A Book of American Martyrs

  “Yes. I am sure.”

  Stubbornly he spoke. But quietly, not defiantly. His voice had become hoarse as if his throat were coated with dust.

  His lawyer was a young lawyer from the law school at Columbus. His lawyer was one of a team of young lawyers whose specialty was death penalty law and whose subject was Luther Dunphy; before Luther Dunphy their subject had been another Death Row inmate at Chillicothe, who’d been executed the previous November.

  “There are petitions being circulated in Ohio protesting the execution. By releasing your statement you will undercut the efforts of those who oppose the death sentence on principle and you will surprise and upset those who oppose the death sentence on your behalf.”

  “No.”

  “No—what?”

  “I don’t want that.”

  “You don’t want—?”

  “People to protest. Sign petitions. Interfere.”

  “But, Luther—”

  “I said no.”

  “But our appeal has been denied. Our final appeal. You know that.”

  This was what Luther knew: he could not oppose the execution, on principle. His principle was that a man should not defy the will of God in a matter so crucial.

  Not quite allowing himself to think—It will not happen. God will not allow it to happen. It has been postponed many times and will be postponed again.

  AT CHILLICOTHE THERE were happy times. In fact, many happy times.

  Daily workouts gave him much pleasure. Heart pumping hard and sweat oozing down his face and sides so with a kind of boyish glee it came to him—I am alive.

  The man he had killed, the abortion-doctor Voorhees: he was not alive.

  Perhaps there was not pleasure in this knowledge, exactly. But there was justice.

  PRISON-ISSUE CLOTHES he wore: jumpsuit, T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, boxers, socks, cheap coarse fabrics manufactured by American Corrections, Inc. Much-laundered clothes he’d come to inhabit comfortably.

  EACH DAY in his cell that measured six feet by nine feet with a height of nine feet six inches he did his squats—slow, never hurried, with concentration, counting in groups of ten.

  He did his sits-ups, push-ups, leg raises counting in groups of ten.

  He did his handstands, even headstands. These were particularly slow, and required intense concentration.

  His exercises. Particular to him.

  Like those special prayers, particular to him.

  Because he was on Death Row and not in the general population at Chillicothe he did not have yard privileges. He did not have exercise room privileges. He was not allowed dumbbells or weights in his cell. He had learned to compensate by exerting pressure on muscles in his upper body in vigorous exercises worked out over a period of time with much care and calculation.

  Pressing the palms of his hands against the wall and pushing forward, for instance. Counting (slowly) to ten before releasing pressure so extreme his arms and shoulders trembled and the tendons in his neck stiffened as if about to snap.

  Each of these routines, ten times a day spaced through the day at precise intervals.

  One hour a day he was brought from his cell and led outside into a penned-off area of the yard like the kind in which quarantined cattle might be kept. This area he estimated to be approximately fifteen feet by twenty feet. The sky was a patch of usually faint light high, high above the dull-gray concrete walls and often if it was raining, the rain did not seem to reach Luther Dunphy lifting his face to it.

  In this space, he could “run”—as he could not in his cell.

  An entire set of exercises he could do outdoors, once a day, with more pleasure than those he did in his cell.

  More often now, there was pain. In cold damp weather, pain.

  Considerable pain in knee-joints, thighs and tendons. The squats brought tears to his eyes.

  On his back, knees bent, legs rapidly “running”—jolts of pain to his hips that caused tears to leak from his eyes down the sides of his cheeks.

  No longer young. He had to concede that.

  In this place, in the solitary confinement of Death Row, he had become middle-aged.

  (Though he wasn’t always sure of his age. When it had begun, the inexorable sequence of events that led to this cell at Chillicothe, he had been thirty-nine, he knew.)

  (Now, six years later? seven years? Had to be forty-five or -six.)

  (His children’s ages he had forgotten. When he thought of them they were fixed at younger ages. And Daphne among them, the youngest. And though he’d seen Edna Mae recently, in his mind’s eye he saw her as a younger woman, a baby in her arms. Always a woman is happy, a baby in her arms.)

