Death Row Research Articles

Insurgent Intellectual: Mumia Abu-Jamal in the Age of Mass Incarceration

I first heard Mumia's voice while sitting in Dr Mark Taylor's “Systematic Theology” class my first semester at Princeton Theological Seminary. Mumia was sitting on death row. He had been for nearly...

Book Review: Life After Death Row: Exonerees’ Search for Community and Identity

Book Review: Life After Death Row: Exonerees’ Search for Community and Identity

Framing, Persuasion, Messaging, and Messengers

The New Jersey Death Penalty Abolition Movement (DPAM) developed a pragmatic strategy that effectively communicated the argument for replacing capital punishment with life without parole, and the state of New Jersey repealed the death penalty by legislative action, on December 17, 2007. This case study analyzes the issue frames and messages used by the movement, and the possible lessons for movements in other states working to repeal the death penalty. Interviews with key stakeholders in the movement indicated which frames were used most frequently and effectively. Implications for the broader DPAM nationally include the power of the issue frames of murder victims’ families who oppose the death penalty, innocent people on death row, and law enforcement opposition to the death penalty, among others.

Death Row Statements: A discourse of play

In this article, I discuss Death Row Statements from the perspective of ludic language within the context of ritual. Beyond its role as a form of deterrent, means of punishment or manifestation of state power, execution can be seen to function as a form of community ritual, where individuals who are a threat to society are removed. Execution has many ritual features, from its liminal spatio-temporal context to the precise ordering of events and, with reference to Huizinga’s conception of ‘play’ (encompassing serious activities such as litigation, war and trade), can be considered a ludic activity. I argue that the ludic nature of execution is manifested in the language of the last words of the condemned. Employing Cook’s taxonomy of the features of Language Play (dealing with both serious and light-hearted uses of language), I discuss the effect that the ludic nature of state execution has on the formal, semantic and pragmatic nature of the language. I argue that Death Row Statements represent a discourse of play in relation to both the language of last statements and the character of the event.

A piece of my mind. Water, water, everywhere.

“Doc, they’re not giving me my Benadryl.” The patient scraped his long fingernails along his neck to emphasize the point, his skin falling in tiny flakes onto his dark green uniform. The space where he used to have eyebrows lifted quizzically, awaiting my response. I took a deep breath. I was still not used to working in the prison clinic, or in a prison at all. The clinic was in a cramped, ancient section of a maximum security facility that dated back to the turn of the century before last. It was a good ten-minute walk from the prison entrance to get there, mostly through tunnels crowded with inmates lined up for food, work, or head count. Along the way were the echoing noises of the place, the staring officers, the smells of constantly applied fresh paint and ammonia, and the shuffling lines of inmates in their color-coded uniforms: white for those in work programs, green for those with few infractions, gray-brown for most everyone else. And, on occasion, the bright crimson of death row.

A Review of Sex Disparities in the “Key Players” of the Capital Punishment Process: From Defendants to Jurors

Extralegal disparities between defendants sentenced to the death penalty and those who receive life without parole disturb even the most resolute advocates of capital punishment. Extensive bodies of research document extralegal factors influencing death penalty outcomes. Although studies largely focus on race and ethnicity, a growing body of research considers the impact of sex on the capital sentencing process. This paper reviews the extant research on the impact of the sex of the victim, defendant, attorney, juror, and judge on capital case outcomes. Women’s scarcity on death row and a previously documented “female victim effect” condemning male defendants who kill female victims, particularly for those committing crimes of sexual degradation, suggests that death row policies and their implementation chivalrously protect female defendants and victims. Conversely, a limited amount of research documents a “domestic discount,” or greater leniency for death-eligible crimes commonly victimizing women than for those victimizing acquaintances or strangers. Although opinion polls document greater support for the death penalty among men than women, juror sex inconsistently predicts sentencing outcomes in the literature. Minimal research on judge and attorney sex finds female judges more liberal in death penalty sentencing than male judges and inconclusive relationships between attorney sex and adjudication. Findings in the research on sex and death penalty outcomes support the existence of a “sex effect” and inform recommendations for future research to expand the body of literature.

