Institutions that carry out the death penalty in the United States tend to be very punctilious about it. Although condemned prisoners spend years, sometimes decades, in vile carceral limbo, often (as in Texas) under the most abominable conditions, when it comes to the actual killing, everything is neat and clean and proper and documented. All of them: Texas, Florida, Virginia, and the rest. On the killing day, things are orderly and recorded for posterity.<\/p>\n
Texas even used to publish what the condemned requested for their last meal and whether or not they actually ate it. Then, a few years ago, as a cost-cutting measure Texas cut out the requested last meal and started giving the about-to-be-dead-men that day\u2019s ordinary prison fare. Who cares what\u2019s in the belly of a man or woman who will be dead before dinnertime?<\/p>\n
Most states that kill have on-line sites with information about those waiting to die and those who have been put to death. Nebraska\u2019s site, maintained by the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, has a page for each prisoner formatted in red, white and blue. Each page begins, after the header (white letters on a blue field), with the condemned prisoner\u2019s number and name (white letters on a red field).<\/p>\n
That is followed by four boxes, all white letters on a blue field: Demographics (name, gender, race, date of birth), Sentence information (Sentence Dates, Parole Information, Release information), Offense information, and Alias Names.<\/p>\n
The first man put to death by Nebraska in its current execution sequence was Harold Lamont Otey, whose DCS ID number was 31840. His gender was \u201cMale,\u201d and his race was \u201cBlack.\u201d He was born August 1, 1951.<\/p>\n
His offense was \u201cMurder 1st<\/sup> Degree.\u201d His Alias, according to the form, was \u201cWalkin\u2019 Willie,\u201d though that looks far more like a nickname to me. There is no field on the form for nicknames, so I assume they fudged on that one.<\/p>\n His sentence began June 20, 1978. His \u201cProjected Release Date\u201d in the Sentence Information block was \u201cDTH.\u201d His total sentence in that same block was \u201cDTH Years Months Days.\u201d<\/p>\n Harold Lamont Otey, according to the friend who brought his case to my attention, entered Death Row illiterate, but while he waited for Nebraska to kill him, he learned to read and write in four languages and published three books of poetry. The NDoCS form notes none of that. There are no fields for such items, and no fields like \u201cAlias\u201d you can slip them into even though that\u2019s not where they really belong.<\/p>\n There are five fields in the \u201cParole Information\u201d sub-block, but only two of Harold Lamont Otey\u2019s are filled in: the \u201cNext Parole Board Review Date\u201d is \u201c05\/1997,\u201d and the \u201cParole Eligibility Date\u201d is \u201cDTH.\u201d<\/p>\n There are two fields in the \u201cRelease Information\u201d sub-block: \u201cRelease Date\u201d and \u201cReason for Release.\u201d Harold Lamont Otey\u2019s release date was \u201c09\/02\/1994.\u201d The reason for release was \u201cExecution.\u201d<\/p>\n I find many things curious about this document, starting with the fact that it is designed in patriotic red, white and blue. But that\u2019s just design. There are also two curious matters of substance.<\/p>\n The first is, Harold Lamont Otey\u2019s \u201cNext Parole Board Review Date\u201d is set for two years and eight months after<\/i> the State of Nebraska killed him. What, I wonder, did the Parole Board have in mind for that session? A coffee break? A s\u00c3\u00a9ance?<\/p>\n The second is, the only word in the entire<\/i> document that is not spelled out in full is \u201cDeath\u201d: it appears four times as \u201cDTH.\u201d In all four, there is plenty of room for the two missing vowels. Why not spell it out in all four instances: Death, Death, Death, Death?<\/p>\n The form spells out \u201cExecution\u201d as the \u201cReason for Release.\u201d \u201cExecution\u201d has lots more letters than \u201cDeath\u201d and three more vowels.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s not the two vowels that engendered the bizarre spelling.<\/p>\n Perhaps it\u2019s this: \u201cexecution\u201d is abstract, and it means lots of things. Wills are executed, orders from a drill sergeant are executed, obligations are executed. It is, as in the three examples I just gave, nearly always passive.<\/p>\n \u201cDeath\u201d does not mean lots of things. \u00a0It is unambiguous and it isn\u2019t in the passive voice. It is something that happens, either because one\u2019s own body can\u2019t hang on any more, because of accident or villainy, or because someone deliberately, consciously, and with forethought brings it about. Death is real and it is specific. Before it happens you are alive; after it happens you are not. It is irreversible and absolute.<\/p>\n That\u2019s is the state Harold Lamont Otey entered when he was in the custody of the State of Nebraska on the second day of September 1994: death. \u00a0He entered it because they killed him.<\/p>\n And the consequence of that active verb\u2013kill\u2013is the word that the official agents of the State of Nebraska refused or could not bear to spell. Four times on a single page they spelled it DTH DTH DTH DTC. That\u2019s not how you spell it. You spell it Death, Death, Death, Death.<\/p>\n But we know what those missing vowels are. And we know what they did.<\/p>\n Bruce Jackson\u2019s<\/strong> most recent books are\u00a0Inside the Wire: Photographs from Texas and Arkansas Prison\u00a0<\/a>(University of Texas Press, 2013) and\u00a0In This Timeless Time Living and Dying on Death Row in America<\/a>\u00a0(with Diane Christian, University of North Carolina Press, 2012). The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services page on Harold Lamont Otey is online at http:\/\/dcs-inmatesearch.ne.gov\/Corrections\/InmateDisplayServlet?DcsId=31840<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n