Zach LarkinsCAPITAL PUNISHMENT V
Ronald Curtis Chambers has been on death row longer than a lot of people have been alive. Thirty one years. He was only 20 years old when he was convicted three times for the murder, on April 10, 1975, of Mike McMahan, who was 22 years old at the time. Chambers kidnapped McMahan and his friend, Deia Sutton, robbed them, shot them both and then ran. When McMahan then called out to Sutton to ask if she was all right, Chambers returned and dragged Ms. Sutton to the river and tried to choke and drown her. (She survived the attack and still has a bullet lodged in her head.) He then beat Mr. McMahan repeatedly with the shotgun until he died. Chambers does not claim innocence and therefore, today, he spends up to 22 hours a day in a 60 sq. ft. cell. He was originally sentenced to die in the electric chair, but repeated appeals by his lawyers have bought him enough time that the sentence was changed to death by lethal injection. Chambers is incarcerated in Texas where most prisoners stay for only 10 years before they are executed.
Texas is the state most actively killing its prisoners. More than 380 people have been executed in the state since 1976 (Virginia, in second place, has killed fewer than 100 prisoners in the same time period). And while the number of executions in the United States declined between 2005 and 2006 (60 and 53 deaths respectively), the number of executions in Texas jumped 26%. Nearly half of all executions in the United States last year took place in Texas. Lieutenant- Governor David Dewhurst, a Republican, now wants to extend the death penalty to repeat sex offenders who prey on children.
Following is an interview between Chambers and Mary Vallis, who wrote these articles for the National Post, conducted on the day before Chambers was to die:
Q: Has [execution] ever come this close?
A: I did have a date one time in the early eighties, but two weeks later I got a reversal.
Q: Did you get the point of picking your last meal this time? What did you pick?
A: Sirloin, fried shrimp and German chocolate cake ... It's a meal that I'm glad I never did get to eat.
How do you prepare yourself for stuff like this? You don't. But then again, you know how things are going in Texas, too, right? So...You don't prepare, but I was prepared. Do you understand that? It ain't nothing I can do about it, right?
Q: Were you sleeping OK leading up to it?
A: I got to the point where I didn't want to go to sleep too much. I wanted to see everything I could see, hear everything I could hear.
Q: How do you get through all of your time here?
A: I have met some beautiful people during this time ... your pen friends, they share their lives with you. You live through them somewhat. They tell you about what they did and you can see it. They send you pictures.
Q: Is there a particular picture that you like to look at a lot?
A: I've got one where a little girl, she's standing there and this peacock came up. You know how innocent children are. For a bird like that to come up on them and they're all surprised. The peacock, he's just cool, he doesn't know what's happening.
Q: Tell me more about that picture of the peacock.
A: She's a little blond girl, a little bitty blond girl. She's got her back to you, right, the peacock just walked out of some bushes or something, and she's just standing there, looking at the peacock. That's the good thing about pictures. You can't really see her face, but you know she's in awe. She's got on...a blue coat. And the peacock's taller than she is.
Q: You escape into the pictures.
A: Yeah. And then the next day I look at it, even though I already said, 'That's what's she's thinking,' You can change it up the next time you look at it. That's why I read, too - to escape.
If you just started telling me about Canada, by the time I get back to the cell, I could sit and think, I could see what you saw.
Q: What do you do in your cell all day?
A: Well, you know, a lot of people get books and they pass the books around. Play chess. You can call out the spots. They have a board and you have a board.
Q: Have you lost some good friends in here over the years?
A: People that write, they ask me, what about your friends? I've been here for every execution, right? It used to be where the person who was going to be executed, he could have us talk to him for the last time. I had seen so many of them, I stopped.
Q: You stopped saying goodbye?
A: I stopped going to see them, because I couldn't help my friends ... I should be balding and grey by now, that's what I'm thinking
Q: What does the future hold for you? You don't have a date, you're just here indefinitely now. That's a big relief.
A: That's an understatement, you know what I'm saying? Simply put, it's a big relief.