  At the crown of his head it felt as if some of his hair had fallen out. So slowly, over months and years, he’d hardly noticed. Except touching his head and feeling the hard bumpy skull with patches of fuzz he had not noticed before.

  On Death Row there were no mirrors. You do not need to see the person you inhabit. You do not need to examine your own face, stare into your own eyes.

  He’d forgotten his face. Except for the birthmark on his cheek.

  Very slightly rough, it was. The texture of the birthmark when he drew his fingertips across it.

  If he tried to remember his face—(which rarely he did, for why?)—he was likely to recall his brother Jonathan’s face, not his own.

  His brothers at the kitchen table. Shared moods between the boys that excluded Luther.

  He had always liked Jonathan who was two years older than he. He had always feared and disliked their older brother Norman.

  In Norman’s face in the courtroom at Muskegee Falls he’d seen incredulity, shock—hurt and dismay—at the verdict guilty.

  The deep shame of guilty.

  His brothers rarely visited him at Chillicothe. His parents were said to be too ill to make the journey.

  Heartsick was a word told to him, by someone.

  Five times the execution of Luther Dunphy had been scheduled and four times it had been “stayed” by a judiciary order sent to the Ohio Department of Corrections. The first execution date had been in August 2000 and it was now February 2006 and it was not uncommon (Luther’s lawyer had told him) that an inmate might wait on Death Row for ten, twelve, even fifteen and (in a rare case) twenty years before being executed; and in this lengthy period of time there was always the possibility of an appeal being granted, or clemency, or commutation of sentence. We will not give up, Luther!—the young lawyer had promised.

  In some states there had been no executions since the mid-1970s—though condemned inmates waited on Death Row.

  Waited, grew old. Eventually died. On Death Row.

  Soon after Luther Dunphy’s arrest, even before the trials in the Muskegee Falls courthouse, several right-to-life organizations had expressed support for him even as they took care—publicly—to oppose violence. After the death sentence it was “outrage” these organizations expressed to the media, that Luther Dunphy had been sentenced to death. Churches allied with the St. Paul Missionary Church of Jesus expressed “solidarity” with Luther. There were several Ohio congressmen sympathetic with the pro-life movement in the state who had condemned the “harsh sentence” and had called for “clemency.” It was Luther’s assumption that such protests had resulted in the stays of execution though (as Edna Mae had inadvertently allowed him to know) the protests had abated over a period of time, and other right-to-life martyrs had taken Luther Dunphy’s place. Yet, Luther saw no reason to anticipate that this time would be different though it was the first he’d heard that strangers were organizing to protest his execution as an execution.

  Who were these people?—Luther asked his lawyer; and was told that they were opponents of the death penalty generally, who demonstrated against impending executions at various prisons.

  Some had religious objections. Some demanded a reform of the penal code. Many were lawyers, law students, social workers, teachers who objected to capital punishment as barb
aric and discriminatory as most individuals executed in the United States were either black or very poor or both black and very poor.

  Luther was not convinced about this. For it seemed clear in the Bible, and Jesus had never repudiated it in any of his teachings—“‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’”

  “Yes, but Luther—‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’”

  Luther’s lawyer smiled like one of the bright show-offy seminary students Luther had wanted to murder at the Toledo Bible school.

  As the date of the execution approached, the young man continued, there would be demonstrators outside the prison. Very likely, some of these would be right-to-life protesters bearing picket signs showing Luther Dunphy’s face and some of these would be opponents of the death penalty on principle.

  “Individuals who don’t ordinarily find themselves on the same side. But in Luther Dunphy, they will find a common cause.”

  Luther didn’t want to think about this—common cause. He wasn’t sure what it meant but he didn’t like the sound of it.

  He had never known anyone who opposed legitimate executions. He had never known anyone who opposed war. Vaguely he thought of these persons as foreign, “Socialist” and atheist. He did not want common cause with such persons.

