Salvation on Death Row

by John T. Thorngren

  White stated, “Immediately in this power vacuum, inmate murders occurred almost on a daily basis. The strong began attacking the weak. These violent deaths did not stop until I defeated Bill Clements for governor and through the Texas Prison Board obtained a new director of TDCJ. After that, inmate deaths did subside.”

  Most TDCJ employees and Texas citizens blame Ruíz personally for the resultant gang problems. They revile him and are quick to point out that he was anything but a Boy Scout, that he was a thief, a crook, and had a history of being capable of murder. But regarding his dramatic contribution to changing inhumane conditions in the Texas prison system, Ruíz summed it up most poignantly in an article in The Austin Chronicle: “We are still human beings and should be treated in a humane manner, and there are laws supporting that. I never asked for a Holiday Inn. I asked to be treated as a human being.”(78)

  Pragmatically, the Ruíz decision created the prison gang situation, but looking closer, perhaps it was the result of the lack of an adequate number of guards, the lack of comprehensive rehabilitation, the lack of separating mental-health issues from criminal confinement, the lack of separating narcotic addictions from criminal confinement, the lack of…ad nauseam…and all in turn stemming from the lack of adequate funding.

  Ruíz died in prison in November 2005 from liver cancer allowed to grow unchecked from its first noted discovery in 2002.(79) He left a documented report on how he died from medical neglect.

  ***

  The work capable program for female Death Row inmates coming from Ruíz v. Estelle was a godsend. It gave us a respite and time to commune with each other. I corresponded with David Ruíz for many years. He was a big help to me on my appeals, giving me a lot of legal information on my case. When I entered the Harris County Jail for my first trial, there were thirteen women there under federal protection to testify for the Ruíz v. Estelle lawsuit. I befriended several of them, and that is where I first heard of David Ruíz. After my sentence and departure to Death Row at Goree, Linda Burnett, the only other woman on Death Row at that time, mentioned David Ruíz. She was regularly corresponding with David and wrote to him about me. I got a letter from him. He told me who he was and that there would be many changes in the prison system. Also, that if there was anything he could do to help me with my case, to just ask. I did ask, in a number of letters. David accurately foretold that I would get a retrial because of the vacillating juror, Mr. John O. Vennard. And soon there were noticeable changes that I could see, just as David had predicted. Inmates were no longer running the prisons. In the medical area, inmates were no longer taking blood from other inmates. When Karla Faye entered, and I re-entered, Mountain View on Death Row, Karla Faye received a letter from David outlining the new work capable program.

  ***

  For about seven years, an uneasy peace surrounded us in Death Row. There were just the four of us making Prison Pal dolls and communing together in our Lord. This photo shows us praising our Savior around Christmastime.

  Left to right: Karla Faye Tucker, Betty Lou Beets, Pamela Lynn Perillo, Frances Elaine Newton

  No, this is not jailhouse religion; these are four women praising God, four daughters in Christ who know they have sinned and are forgiven, perhaps not by those on earth whom we have sinned against. For those, we are praying that God will comfort them and know we are repentant. We beg for their forgiveness, and by the Holy Spirit, the wind whose direction we cannot discern, this often happens. The brother of Deborah Thornton, the young girl whom Karla Faye and Danny Garrett killed, converted to Christianity and indeed forgave Karla Faye. He later actively protested not only Karla Faye’s death penalty but the whole concept in general. During this period, Karla Faye and I both got our GEDs. We also took some college courses by correspondence.

  I liken this seven-year period to a quiet and deep pool beneath a spreading, tree-covered bank. It’s peaceful, shady, and cool, but mainly on the surface; beneath the gentle dimples that ripple across her silver sheet lurk beasts of prey. And in the sky soar heaven-forgiven sins that our flesh cannot forget. During this period, our appeals went out and returned, soon to be covered in tears as they were always denied. We came together in a circle and prayed over them, and there were always a few crumbs of hope in each appellate decision that nourished us. Uplifted, we returned to our peaceful pool, resting and waiting.