I can handle it. I can handle the empty time. I can handle not having books right now. I can handle nothing to do right now. It's good to have nothing to do right now, you know what I'm saying? Because I feel blessed that I'm still alive.
Q: If you could walk out those doors today, what is the first thing you'd want to do the most?
A: I'd like to be somewhere like at the beach, or at the park, where everybody is at, just watching them. Just watching the people. All the different colours - the clothes, the faces, the hair, the eyes - all of it.
Q: Do you think that you will be put to death at some point?
A: Ma'am, we're talking Texas. We're talking Texas. I think the whole world can have a moratorium, and Texas would be the only one that's fighting against it ... The courts have to force Texas to stop.
Q: So you think that one day, this is going to be the way that you go.
A: One day...not necessarily. Well, I mean, like I was saying before, this is Texas. Any other state, you might have a better chance of getting out. Here, the percentage of being executed is greater than any other state that has the death sentence.
You can hear in Texas that the teachers got a pay cut, they had to cut the teachers' payroll, they had to cut the policemen's payroll, but they had to cut everybody's payroll. But they never lose funds for executions...so executing one of your citizens is more important than educating one of your citizens. That's the way I be looking at it.
Q: Some people believe that life parole is a worse sentence than death, because the person has to live with knowing they're going to be locked up for the rest of their life. What do you think?
A: Being incarcerated like this with life without parole, you can still be a positive influence to somebody. I have schoolchildren from England writing to me. They want to know what not to do. They basically know, but at the same time, a person that actually went through those bad experiences, they'll listen to more. There is a possibility that your words may inspire somebody out there, just if it's one person, not to hit that crossroad to destruction.
Q: What do you tell the schoolchildren?
A: I try to tell them to slow down. We speed, we speed, we speed. We have to be the quickest. Once you slow down and think about it, smell the coffee, it gets better.
I really like to tell them just to slow down. Listen to Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad be telling you a lot of right stuff. You don't realize it until you get to be 21.
Q: Do you think you deserve to be in the circumstance you're in?
A: Let's deal with the trials and the tribulations of life. Everybody's going to have hardship. Sometimes some people think they're having it much harder than others. There is always somebody who needs more help than you.
With that said, I believe if God puts trouble in your life, he may be giving you something you can handle. He may be giving you something that you can build from. It may mean it's not necessarily about you, but for someone else to see and learn and build from.
Like I said, when certain unpleasantries come into your life, it builds character. It shows you how to deal with it. Most of the time, you should become a better person, even from the good experiences. You learn how to appreciate life a little bit more. Every step is a good step, it's a positive step. It's a step that you can give to others. Good is as much as a cycle as bad.
Q: Let's go back to 1975 for a minute. It's a very different world now. What were the things you were interested in back then, and what are you most interested in knowing about how the world has changed? Are there things you're curious about?
A: The technology. I don't appreciate it more than you all do. When they were talking about that....when everybody thought the computers were going to go bad? Q: Y2K?
A: Yeah. I just seen a laptop the other day. A lawyer [who came to see me] had a laptop, and I'm like, is that what you call that? You don't have TV over here. You've all got those phones now, where you take pictures with the phones? I think you're making life a little too easy. You don't have to think anymore. Just press a button and add up this and that.
Q: When is the last time you got to watch television?
A: I became a diabetic about five years ago, I don't even remember. But when I did, they sent me to [the] hospital. They had a TV in there. So I got a chance to watch a couple football games. The nurses made me put on the soap operas.
Q: If you could get out, how do you think you'd do out here?
A: I'd go get one of my young cousins. Let them go wherever I go. So whenever it would come to one of those computers and things, the kids, they know about the computers, so they're going to teach me how to make my desposits and use the phone - and the gas tank. I don't know where the put the gas tank anymore, on the car. I don't know where they put them anymore. Last time I was out there, they put them in the back of the trunk, under the license plate. I know that's changed.
...There weren't computers when I got locked up. Even the officers, they always call me, 'Hey, Old School.' I'm glad to be Old School. What you've got to understand is, I'm trying to get older. I want to live to be like Jiminy Cricket said, 99 years old, you know what I'm saying?
