Former death row inmate speaks out

It was a night of great emotion and strong conviction in the Thompson Falls St. William Parish on Oct. 6 after two men had taken to the pulpit to denounce the death penalty.

The two men, Ron Carlson and Curtis McCartney were a part of the Journey of Hope, a Montana anti-death penalty speaking tour made up of death row exonorees, family members of murder victims and the relatives of death row inmates.

Unlike most politicians and political pundits both Carlson and McCartney have paid heavy prices to gain their credentials and understanding about the death penalty. Carlson’s father and his sister were both brutally murdered and McCartney spent 22 years on death row for a murder he did not commit.

“Until the day I die I will never forget the sound of that door closing behind me,” McCartney said describing his entrance into the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. McCartney had been convicted in 1982 for the murder of Pamela Willis, a close friend of his due to faulty evidence provided by Joyce Gilchrist, the former chief forensic chemist for the state of Oklahoma.

Gilchrist, who had been given the nickname “black magic” for her uncanny ability to find convincing forensic evidence against defendants has since been fired. However, during her time working as the chief forensic chemist she helped to sentence 23 people to death, 11 of whom have been executed.

McCartney said that he struggled for many years in prison, and still struggles, to cope with the loss and rage.

“I spent the whole of my adult life in prison, I struggle everyday to do something positive with my life and be a good person but it’s hard,” he said. McCartney told audience members at the forum that prison is a brutal experience and that it changes men to be fierce and hard for the sake of pure survival.

“The idea that prisoners are caudled is absolutely false. Prisons are horrific places to live. They’ve created an environment that turns a man cold,” he said.

Eventually, McCartney said that the prison took its toll on him and that the deep hate was killing him. He said that it wasn’t until he came to a realization about the necessity of forgiveness and humanities innate fallibility that he began a slow recovery.

“I couldn’t hate anymore it was killing me. When I learned that everyone around me were human beings that were imperfect, but had a potential for good, I began to change,” McCartney said.

That change of heart led him to another conclusion about his fellow inmates and allowed him to see them as people too, people who had done horrible things, but people who could still serve some purpose for society even in some limited capacity.

McCartney was released from Oklahoma State Penitentiary on May 11, 2007 through DNA evidence after the FBI had investigated Gilchrist and some of the many cases she had allegedly tampered. Not withstanding his freedom, McCartney said that it would be a long battle to complete recovery, if it is even possible.

“I will always be seen as a convicted murderer I can never get away from that, you can’t escape, its on your record,” he said.

Carlson understands McCartney’s loss but from another perspective. In 1983 in Texas’ infamous “Pick Ax Murder,” Karla Fey Tucker and Daniel Garrett killed his sister and one other person with a 3-foot-long ax. A year later, his father was murdered after being shot in the head at close range with a shotgun.

Carlson spoke also of the intense rage that filled him and how he wanted nothing but vengeance for many years. He said that the desire for retribution and the intensity of the anger drove him to alcohol and drugs; and in spring of 1990, when his feelings of hatred had nearly consumed him, he had almost turned to suicide.

“I was devastated in pain. I hated them. I couldn’t deal with all that vengeance and all that hatred. It was literally killing me,” Carlson said reflecting upon the experience.

He said that it was only when he began reading the Bible that spring in 1990 that he began to realize, like McCartney, the necessity of forgiveness and he said that knowledge gave him the power to start his life anew. “I believe I got saved in the early spring of 1990,” Carlson said.

After the turning point, Carlson began to talk with Tucker and eventually became friends with her. Before her execution, he remembers telling her that he forgave her.

“Karla, whatever comes out of this I just want you to know that I forgive you and that I don’t hold anything against you,” he wrote on his Web site about his meeting with her. Carlson explained that after he had said those words he felt as though a great and powerful weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.

Carlson also wrote the same thing to Garrett as well and said that both experience helped him in a life changing way. When Tucker was executed 1998 Carlson said he attended the execution as a friend of Tuckers. “I wasn’t going to be there as a family member looking for vengeance,” he said.

Unlike what state prosecutors had told him Carlson said that he received no closure from her death or Garrett’s.

After both men had spoken audience members eagerly questioned them about their tragic experiences and empathized with them.

As speakers for the Journey of Hope, they said that they are hoping that legislation will ban the death penalty in Montana 2009. They also hope that other states will adopt the same policy.

If their stories weren’t enough to settle the argument, factually they pointed to statistics. Financially they said that the cost for killing a person was more than the cost keeping them alive. After all the lawyers and appeals McCartney said that for his case alone it cost the state more than $750,000 in legal fees for lawyers and that did not include paper work.

The Montana Abolition Coalition who helped coordinate activities that evening lists on its own Web site that the death penalty is 38 percent greater than the total cost of life without parole according to a study done by the Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission in 2002. The site also states that out of the entire population of prisoners in Montana there are only two pending executions.

McCartney also made the point that above financial costs, statistically, race, personal bias and common human error have had weight on death sentences. Once questions had ended, Carlson said hoped their stories and the concrete facts would have some sway in people’s general perspective on the death penalty.

“I’m not trying to convince you one way or the other,” Carlson said. “I’ll I’m asking you to do is ponder what I say in your hearts and make your own decision.”