  One of the first of my disappointing appellate decisions came in 1988. In any death-sentence case, a petition to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is automatic. William Burge, who was my attorney in my first trial, and who obtained the appeal granting my second trial, also handled this direct appeal. In this, he first pointed out my “ineffective assistance of counsel” in Jim Skelton and all of his shenanigans during the trial, especially his relationship with Linda Fletcher. This fact was, to others and to me, the worst error in this trial. There were five points of error that Burge raised, but this one should have been our game-winning point.

  Another error raised was that of another “vacillating juror,” venireperson Griggs. Mrs. Griggs’s testimony during voir dire was similar to that of venireperson Vennard in my first trial. As noted, Mr. Vennard in my first trial was the angel in disguise that, in effect, gave me my second trial. Of these five points of error, the other three were legal points that I am not sure I understood. The other two so noted were the most important, especially the incompetence of Skelton. On all five points, however, the Texas court overruled every ground for error.

  In 1993, Danny Garrett, Karla Faye’s fall partner, cheated the state and died of cirrhosis of the liver. All the years of bartending with free samples must have had their toll. Karla Faye said she felt a real sadness in his passing. She had always felt remorse for testifying against him and his receiving the death penalty.

  My adopted mother, Christina, and her husband paid an attorney to file my next appeal, a writ of habeas corpus to the Fifth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals with the main item regarding wrongful conviction being, of course, Skelton’s conflict of interest in also representing Linda Fletcher. The U.S. Court of Appeals refused to allow any discovery or evidentiary hearing, thus upholding my death sentence.

  Latin for “you have the body,” “habeas corpus is a writ that is used to bring a party criminally convicted in state court into federal court. Usually, writs of habeas corpus review the legality of the party’s arrest, imprisonment, or detention. The federal court’s review of a habeas corpus petition is considered to be collateral relief of a state court decision rather than direct review.”(81) The federal court is not going to review a case for errors of procedure, interpretation, etc., but will look only for violations of federal law. In 1995-96, the U.S. Congress changed the procedure for writs of habeas corpus in death penalty cases in order to curtail the number of frivolously repeated appeals whereby an inmate could delay the death penalty for years.(82) The point that during those years evidence might surface to prove that the inmate was innocent did not seem to bother those who are pro-death and those who vote for D.A.s, judges, and governors pledging to get tough on crime. Rather than pass a law to exclude frivolous appeals, they took the approach my mother had so many years before and punished everyone. Texas also devised a unique and overkill procedure to limit writs of habeas corpus (WHCs). Before the inmate can file in a district court, he must file and subsequently be denied in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. So they simply limited the Texas court appeal to one and only one. I know that Divine timing allowed me to squeeze through this closing door and continue my appeals.

  I felt badly about Christina’s paying the attorneys for my appeals. She had done and was doing so much already in raising my son. I wrote the Texas State Bar Association and said that I was on Death Row and desperately needed an appellate attorney.(82) They placed my name on a list, and Baker Botts,(83) a well-known and well-respected global firm with headquarters in Houston, chose me as one of its two pro bono Death Row cases
. Choosing two cases at a time, they work on those two until they are finished. Throughout their counsel, I always had five very competent attorneys. I felt so blessed when they chose me. I had hope.

  CHAPTER 16

  Mike Barber of Mike Barber Prison Ministries, whom I mentioned earlier as doing so much for me, also did so much for Karla Faye, who was party to a miracle. In 1992, Mike introduced Karla Faye to a fellow minister, Dana Brown. Shortly afterward, Karla Faye became smitten, but she knew it wasn’t in her situation to fall in love. Nonetheless, she prayed, and God, who always answers, this time said, “Yes.” Soon, Dana Brown and Karla Faye were a couple, a couple made in heaven, sharing a spiritual love, profound and eternal. Dana proposed in 1994. Unusual in a Death Row situation, but not impossible, they set a prison marriage date. Karla Faye planned to be a June bride in 1995, married by proxy.

