writing about it as it comes up. i don't know. that, you know, my wife's not here. i can be a little more honest and say, wouldn't mind writing another book one time, but that one took it out of me. so what are the maybe see. but yeah, but it was also a very compelling story. made me feel like i could spend that much time with it and then that's not always the case. so i think we want to open it up for q&a so that we can have questions and we have a mic. so i guess anybody got any questions for stephen or for myself, but thank stephen. yes. hi just out of curiosity, out of the row, inmates that you have met, is there a sense do some of them or a percentage them still feel that they were wrongfully convicted or are and believe

that that the death penalty is just not something that they i mean, granted, they are on death, but is that something that they're actively like fighting against or accepting it by? have they accepted? yeah, i understand there are absolutely people on tennessee's death row who have maintained their innocence for sure. but i will say more people than i think you might expect in my. and you can in on this to all of it. do not try to tell you that they're innocent mean i a lot of the conversations either i had or that i know other people have had when they visited and gotten to know people out there is actually surprisingly someone sitting down and going i did this thing 45 years ago and i'm ashamed of or i don't, or a lot of times not even that it's i don't even recognize the person who would done that. i don't comprehend how i was the same person because their lives

have changed in a lot of ways, whether it's for mental health reasons or, you know, they were young you know, they were in their they were 21 and they were just leaving a house that was full abuse and substance use or, you know, various things. so, yeah, i actually i think what was surprising to me is actually that it's not what people might expect, where everyone's just saying, oh, i, i didn't do anything. i just ended up here by accident. there are definitely people who say that they're innocent, you know, and i there are some people who have very credible claims and some of those have been reported on or there have been people in recent years who have gotten off of tennessee's death row. i think there's another complicating factor, just that there are a lot of guys out there who wouldn't you like? i'm innocent in the sense that i didn't commit any crime. but who see the problems with the way that the death penalty is applied to know there are people out there who have a codefendant. they're both charged with as

part of the same crime. but their codefendant is serving a 30 year sentence or serving life, whatever. but they're on death row, so they see the unfairness in that way which is different than innocence, but it's kind of, you know, so i think that's what comes up a lot. the issue in the back in the u.s. because it's been there. hello, my dad's when i'm the director of tennessee concert concerned about the death penalty and i really enjoy what you had to say. so thank you for all of that. but my question is, do you do anything in the legislature like any testimony as it comes to the death penalty? i know there's bill, hb 1663 to expand the death penalty. a child rapist or have you did anything with that? so i've actually i wrote a short item for the banner about that

bill. i guess that would have been a week ago or a little bit ago, but just so for people who aren't familiar, the death penalty in a lot of including tennessee right now is reserved for homicides where a person is killed. and there's a bill at the legislature right. that would expand, make, make people convicted of child rape eligible for the death penalty, even if the child involved doesn't die. and strangers it may sound that that that would be a an outlier among in our country in terms of applying. and i'm interested to see what happens with that bill and i've been watching it and like i said, i did write a little bit about it. it's kind of an interesting debate because i think some there are some people who are worried that in a lot of cases like that, you have a the alleged rapist, is a family member. and maybe if if a if a person

knows that that person might face the death penalty, will there be a effect on the people coming forward about? that i don't know the answer that really, but i know there's a there's a lot of about kind of what that is. there's also just i know there was some debate in one of the committee hearings it that i was watching when some people were just saying this may just bring a bunch of legal issues that these victims families will then have to fight through for the next 30 years. and it some of them may prefer to do that. so it's a complicated but i haven't had been following that for sure. in the back very feel. steven, thank you so much for doing work and for sharing it in the book and in here with us today, i want to sort of follow up on on some themes you had. and in response to the first question about how substantial the the role of the substance abuse in the home, the family, the the role of the mental and

and developmental delays and all know it's i think anybody who's taken any serious look at the death penalty knows that it's almost impossible to be sentenced to death without. so many of these contributing factors overlay and then to talk about the notion of being welcomed onto death row and orderliness of the space once you have that these mostly men but these these people who are in a controlled environment and in a place where their support and how very civilized and compassionate and how much care and order is there, has it has it changed way that you as a reporter or as a tennessee and look at the underlying treatment of that mental illness and substance abuse and support for families and children that are dealing that that in the broader population? yeah, absolutely.