Clemency in Southeast Asian Death Penalty Cases

The five contemporary practitioners of the death penalty in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam) have performed judicial executions on a regular basis between 1975 and 2013. Notwithstanding this similarity, the number of death sentences passed by courts that were subsequently reduced to a term of imprisonment through grants of clemency by the executive has varied remarkably between these jurisdictions. Some of these countries commuted the sentences of death row prisoners often (for example, the clemency ‘rate’ of 91-92 per cent witnessed in Thailand), others rarely (a clemency ‘rate’ of around 1 per cent in Singapore), and some at ‘medium’ rates. In this article, I employ the methodology of comparative criminal justice to explore the discrepancies and similarities in capital clemency practice between these five Southeast Asian jurisdictions. In doing so, I seek to identify the structural and cultural reasons why retentionist countries exercise clemency at vastly different ‘rates’ in finalised capital cases.

Review of Roger Hood and Surya Deva (Eds), Confronting Capital Punishment in Asia: Human Rights, Politics, and Public Opinion

This is an important book. With the Johnson and Zimring (2009)book of a few years back, it is one of the two most eye-opening books on the death penalty in Asia ever published. Anyone interested in the worldwide movement away from executions will be glad to have a copy in his or her hands. The volume is edited by Roger Hood, emeritus professor at Oxford and unquestionably among the top death penalty scholars in the world, and Surya Deva, a law professor at the City University of Hong Kong. Included are 14 original chapters written by an all-star cast of 15 authors. Earlier drafts of the papers were presented at a conference in Hong Kong in 2011. The chapters are divided into four sections: “Situating Asia in an International Human Rights Context,” “The Progress So Far,” “Public Opinion and Death Penalty Reform,” and “The Politics of Capital Punishment in Practice.” Four of the chapters focus on China, three on India, two on Japan, one on Singapore, and four on issues that can be applied more generally to Asia as a whole. Each chapter utilizes a numbered outline, making it easy for readers to follow. The editors turn to Saul Lehrfreund of The Death Penalty Project in London to set the table for the volume. For the past quarter century, Lehrfreund and his team have represented scores of death row clients from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean in courts in their home countries and before international tribunals. His chapter outlines various international treaties and agreements that have served to limit or outright ban the death penalty, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966. International agreements call for all countries that still use the death penalty to provide information on the frequency and scope of its use (an obligation that China, for one, continues to ignore), to restrict the death penalty to the most serious offenses, and to eliminate provisions that call for mandatory death sentences. Unquestionably, these international agreements are part of the reason why the death penalty worldwide has been increasingly restricted in the past 30 years. Indeed, two additional chapters in the book focus on efforts by abolitionist countries (principally Australia) and national human rights organizations in helping to pave the way for abolition. While it is generally agreed that China continues to carry out more executions than the rest of the world combined, the chapter by Liu Renwen from the Chinese Academy of Social Asian Criminology (2015) 10:251–253 DOI 10.1007/s11417-014-9192-8

Current Issues and Controversies in Capital Punishment

Editorial IntroductionIt is our pleasure to introduce you to our special issue on Current Issues and Controversies in Capital Punishment. Capital punishment continues to be one of the most highly debated and polarizing public policies issues in the United States. But, the number of individuals on death row has reached an almost twenty year low, many states have moratoriums on capital punishment, while others have repealed the use of the death penalty altogether (Death Penalty Information Center, 2014, 2013a). At the same time, thirty-two states continue to use capital punishment and as of this writing, twenty individuals have been executed in 2014 (Death Penalty Information Center, 2013b).Social science research often enters the capital punishment debate through studies examining the influence of legal and extralegal characteristics on prosecutorial decisions to seek the death penalty (e.g., Paternoster, 1984; Paternoster & Brame, 2003), jury death sentence decision-making (e.g., Jen... Language: en

Closure and its myths

In the United States, when an offender on death row is about to be executed, family members of the victim(s) (i.e. co-victims) are permitted to witness the execution. A common justification for this practice is that it provides closure for the victims’ families (the ‘closure argument’); however, there is little empirical research to either refute or support this claim. This study examined the statements that co-victims who had attended an execution made to the press immediately following the execution, in order to learn more about their feelings about closure. The relationship between aspects of the crime, the offender’s last words, and the co-victim’s statements was also examined. Generally, results indicated that victims’ family members expressed their views on closure in various ways, and that the 23 percent who did mention closure were evenly divided on whether they felt the execution provided closure or not. Co-victims were more likely to mention some type of closure when they felt that justice had been served, and when the offender asked for forgiveness and stated a hope that the execution would bring the co-victim closure. Overall, qualitative and quantitative results did not support the closure argument.