  During this joyous and festive time, Karla Faye, with her usual charisma, seemed to levitate our cellblock into the clouds. She planned every detail, including a perfectly coordinated service. Dana was in a hotel in Waco, Texas, with a staff chaplain; I stood in for Dana at Gatesville, and Frances Newton stood in for the minister. At the precise moment that Dana finished his vows, Karla Faye repeated hers and then shed a tear of joy. All eyes glistened, including those of Linda Strom, a prison minister who was also present. In Karla Faye Tucker Set Free, Strom(84) gives a soul-rending account of Dana and Karla Faye’s love and marriage. (Strom also can be credited for pointing out to Karla Faye the telephone-pole “crosses” that could be seen from her window.) Years later in September 2013 under House Bill 869, Texas banned proxy weddings for inmates,(85) but at this point in God-ordained time, an “agape” marriage did indeed occur.

  ***

  After the legal firm of Baker Botts took on my case, the State of Texas, noting that my first appeal to the Fifth Circuit had been denied, concluded that the appellate process was exhausted and requested my presence in that all-too-familiar place, the 248th Criminal District Court, Houston. There, they would set a formal and final execution date. A Roman Colosseum affair, I knew there would be lots of TV cameras, reporters, and others with nothing better to do than ogle. Consequently, I didn’t want anyone there except my adopted mom, Christina. I especially did not want my son there, because I had been very protective of him against the media. Joseph was now in senior high and had all the right values. I was so proud of him. I didn’t want the media pestering him and judging him in the press for my past actions. But Joseph insisted on coming.

  “Mom, I am going to be there. I want to be there for you.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but don’t acknowledge who I am. I’m not going to look at you. Don’t let the media know that you are someone there for me.”

  Like a staged play, the judge asked me to rise. I don’t remember the exact words, but they were something to the effect of, “Before such and such a time, you will be delivered to the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas. You have been sentenced to die by twelve of your peers, and you will die on such and such a date by lethal injection. May God have mercy on your soul.”

  Then there was the rumble of voices, feet hitting the floor, and the show was over except, of course, for the falderal I knew would take place in the theater lobby, the hallway outside the courtroom. I also knew the judge’s words would have upset Joseph, so as we were wedging a path through cameramen and reporters to get on the elevator, I turned to my son and was about to wink at him (contrary to my prior edict), to let him know that everything was all right. In a microsecond, one of the reporters, with the innate sense of a coyote smelling the blood of a wounded rabbit from miles away, pirouetted and pegged his camera on Joseph. At the same moment, Robin Curtis, one of my first attorneys with Baker Botts, wheeled upon the reporter, pushed his camera away, and said, “He is a minor. If you show him on the news, we will have a lawsuit against you so fast your head will spin off.” Robin Curtis was young and feisty. I always likened her to “a little hell on wheels.” There was no mention of my son on TV.

  With my execution date set for September 12, 1995, the argument of whether Chipita Rodriguez or Jane Elkins was the last woman executed in Texas in the mid-1850s meant little to me. All I knew was that I was next in line. Why shouldn’t I be “the first”? I had been here on Death Row the longest.

  Many tears. Many prayers. The little rock dam at the end of our quiet seven-year pool of peace was crumbling; generally slow waters were now emptying rapidly into a rock-strewn river where rapids and falls churned the emotions. Then the sharks appeared and moved around me in a giant circle. A blood scent was in the waters, the chum of a sensational gory-story and possibly a movie. Since I was to be the first woman executed in almost 150 years, everyone wanted the exclusive rights to my story. They were like bugs crawling out of the woodwork—Houstonian cockroaches at the old Harris County Jail on Franklin Street. HBO(86) wanted to film me right up to the execution. Of course, they couldn’t film the actual execution. If they could have, I am sure they would have. They wanted to capture me on a daily basis sharing how I was feeling, what was going through my mind, and what was going to happen next. No! No!

  Shortly after my return to Mountain View Death Row, Larry Fitzgerald, and another man—I think his last name was Neeley (from the marketing department at Mountain View, which handled interviews)—approached me.