Q: There is an argument that keeping you here this long is cruel and unusual punishment. Do you agree with that?
A: Yes... The death penalty is supposed to be an impact experience, but don't it use the impact after thirty-something years?
Q: Do you feel like you've paid enough for your crime?
A: Technically, I've been done two life sentences already. You don't think that's enough?
Chambers sounds pretty sweet and reformed, don't you think? After all, he is now a grandfather. But let's look at the other side of the coin. An interview with Janna McMahan, the sister of Ronald Chamber's victim:
Q: What is your family's position on the death penalty?
A: We're supportive of the death penalty. I don't necessarily feel that it's a deterrent. It's a punishment for the crime that you commit. The way it's used in the United States, I don't think it will ever be a deterrent because of the appeals process, and the length of it. I think it's a just punishment.
Q: Why do you feel that way? Why is death appropriate in your case?
A: It goes back to the eye for an eye type issue. This was a very brutal crime. I just feel that if you commit a crime like that, and you don't deserve to live. I don't want him doing it somebody else's family. I don't want somebody else to go through that pain. I'd hate to see another person like Deia, the other victim, go through what she's going through.
Q: Your case is interesting because Chambers has been on death row for so long. Why has it taken so long?
A: Because of the appeals process. It's been three separate trials. Every trial starts over on the appeals process...Every time, you go through the whole appeals process.
Q: That must be frustrating for you.
A: Yes, absolutely, it is. After the second trial, you got used to it - this is the way it's going to be, I'm not going to hear anything for eight to 10 years.
Q: What did you feel when you heard Chambers' execution was being delayed again?
A: I thought I was prepared for it, but I really wasn't. It bothered me. We'd never been this close before. Even though I knew it was a 50/50 chance, you kind of start looking at the days. They had told us Monday was a day we might hear. The later it got in the day, I was thinking it might go, and then they called and did get stayed.
I don't know if disappointing is the right word. It's just a big, 'Here we go again.'
Q: Are you confident that you will see it?
A: No. It's been 31, 32 years. We've been through three trials. You just never know.
Q: What are you hoping to feel if Chambers is executed?
A: I have absolutely no idea how I'll feel. I know it will never bring my brother back. What it may do is just close out that chapter of it, so to speak.
It never closes the whole book, because the pain is always there. There is always the loss of my brother, and my parents' loss of their son. It's just a chapter that's over with - we don't have to worry about going through another trial, going through all the appeals. He got his punishment.
Q: 31 years is an extremely long time. What has changed since this murder and the verdict originally came down?
A: I was 17 ... I was a senior.
The biggest thing is that the holidays are different. To this day, you still miss them. His birthday is hard. All the holidays. Different issues of you watch what you're doing, watch where you go, watch the people around you. You kind of lose your faith in people.
My parents are more overprotective of me. It's just one of those things you learn to deal with - you realize what they've been through and how they feel.
Q: How are your parents? They must be in their eighties now.
A: Yes. My dad has a bit of dementia. I'm not so sure if he comprehends all that's going on right now. My mom certainly does. It's been really hard. The last three months has been tough on my parents, and all of us, for sleeping and not knowing what's going on. The wait-and-see, all the different issues.
Q: When you think of Chambers, what kind of thoughts do you think?
A: To be honest, I don't think about him. I think he's in the place he deserves to be.
If I think about his family, I'm sure if he's put to death, they're going to hurt just as much as we did. But he's the one that made that choice to commit that crime.
Do I feel sorry for him for being on death row? Absolutely not.
Q: Chambers says he has effectively served two life sentences. He's kept in different conditions than prisoners serving life sentences. His lawyer is arguing it may be cruel and unusual to keep him on death row this long. Do you agree with that?
A: No. I may agree that it's cruel and unusual to keep us where we are for this long, too. I'm without a brother.
Q: You want the same for him that he gave your family.
A: They had the death penalty when he committed the crime. He was old enough to know better. He knows right from wrong.
