4 and I have never touched him.

I have never seen him without a barrier between us.

Yet this child radiates a love so palpable one can swim in it, and all around him, people pulsate with a love, not of the flesh, but of the spirit.

Love-in a courtroom, a legal arena of death.

"Justice is just an emotional feeling, counselor," opines Senior Judge Albert F. Sabo as he denies a stay of execution sought by lead defense counsel Leonard I. Weinglass, "in the interest of justice."

I am reminded of a lawyer's tale of a trial before a judge who bellowed, "This isn't a court of justice! It's a court of law!"

In this courtroom, where I was sentenced to death, a sense of deja' vu oscilates with the ominous present, as Albert Sabo unleashes slur after slur at defense counsel.

"I don't know how you do it up in New York, counsel, but we don't do that in Philadelphia," he quips.

He hits several with contempt citations and orders one of my lawyers away from the bench, in handcuffs, to a jail cell.

Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq., had the temerity to dare question the jurist after one of his summary rulings of exclusion of documentary evidence. She dared do what defense lawyers are traditionally intimidated from doing in Sabo's courtroom-aggressively defending their clients.

In a moment of remembrance, I saw my trial lawyer hit with contempt for daring to follow his client's wishes, until a prosecutor begged Judge Sabo to reconsider.

In the midst of familial love is the undeniable presence of judicial hatred, for "justice is just an emotional feeling."

The Stay

After days of denying all defense motions, and denying subpoenas for over a third of the defense witnesses, Senior Judge Sabo, on the late morning of Aug. 7, 1995, did the unexpected.

The aging jurist, unbidden, issued a stay of execution.

The shock to the defense was electric.

The prosecution seemed unsurprised and subdued.

Shock radiates through the courtroom, and a scattered round of applause grows in response.

"Wait a while," interjects Sabo, his voice a mirror of irritation. "You might not wanna clap when ya hear what I'm sayin'...."

He then reads the full text of his order; which sets forth an "indefinite" stay, pending further appeals.

The unexpected nature of the ruling, coming as it did from a judge not known for such an act, left me guarded, awaiting the worm within the apple, so to speak.

I felt, like a wave on my back, the breath of relief from my children, grandchildren, the rest of my family and friends.

In all of our discussions, counsel didn't expect this decision from the opinionated jurist.

With 10 days of life remaining, the stay was admittedly welcome, from whatever source. It does not mean, however, that I am no longer on death row.

It means the government still intends to kill me-just on another day.

By the stay, I am moved out of the lower depths of the state's hell, to a mid-range; from a dungeon, to a cage.

A cage located out in the boondocks, as far from Philadelphia as is possible and remain inside the stateline; a cage where men are held behind glass and steel; a cage where men await death.