i think, um, you will not walk through a death and meet someone who, in my experience, who grew certainly the way i did. you with, with two working parents to send me to a private high school and paid for me to go to college and didn't hit me, didn't use drugs while i was in the womb and didn't, you know and it's not to say that there's no one out there who overcomes those things. obviously some, people, you know, have awful childhoods and grow up to be, you know. so it's not a universal, but put it like this. not everyone who grows up that way ends up on death row, but as far as i can tell, just about everyone on death row has a background similar that and so yeah it has made me think a lot about that both in a in a personal way when i walk around and it's it's a humbling to go to read through some of these case files and say, you know, if

i swapped me, this person, what makes me think i wouldn't have ended up exactly where they ended up? and i think if you do come that conclusion, it becomes, you know, very difficult not to think about some of stuff differently as as the orderliness on death row. i think it is a sort of counterintuitive thing. but if you talk to people who work in the prison system in tennessee, a lot of them will tell you they'd rather work on you to a riverbend than anywhere else you know, because the guys there calm, pretty low key. there are people there with some profound issues, but by and large the issues that a correctional is going to face in a lot of other prisons not going to face there. and i always think i always want to stress the point that not that i think that even though i do think there are some programs on tennessee's death row that are are good and are helpful to people, i think it's not so much

that like, oh, so it turns out being sent to death row can be good for prison. but what it is, is that for a lot of these guys, they have not had a stable moment in their life until they got sent to a prison. and so what that makes me think about is what are other interventions, you know, all of them. a lot of in a lot of cases, people did attempt to intervene in some way or another. i mean, i've talked about this but billy ray eric was six years old when a teacher was like, i we need to look into this child's mental health like. he's not okay. so, you know, but the interventions were not the kind that maybe he would get now or that you would want someone to have and so, yeah, i think that is is pretty humbling to think about and does make you think about what can we be doing to to give people the chance at another or another path that a lot of these guys didn't seem to have. i think there was another question.

yes. i first thank you for speaking with us. wanted to ask you about something you said about this being that the last quarter, the death penalty and do you see that being because of it seems go on the voyage or the close to legislatures of the federal government actually eliminating it for going to become so impractical? that's just no longer feasible. it still be on the books. we have the death penalty. we're just not going to execute anyone anymore. that's a really good and i should probably stop that because i don't know why i'm out here making predictions, but i but it's a good point. and i think, i think you're right. i think it's probably both. i mean, right now there are i, i, i would get the number wrong, but there are a number of states who have abolish the death penalty. but to your point, there are also a number of states who have the death penalty and they just don't use it, you know, and so i think it's seems very possible we could get to that kind of place. mean there's an important distinction between state death

penalties and the federal death penalty, which as many of you probably know, under the under the trump there was a streak of executions and, the federal level and so that's kind of a whole different ballgame. but i do think it's it's very likely that over the next, you know, whatever it is, ten, 20 years, a combination, those things happen. then you have some states who abolish death penalty for a number of reasons, whether it's, you know, in a state like in a red state who are saying this, the financial of this doesn't make any sense to spend five years litigating a case just so that a person can die of causes in prison anyway. you know, there's a lot of arguments against coming from that way. i think there are other states who are abolishing it for maybe reasons. the other side of the political spectrum. and then yeah, there are other states who may just find that it's not practical to keep keep doing this. so i think of it a combination

of is what seems possible to me. one question, of course. that's going to work out. yeah yeah. i was wondering how it is that you can witness and write about executions and also you spoke about how some of the death individuals had a memorial after one of their own was killed and you could speak about how they prepare to deal with the execution of one of their own. yeah when you say how it is you mean you mean just just. how why am i not crying right now or is it. yeah, that's a fair question. i will say that for me, the fact that it was a job to do is was helpful just in like a very practical sense going into the prison and sitting there and and knowing you're about to watch

this happen, but also knowing like, okay, i have to you know i have it. when you go into witness an execution, the you're not allowed to bring anything in with you. they give you a big legal pad and a pencil and so you know okay i'm going to take these notes on what's happening. and in a way thankfully i think that does kind of take you out of it too. it a degree that i found i was grateful for because i had a job to do and i had to focus that and i couldn't necessarily in the moment think about what i if you had just dropped me in that situation without that, maybe i would have been more it would have been harder to get through. it was helpful to have other there too. you know, we all had a job to do to kind of together and that that was helpful but yeah, it was it was awful. i mean, you know, don't want to downplay it in any way and i certainly in the book tried not to that and i do think writing about it was there was a sort of catharsis in writing about it for me so i'm grateful for that

but but yeah you know is it the weird thing about the death is that there are a lot of ways in which we've as a society kind of tried to make it in the name of making it more humane, have tried to make it look less, killing a person and and it still looks that way in my experience. so so that didn't know. it was very difficult as far as the men on the on the row and kind of how they prepare for it. i actually love for you to talk the kind of service they had for billy, but just one thing to mention. i mean, it's very much a process of kind of i don't know it's really hard to fathom, but, you know, there they have this date on the calendar for quite a long time. when when a date set. so they sort of know this is coming and guys who have an execution date will start giving their stuff away. you know, i mean, they'll start saying going to someone and saying, hey, you know, here my paint brushes, here, my boots, you know, they just start giving

their things away. in preparation for that. there's a story i tell in the book. gorsky was executed. who's the second executioner read about in the book? he everyone's familiar with the idea of the sort of the last meal that that the offered and nagorski turned down and it turned out that was because a few days before the all men on death row had kind of pooled their their food and made pizzas and had like a pizza, like a like a sort of last supper with him of sort of homemade pizza. so there's stuff like that but but alvaro was at a, a kind of service at the prison for billy after his execution. we went home. yeah. yeah. so just short of because everything was running on time, but really i after billy's execution. i got a letter from from one of billy's friends from inside. and basically they were they were inviting me to come over for his memorial service, the prison.