...Do you think he thought about the pain and the hell he's put us through when he was beating Mike? He went off and played dominoes afterwards. He goes over to somebody's house and they're playing dominoes. It's like it's no big deal.
And there it is. Two sides of the same issue. Should Chambers have been executed a long time ago? I think so. He had three appeals to begin with and was found guilty every time. Keeping him behind bars for 31 years may in itself constitute cruel and unusual punishment. This would not be a factor if he'd been done away with all those years ago.
Sources: Mary Vallis Fight To Kill The Death Penalty The National Post
Texas is the state most actively killing its prisoners. More than 380 people have been executed in the state since 1976 (Virginia, in second place, has killed fewer than 100 prisoners in the same time period). And while the number of executions in the United States declined between 2005 and 2006 (60 and 53 deaths respectively), the number of executions in Texas jumped 26%. Nearly half of all executions in the United States last year took place in Texas. Lieutenant- Governor David Dewhurst, a Republican, now wants to extend the death penalty to repeat sex offenders who prey on children.
Following is an interview between Chambers and Mary Vallis, who wrote these articles for the National Post, conducted on the day before Chambers was to die:
Q: Has [execution] ever come this close?
A: I did have a date one time in the early eighties, but two weeks later I got a reversal.
Q: Did you get the point of picking your last meal this time? What did you pick?
A: Sirloin, fried shrimp and German chocolate cake ... It's a meal that I'm glad I never did get to eat.
How do you prepare yourself for stuff like this? You don't. But then again, you know how things are going in Texas, too, right? So...You don't prepare, but I was prepared. Do you understand that? It ain't nothing I can do about it, right?
Q: Were you sleeping OK leading up to it?
A: I got to the point where I didn't want to go to sleep too much. I wanted to see everything I could see, hear everything I could hear.
Q: How do you get through all of your time here?
A: I have met some beautiful people during this time ... your pen friends, they share their lives with you. You live through them somewhat. They tell you about what they did and you can see it. They send you pictures.
Q: Is there a particular picture that you like to look at a lot?
A: I've got one where a little girl, she's standing there and this peacock came up. You know how innocent children are. For a bird like that to come up on them and they're all surprised. The peacock, he's just cool, he doesn't know what's happening.
Q: Tell me more about that picture of the peacock.
A: She's a little blond girl, a little bitty blond girl. She's got her back to you, right, the peacock just walked out of some bushes or something, and she's just standing there, looking at the peacock. That's the good thing about pictures. You can't really see her face, but you know she's in awe. She's got on...a blue coat. And the peacock's taller than she is.
Q: You escape into the pictures.
A: Yeah. And then the next day I look at it, even though I already said, 'That's what's she's thinking,' You can change it up the next time you look at it. That's why I read, too - to escape.
If you just started telling me about Canada, by the time I get back to the cell, I could sit and think, I could see what you saw.
Q: What do you do in your cell all day?
A: Well, you know, a lot of people get books and they pass the books around. Play chess. You can call out the spots. They have a board and you have a board.
Q: Have you lost some good friends in here over the years?
A: People that write, they ask me, what about your friends? I've been here for every execution, right? It used to be where the person who was going to be executed, he could have us talk to him for the last time. I had seen so many of them, I stopped.
Q: You stopped saying goodbye?
A: I stopped going to see them, because I couldn't help my friends ... I should be balding and grey by now, that's what I'm thinking
Q: What does the future hold for you? You don't have a date, you're just here indefinitely now. That's a big relief.
A: That's an understatement, you know what I'm saying? Simply put, it's a big relief.
I can handle it. I can handle the empty time. I can handle not having books right now. I can handle nothing to do right now. It's good to have nothing to do right now, you know what I'm saying? Because I feel blessed that I'm still alive.
Q: If you could walk out those doors today, what is the first thing you'd want to do the most?
A: I'd like to be somewhere like at the beach, or at the park, where everybody is at, just watching them. Just watching the people. All the different colours - the clothes, the faces, the hair, the eyes - all of it.
Q: Do you think that you will be put to death at some point?