  Sometimes in the presence of lawyers while Luther appeared to be attentively listening to the cascade of words that flowed from their mouths like water out of a faucet Luther was in fact flexing certain of his muscles (in secret) and counting to one hundred in groups of tens calmly and steadily and with one part of his brain only as his soul floated free and soared like a cloud skimming the surface of a sea in reflection.

  “Are you listening, Luther? Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “The execution will become an issue in the media. There’s a strong anti-death penalty movement gathering in the state, as there has been in Illinois since the Innocence Project reversed the verdicts of several men on Death Row. That is why it isn’t a good idea—I mean, it isn’t a helpful idea—for you to release your statement asking people not to protest for your sake. You see, if—”

  Luther’s eyelids had shut. Luther was awake but elsewhere. He knew himself safe, serene. His soul was secure within him like the liquid bubble in a carpenter’s level and his soul was impervious to earthly harm.

  “LUTHER, THANK YOU! Bless you.”

  The Death Row chaplain Reverend Davey was a large man: three hundred pounds at least. His face was a heavy moon-shaped face with bulbous cheeks, lips. His small eyes were deep-set in the fatty ridges of his face yet alert, shrewd as the eyes of a bird. He was too heavy now to kneel in prayer with the inmates whose cells he visited never less than weekly though Luther could recall when, years before, Reverend Davey had knelt beside him on the floor of his cell. The two had prayed earnestly side by side like equals.

  With the warden’s permission Reverend Davey was bringing copies of the New Testament for Luther Dunphy to sign. On an inside, tissue-thin page, in bright blue ink, Luther signed his name—

  Luther Amos Dunphy

  Each signature was fastidiously wrought. Reverend Davey supplied the fountain pen, about which he was particular. Warmly Reverend Davey said:

  “It will mean so much to the Christian Youth League, Luther! It will mean so much to the young people who receive these beautiful books to cherish through life . . .”

  Luther was deeply moved to learn that the New Testaments in their soft black covers meant to imitate leather covers were to be passed out among young Christian boys and girls by their pastors. Signed by Luther Amos Dunphy, copies would be given out at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Coalition of Pro-Life Activists in Indianapolis in June 2006.

  Ordinarily, Death Row inmates at Chillicothe were forbidden to receive such quantities of reading material in their cells. Pens of any kind with their sharp points were considered contraband. But these rules had been waived for this special occasion. It was explained to Luther that his signature would confer a blessing on the individual New Testaments.

  “In the eyes of many, Luther, you are a ‘hero’—you are a ‘martyr.’ People who do not condone violence nonetheless honor you. We are praying for your soul.”

  Luther took pleasure in signing his name on the front, inside page of the New Testament. Never in his life had he signed his name in such a way—as if his name mattered, and was of value. Luther Amos Dunphy seemed to him a significant name, a name of dignity and worth, to which by some accident he was himself attached.

  Signing copies of the New Testament through the day, slowly and with care, imagining the young Christian boys and girls to whom the books would be given, and how they would see his name as they opened the books, and began to read, Luther felt as if he were climbing a ladder—with each rung higher, ever higher.

  A ladder beyond any ladder to the highest peak of any house.

  Reverend Davey took away signed copies of the New Testament with its soft black covers, and brought new copies for Luther to sign.

  “Take your time, Luther! You need not hurry.”

  Luther noted this remark of the chaplain’s. Was it calculated to signal to him that, though the execution might be imminent the following week, or rather in five days, Luther could expect another reprieve—another “stay”?

  It was possible that Reverend Davey already knew that the execution would be stayed another time, but was not allowed to tell Luther.

  THE THIRD STAY, in August 2004, had been just forty-eight hours before the execution was scheduled. Luther recalled how Edna Mae and the children had come to see him at Chillicothe for the last time—looking so scared—but that had turned out to be mistaken.

  Luther had not been so very concerned, at the time. Almost, his heart had felt light.

  There would be a “stay”—or there would not be a “stay.”

  How simple that was! God would spare Luther Dunphy another time, or God would not spare Luther Dunphy another time. From a great height, like climbing a very high roof, standing at the edge and staring over—the difference between the two was not significant.