  “Pamela, we have a real good friend named Michael Graczyk who would like to interview you. We know that he will be fair with you. Would you reconsider your position about not granting interviews this one time…uh…under these conditions?”(87)

  “Yes, I suppose,” I replied. It was the one and only time I would grant an interview aside from those related to this book, and I think I did so because I was tired of being picked over like a dead animal by the side of the road.

  Michael was fair as promised. This is our conversation as best I can remember: I told him, “Anyone on Death Row is no longer treated as a person when it comes near the end. The media hounds them for exclusive rights to their story, for intensive interviews, and this is the reason I haven’t allowed any in the past.”

  I said, “I will be at peace when the execution goes through…I am tired of the emotional roller coaster, in and out of the courts, where one court gives you a reprieve and the next shoots you down. You might get a stay of execution one place, and then two weeks later they set another date. I’m tired…At this point, I am at peace. I know I will see Jesus. I am ready.”

  We talked about my crime and my trials. I told him, “It was a horrible thing to do, and I leave with all compassion for what I did to the families involved and will beg their forgiveness as I leave. I still feel…I don’t know the exact words…miffed or concerned that my fall partner, Linda Briddle, who was also very much involved, only received five years’ probation. Also that my attorney, Jim Skelton, obviously had other things going with Linda that were detrimental to my second trial, and the State of Texas refused to look into the matter.

  “In the end, you are looked at like a piece of meat instead of a human. Everybody wants a piece of the meat so they can make money. In the end, when you’re trying to focus quietly on getting ready to meet your Lord, here comes the whole nation, flapping and pecking for what they can shred off, exclusives and interviews, quotes for their sensational books.”

  And then, another miracle: In July, my attorney at Baker Botts obtained a stay of execution through the Fifth Circuit of Appeals, a stay that delayed the execution until they could review the case more closely. Hallelujah! God must be sparing me for something, I thought.

  Then turbulent water again: The TDCJ introduced a smoking ban for all Texas prisons.(88) At age forty and after almost thirty years of cigarettes and at a time of high stress, no more smokes. For those who have tried to stop smoking, one of the hardest struggles is when others around you are smoking. At least with a total ban, that could not happen.

  About this time, I
got a letter from Mike Briddle, my fall partner. The TDCJ still allowed us to correspond with other inmates in 1995. I didn’t like Mike when I first met him in California, and I didn’t like him on our three-week crime spree. We fought a lot because of his philosophy that women existed merely to turn tricks and bring in money. During our trip, Linda Briddle (now Linda Fletcher)—reluctantly—became the only pony in his stable. I found a different side to Mike after he exhausted all of his appeals and the State set his execution date for the end of the year. Mike was, as noted, extremely prejudiced and an ardent and aggressive member of the Aryan Brotherhood. He had a daughter from his first marriage, the one before his marriage to Linda, a daughter whom he dearly loved. To Mike’s complete loathing, she had a baby by a black man and another by a Mexican man. He disowned her and never spoke to her afterward. However, with an execution pending, he called home to say goodbye. His five-year-old granddaughter answered the phone and, by means unknown, knew who he was and said, “Paw-Paw?” Mike wrote that when he heard her call him Paw-Paw, all the things he’d believed in just melted, and he finally knew what “unconditional love” meant. He wrote that he couldn’t believe how so much hatred could just vanish in the instant that he heard her voice. He got out of the Aryan Brotherhood and renounced their neo-Nazi, Godless religion.

  Mike was a Catholic in his youth. His chaplain called our chaplain, who told me that in the end, Mike found peace and had a priest give him the last rites. His final absolution was a personal blessing to me because I had written to Mike so many times and tried to tell him about our Lord and His peace through forgiveness, but Mike wanted nothing to do with it. Mike was executed December 12, 1995. He declined to make a last statement. I felt a lot of sadness for Mike—a life lost in hatred, a life that, based on hints from his final actions, could have been filled with love.