A: Ma'am, we're talking Texas. We're talking Texas. I think the whole world can have a moratorium, and Texas would be the only one that's fighting against it ... The courts have to force Texas to stop.
Q: So you think that one day, this is going to be the way that you go.
A: One day...not necessarily. Well, I mean, like I was saying before, this is Texas. Any other state, you might have a better chance of getting out. Here, the percentage of being executed is greater than any other state that has the death sentence.
You can hear in Texas that the teachers got a pay cut, they had to cut the teachers' payroll, they had to cut the policemen's payroll, but they had to cut everybody's payroll. But they never lose funds for executions...so executing one of your citizens is more important than educating one of your citizens. That's the way I be looking at it.
Q: Some people believe that life parole is a worse sentence than death, because the person has to live with knowing they're going to be locked up for the rest of their life. What do you think?
A: Being incarcerated like this with life without parole, you can still be a positive influence to somebody. I have schoolchildren from England writing to me. They want to know what not to do. They basically know, but at the same time, a person that actually went through those bad experiences, they'll listen to more. There is a possibility that your words may inspire somebody out there, just if it's one person, not to hit that crossroad to destruction.
Q: What do you tell the schoolchildren?
A: I try to tell them to slow down. We speed, we speed, we speed. We have to be the quickest. Once you slow down and think about it, smell the coffee, it gets better.
I really like to tell them just to slow down. Listen to Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad be telling you a lot of right stuff. You don't realize it until you get to be 21.
Q: Do you think you deserve to be in the circumstance you're in?
A: Let's deal with the trials and the tribulations of life. Everybody's going to have hardship. Sometimes some people think they're having it much harder than others. There is always somebody who needs more help than you.
With that said, I believe if God puts trouble in your life, he may be giving you something you can handle. He may be giving you something that you can build from. It may mean it's not necessarily about you, but for someone else to see and learn and build from.
Like I said, when certain unpleasantries come into your life, it builds character. It shows you how to deal with it. Most of the time, you should become a better person, even from the good experiences. You learn how to appreciate life a little bit more. Every step is a good step, it's a positive step. It's a step that you can give to others. Good is as much as a cycle as bad.
Q: Let's go back to 1975 for a minute. It's a very different world now. What were the things you were interested in back then, and what are you most interested in knowing about how the world has changed? Are there things you're curious about?
A: The technology. I don't appreciate it more than you all do. When they were talking about that....when everybody thought the computers were going to go bad? Q: Y2K?
A: Yeah. I just seen a laptop the other day. A lawyer [who came to see me] had a laptop, and I'm like, is that what you call that? You don't have TV over here. You've all got those phones now, where you take pictures with the phones? I think you're making life a little too easy. You don't have to think anymore. Just press a button and add up this and that.
Q: When is the last time you got to watch television?
A: I became a diabetic about five years ago, I don't even remember. But when I did, they sent me to [the] hospital. They had a TV in there. So I got a chance to watch a couple football games. The nurses made me put on the soap operas.
Q: If you could get out, how do you think you'd do out here?
A: I'd go get one of my young cousins. Let them go wherever I go. So whenever it would come to one of those computers and things, the kids, they know about the computers, so they're going to teach me how to make my desposits and use the phone - and the gas tank. I don't know where the put the gas tank anymore, on the car. I don't know where they put them anymore. Last time I was out there, they put them in the back of the trunk, under the license plate. I know that's changed.
...There weren't computers when I got locked up. Even the officers, they always call me, 'Hey, Old School.' I'm glad to be Old School. What you've got to understand is, I'm trying to get older. I want to live to be like Jiminy Cricket said, 99 years old, you know what I'm saying?
Q: There is an argument that keeping you here this long is cruel and unusual punishment. Do you agree with that?
A: Yes... The death penalty is supposed to be an impact experience, but don't it use the impact after thirty-something years?
Q: Do you feel like you've paid enough for your crime?
A: Technically, I've been done two life sentences already. You don't think that's enough?