  Oh but he wished he’d braked earlier, on the highway. Skidding into the pickup helpless in the light-falling wet snow it had been too late.

  Da-da! the child had screamed behind him. Da-DA!

  Lately he’d been thinking of the crash. As in a TV sequence in which a brief scene is played, replayed and replayed he saw repeatedly in his head the pickup truck edge out onto the highway; but now he was hearing the child in the backseat, that he had not heard (he was certain) at the time of the crash.

  Luther had requested of his dear wife Edna Mae that she not come to see him for the last time. It had been six or eight weeks since Luke had last driven Edna Mae and Dawn to see him at Chillicothe, a visit that had been very awkward, and that was recent enough.

  For Luther had confidence (he’d told Edna Mae) that the execution would not take place when it was scheduled in early March. He requested of her that she share this confidence with him and express it to the children.

  But what if we never see you again?—oh, Luther!

  We will see one another in paradise, then. You know that.

  ONE OF THE GUARDS on Death Row was also named “Luther”—“Luther Crowe.” He was a light-skinned black man with a thin mustache on his upper lip, about Luther Dunphy’s age.

  From a certain manner in Luther Crowe, a way of smiling, a look of kindness, it was communicated to Luther Dunphy that this was a fellow Christian. Between them was the bond of Jesus, that Jesus had entered the hearts of both men and there was no necessity to speak of it, in a way that would draw the attention of other COs.

  Also, Luther Crowe expressed a particular interest in Luther Dunphy signing copies of the New Testament.

  He’d showed Luther Dunphy photos of his family. Luther Dunphy stared at these with eyes that so flooded with tears he could not see clearly.

  WORKOUT. MEALS. Bible reading. New T
estament signing.

  Workout. Meals. Bible reading. New Testament signing.

  There were not enough hours in the day allotted to Death Row prisoners, to accomplish all that was expected of Luther Dunphy.

  NONE OF US wanted to be the one. The warden said, draw lots.

  Sure there’s a bonus—three hundred dollars. But still.

  Nobody had any training. You would need a medical worker to inject a needle into a vein and to do it correctly but none of us knew shit. Because we had no practice, only just the condemned man. And by then, it’s too late.

  God damn I did not want to be the one. Because Luther Dunphy was a kind of a friend of mine. That’s why it’s forbidden—fraternizing.

  You can get in all kinds of shit—fraternizing.

  But it came to me this time, and it was like my turn because I had not administered the drugs in almost four years because last time I was sick pretty bad and had to cancel just three hours before the execution and took plenty of shit for that.

  Nobody wanted to administer the “lethal injection.” Not to Luther Dunphy.

  Luther was a special case on Death Row. What he’d done had not been for himself like some other, common criminal—the kind of animal you find on Death Row usually. Luther had been protesting an abortion clinic and had shot two abortion doctors there and had not fled but gave himself up right away. He had not presented any danger to law enforcement and at Chillicothe, he had never presented any danger to the staff.

  Poor bastard didn’t seem to know there was public sentiment now for changing the laws, putting pressure on politicians, not attacking abortion centers or shooting people. Making abortion illegal—that’s the goal.

  People said, a man like Luther Dunphy is worth more to the cause dead than alive. Jesus!

  Good thing, he hadn’t a clue.

  Luther did not talk politics. He did not even talk—hardly at all—about his religious beliefs. He did not despair, that you could see. Mostly he did his workouts in his cell, and he read the Bible. You would wonder how many times a man could read the Bible from start to finish but that’s what Luther seemed to do. It took up all his mental life. He would forget it was mealtime—like, none of the inmates forget when mealtime is! The CO bringing his meal, slid through the slot in the door, the inmate has to say he wants it, give a sign that he isn’t sleeping but awake to eat the meal otherwise the meal isn’t delivered and some times Luther would just forget—wouldn’t seem to hear. And the CO would feel sorry for him and call to him, Luther? Is that “verbal refusal”?—you don’t want to eat?—and Luther would say real quick no, or yes, he wanted to eat, he just hadn’t heard.