Vernon Evans on Living the Death Penalty Prisoner #172-357 Death Row

Dealing With the Sentence of Death:
When I first went to the row, because of the way my trial went, I had the attitude that I did not care. I was on the row for eighteen months before the feds came in and took me to Marion federal penitentiary, a prison that only lets you out of your cell one hour a day. I stayed there for six years. My attitude changed when I was suppose to go to Leavenworth penitentiary, but the warden said that he would not admit me for fear that I might kill a staff member or inmate.
I wanted to change the way that they looked at people who are sentenced to death. I helped a man learn to read. I took college courses. I was stabbed seven times and never went after the men who did it. I had a problem with drugs so I went to a drug program. I worked in UNICOR for over fifteen years. (UNICOR is part of the prison labor industry.) Leavenworth penitentiary took me in 1992 until I left there in 1994 and went to Atlanta penitentiary. I stayed in Atlanta until the governor of Maryland signed the paper to keep me here in Baltimore when I came back for a hearing in 2002. Before I left Atlanta I had started getting to know Jesus Christ. Once I got settled on the row here, my spiritual happinesswas on. I have had two death warrants lodged against me. Each time many prayers were said to get them lifted. I believe this. Because of three prior convictions it was always hard for me to adjust to society once I returned. I didn’t have a social life that I could fit into, or perhaps I really did not give society a chance.
I had seven kids who wanted designer tennis shoes, and society wanted me to work at a job that paid three to four dollars an hour and expected me to pay bills on time. I wanted to feed my woman and the kids that were living withme. I was prepared to survive by any means necessary. So I was dealing drugs. I had my son’s mother on the block selling her body along with her girlfriends. I was robbing people. I was out of control. I used the product I was selling. So I had no remorse for any of my actions. I did not have God as part of my life so I knew no mercy.
Each day I try to make something positive happen.
For instance, when students are back in college, I write to them and use my life and the mistakes I have made as an example of how not to live. When I reflect on my past confinement I think that if the prisons had offered counseling on returning to society, I might have adjusted better. Being constantly around criminals taught me how to beat the system. It’s like that today in some prisons. Nowadays the courts are giving so much time out that in adult prison they don’t need counseling because they are never going to get out. People would have a better chance if the justice system wasn’t a revolving door.
People with HIV have influenced my life. In Atlanta I lived with a person who had HIV. At first he showed signs of not wanting to live and then I kept pushing him to take his medicine. I would tell him that people in this world had more reason than him to die but they managed to keep going. He is still living and will be out after 30 years. In fact, he is the one that got me to start seeking Christ. So after living with the death penalty for 23 years, so far and going through two death warrants, I still believe that my problems are not as bad as some people’s situationsin this world.
A Day on “The Row”:
We are awakened each morning between 5 and 5:30 for breakfast. Because our meals are the same each week, I choose when I actually want to eat. Usually I just come out to get the juice. I used to eat breakfast, but after so many years of eating the same thing, I just let a lot of meals go by.
Around 8:30 AM, we are told to come out of our cells for morning recreation. They’ll check our cell window and see if we’re digging holes. We don’t have to stay out the whole time. I usually go back to bed until 9:45 AM. I prepare myself at my sink and turn on my TV to catch the Regis and Kelly Show. I usually work out during the show.
At 10:45 AM they lock down and count us. They let us out again around 11:30 AM for lunch. We can watch TV, use the phone, look up legal cases, sit and play cards, or just talk.
At 1:45 PM we lock in for count again. That’s when I begin to read, type, or listen to CDs or the radio. We come back out around 4:10 PM to start the same activities all over again. Monday,Wednesday, and Friday we go outside in a cage for two hours. Death Row usually goes out around 6:30 PM. We never stay out for the whole two hours, because we lock in again at 9:45, so we go in around 8 to have enough time to shower.

Tuesdays and Thursdays we go out at 10 AM, but I’ve never gone out at that time. Perhaps if I were younger I would, but I’ll be 57 in October and I see things a little differently than the younger one’s. There are 8 of us on the row and three of us are in our fifties. There are twelve cells, four of which have been broken for many years. One of those broken cells is used for our legal work. We do accumulate a lot of legal work during the years of appeals and potentially even new sentencing hearings.
There is no library. There are no church services, no form of education offered, so we educate ourselves. We order books from stores. I have a lot of religious books to uplift my spiritual growth.
Most of the people that I have connected with are Catholic and true Christians. They are part of groups that oppose the death penalty.
There is no way for society to know if a person is making a sincere transformation because most of society has deemed us rejects. In fact, I’ve heard us referred to as animals. So there is little to no interest in knowing if a death row prisoner has changed.
Justifiable Homicide:
When you think of the word homicide, you think that someone has committed a crime. Yet, when the state kills another human being, they write on their death certificate “death by homicide”.
(Many states actually handwrites the word “justifiable”over “death by homicide” on the death certificate). Does the public know what is on the death certificate? I think not. Does society know that only two drugs are stated in the protocol for executing a person or that legislature never put into law the use of three drugs? Right now,I’m in the appeals court arguing that this system took it upon themselves to use three drugs in executing individuals when in fact they are only legally allowed to use two. This is what the legislation agreed on, two not three. In this state they have cut men’s arms open to get a vein. I have that in my appeal. I also challenge it in federal court where I have a trial in September. After a while, It gets easier to discuss things about our justice system.
This country is so quick to judge other countries for their inhumane practices. Its citizens are quick to send their sons and daughters to their death in other countries, especially when they are fooled into believing there is a need for reform in someone else’s country. But, right here in their own back yard, 122 people almost lost their lives under a faulty justice system. (In the last 30 years, 122 death-row inmates were found to be innocent and released.) It is also believed, that in society’s name, people have been put to death that perhaps were innocent. The saddest part about the death penalty is that even with 250 murders a year in the state of Maryland, society still believes that the death penalty is a deterrent. It is very sad.
Peace,
Vernon