Chambers sounds pretty sweet and reformed, don't you think? After all, he is now a grandfather. But let's look at the other side of the coin. An interview with Janna McMahan, the sister of Ronald Chamber's victim:
Q: What is your family's position on the death penalty?
A: We're supportive of the death penalty. I don't necessarily feel that it's a deterrent. It's a punishment for the crime that you commit. The way it's used in the United States, I don't think it will ever be a deterrent because of the appeals process, and the length of it. I think it's a just punishment.
Q: Why do you feel that way? Why is death appropriate in your case?
A: It goes back to the eye for an eye type issue. This was a very brutal crime. I just feel that if you commit a crime like that, and you don't deserve to live. I don't want him doing it somebody else's family. I don't want somebody else to go through that pain. I'd hate to see another person like Deia, the other victim, go through what she's going through.
Q: Your case is interesting because Chambers has been on death row for so long. Why has it taken so long?
A: Because of the appeals process. It's been three separate trials. Every trial starts over on the appeals process...Every time, you go through the whole appeals process.
Q: That must be frustrating for you.
A: Yes, absolutely, it is. After the second trial, you got used to it - this is the way it's going to be, I'm not going to hear anything for eight to 10 years.
Q: What did you feel when you heard Chambers' execution was being delayed again?
A: I thought I was prepared for it, but I really wasn't. It bothered me. We'd never been this close before. Even though I knew it was a 50/50 chance, you kind of start looking at the days. They had told us Monday was a day we might hear. The later it got in the day, I was thinking it might go, and then they called and did get stayed.
I don't know if disappointing is the right word. It's just a big, 'Here we go again.'
Q: Are you confident that you will see it?
A: No. It's been 31, 32 years. We've been through three trials. You just never know.
Q: What are you hoping to feel if Chambers is executed?
A: I have absolutely no idea how I'll feel. I know it will never bring my brother back. What it may do is just close out that chapter of it, so to speak.
It never closes the whole book, because the pain is always there. There is always the loss of my brother, and my parents' loss of their son. It's just a chapter that's over with - we don't have to worry about going through another trial, going through all the appeals. He got his punishment.
Q: 31 years is an extremely long time. What has changed since this murder and the verdict originally came down?
A: I was 17 ... I was a senior.
The biggest thing is that the holidays are different. To this day, you still miss them. His birthday is hard. All the holidays. Different issues of you watch what you're doing, watch where you go, watch the people around you. You kind of lose your faith in people.
My parents are more overprotective of me. It's just one of those things you learn to deal with - you realize what they've been through and how they feel.
Q: How are your parents? They must be in their eighties now.
A: Yes. My dad has a bit of dementia. I'm not so sure if he comprehends all that's going on right now. My mom certainly does. It's been really hard. The last three months has been tough on my parents, and all of us, for sleeping and not knowing what's going on. The wait-and-see, all the different issues.
Q: When you think of Chambers, what kind of thoughts do you think?
A: To be honest, I don't think about him. I think he's in the place he deserves to be.
If I think about his family, I'm sure if he's put to death, they're going to hurt just as much as we did. But he's the one that made that choice to commit that crime.
Do I feel sorry for him for being on death row? Absolutely not.
Q: Chambers says he has effectively served two life sentences. He's kept in different conditions than prisoners serving life sentences. His lawyer is arguing it may be cruel and unusual to keep him on death row this long. Do you agree with that?
A: No. I may agree that it's cruel and unusual to keep us where we are for this long, too. I'm without a brother.
Q: You want the same for him that he gave your family.
A: They had the death penalty when he committed the crime. He was old enough to know better. He knows right from wrong.
...Do you think he thought about the pain and the hell he's put us through when he was beating Mike? He went off and played dominoes afterwards. He goes over to somebody's house and they're playing dominoes. It's like it's no big deal.
And there it is. Two sides of the same issue. Should Chambers have been executed a long time ago? I think so. He had three appeals to begin with and was found guilty every time. Keeping him behind bars for 31 years may in itself constitute cruel and unusual punishment. This would not be a factor if he'd been done away with all those years ago.
Sources: Mary Vallis Fight To Kill The Death Penalty The National Post
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