so i had to make this application that was a very complex process of getting in there for that specific service. but you know what? and they went there and to a place that i had not access before in the prison, because usually you at the visitation gallery, but then this service happened inside they where their cells are. so we we sat in a circle and very much just just everybody started talking about memories from from billy and what they had known him in the prison and i was there with one of other billy's visitors, his right now. but we we just shared really stories about our experiences. billy, throughout the time that we have known him, i think you write in the book, there's a really powerful piece where it says that that billy's lawyer mentioned about him never, ever having a very happy moment in his life and. i think that was really powerful because because i think he did have a good moment at some point, the friends that he had

inside, which is this new life that he was living within, you know, within that. but it was a very beautiful walk. and i think to me after this day is one of the most powerful moments my life has been sitting there surrounded with all this gentleman who were hit their fate was to be executed some point. they were all sharing some some testimony of a friend who had died recently. so i do think that there's a that goes on within them. of course, they know the fate, but it became it became really real when william is executed. they get a few more minutes. there's a yes. so one call that can you wait for the hand out reading case? because all of the appeals of death penalty cases include the psr, the pre-sentence report. and you know, i think the general public, if you read the the psr, you would have to say to yourself what did we expect of this trial, where did we

place this child and not intervene? so that's a no brainer that people could begin with. you know, you can the adage is you can educate them or you can in castle write them. and we are choosing to incarcerate. so those are good ways to intervene. perhaps they're not right at death row, but might be preventative because a lot of prevention that go on with young children that is not yeah i think you're absolutely right that was a an incredible experience it's very difficult reading you know, to read through these stories of of these guys childhoods. it was powerful timing for me because at the time that i started these executions, i had. i had just had we had two young women, still two young children,

and they were younger, you know, they were three and a baby. i would read these stories of these kids and i look at my kids and i'm by no means a perfect parent. but, you know, we have the flaws of our house, don't have holes in it. we are lucky enough not to live in deep poverty the way a lot of these guys had. i you know, me, my wife have good jobs. we have health care. like just go down the list of stuff. by the way, i don't feel like i can take any credit for, which is the other point. i think, you know, i it's because of my parents and because of their you know, i was just born in in this situation and these guys were just born the situation you're describing and i would just yeah, i think i think you're right when you say what do we expect of of them? it's like, you know, you read the that these guys in many ended up committing and think of them as a two year old and you go that two year old is not

wanting to be you know there there are. i don't know. we're going to get into like a deeper like freewill conversation or something, but i think it's worth really reflecting on, you know, like what you know, what do we mean when, say, this person did a thing and we're holding them responsible for it alone and we're going to put them to death as opposed to starting to ask questions like what kind of society produces so many people who do things like this, which makes so absolutely know why not do this efficient time or even such representation that communication? absolutely. and for people who can hear, as mentioned mitigation hearings where basically people on the defense team will go and research a person's background, their childhood all about their life and present that to a judge in a jury when it comes time for sentencing to say okay, this

person may be guilty, but here are these mitigating factors you should consider before send them to death row and there's a lot of that work that's done now, the cases of the people that i write about in the book and a lot of the guys on tennessee's death row that been there since the eighties and stuff wasn't done then and a lot of it has been done on their behalf since, which is incredible. i mean, you know, the going going to find people who who are still alive that knew this guys and their kids, but the juries that them to death never heard any of that. you know, they didn't know any other mental health background. they didn't know about the childhood physical and sexual abuse suffered, you know, they didn't know any of that stuff. and so so yeah, that makes a big difference for sure well, we are out of time, so please join me in thanking steven hale thank you.hello everyone.

welcome to bookmarks tonight. i'm beth seufer buss, the program director and. it is my pleasure to welcome you to bookmarks. anybody's first time here. welcome. you may not know bookmarks is a literary arts nonprofit and our mission is to cultivate community by bringing of all ages together with books and authors who educate, inspire, challenge and entertain. we're so excited you're here with us tonight. and it's my pleasure to hand tonight's event over to laura schober, bookmarks administrator who's going to moderate event and introduce our featured author. pretty good evening and everybody hear me okay? okay. awesome. i am here to introduce our wondl