Autonomy in Extremis: An Intelligent Waiver of Appeals on Death Row

This article provides an in-depth account of the experiences of one condemned prisoner, Joseph Mitchel Parsons, who made the profound decision to waive his appeals and expedite his execution after serving eleven years under sentence of death in the State of Utah. Parsons determined that, at best, he faced years of appeals culminating in a long or life sentence that would likely end in a slow death in prison by unknown causes. Dropping his appeals, in contrast, offered a quick death in the execution chamber on a timetable under his control. The court granted Parsons the right to drop his appeals and expedite his execution. We provide evidence from this case study that the court allowed Parsons to make an autonomous decision to die on his own terms. As this research illustrates, an evaluation of the voluntariness of decisions to waive appeals in capital cases must be nested in an understanding of the death row experience of the individual under study. Case studies of the death row experience of those who waive their appeals, such as the research reported here, are integral to understanding these momentous decisions.

The Death of Death Row Clemency and the Evolving Politics of Unequal Grace

While America’s appetite for capital punishment continues to wane over time, clemency for death row inmates is all but extinct. Moreover, what little clemency activity that persists continues to distribute unevenly across gender, racial and ethnic groups, geography, governors’ political affiliation, and over time. Insofar as courts appear extremely reluctant to review – let alone interfere with – clemency activity, little, if any, formal legal recourse exists. Results from this study of clemency activity on state death rows (1973-2010) suggest that potential problems arise, however, to the extent that our criminal justice system relies on clemency to function as coherent extrajudicial check.

How Long Must They Wait? Lackey Claims, Excessive Delay, and Evolving Standards of Decency

An almost inherent characteristic of American death penalty jurisprudence is the long period of time that passes between the sentencing of a death-eligible defendant and the defendant’s execution. Although defendants who are sentenced to death row have a clear interest in exhausting all appeals, in many cases, the entire process may take 20 to 30 years or more, possibly exposing these individuals to undue physical and psychological harm. Such harm, when combined with the execution itself, may violate the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The current piece examines the concept of Lackey claims and examines such claims within the framework of “evolving standards of decency.” Recommendations for policy are also discussed.

High Court Weighs Standards for Intellectual Disability

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Government NewsFull AccessHigh Court Weighs Standards for Intellectual DisabilityAaron LevinAaron LevinSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:31 Mar 2014https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2014.4a15AbstractThe Supreme Court wants to know if a convicted murderer’s cognitive abilities can be encapsulated in a single number that makes him eligible for the death penalty.The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on the standards states adopt to determine if a murderer is eligible to be executed.Joe Ravi/Shutterstock.comJust how intellectually disabled must a convicted murderer be before the state is barred from executing him?That might seem like a complex question to a psychiatrist, but Supreme Court justices spent most of their time one cold March morning asking not about the man who spent 35 years on Florida’s death row but about statistical aspects of his IQ tests.Freddie Lee Hall was convicted of the rape and murder of a 21-year-old woman in 1978. In a prior case, Atkins v. Virginia, in 2002, the Supreme Court held that executing a mentally retarded (now termed “intellectually disabled”) person violated the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.”The Court in Atkins left it up to the states to determine standards for intellectual disability. Florida set the bar at an IQ of 70, along with deficits in adaptive behavior and an onset before age 18. Hall had scored 71 or higher on several IQ tests, making him eligible for the death penalty.Allen Winsor, Florida’s solicitor general, argued that once the prisoner scored above 70, the other two criteria became irrelevant. Furthermore, the state couldn’t have its laws governed by the subjective—and changeable—views of clinicians.The statistical argument revolved around whether a score of 70 was a “bright line,” a number that must be adhered to inflexibly.“Because of the standard error of measurement that is inherent in IQ tests, it is universally accepted that persons with obtained scores of 71 to 75 can, and often do, have mental retardation when those three prongs are met,” argued Hall’s attorney, Seth Waxman, at the March 10 hearing. “If a state conditions the opportunity to demonstrate mental retardation on obtained IQ test scores, it cannot ignore the measurement error that is inherent in those scores that is a statistical feature of the test instrument itself.”APA joined with other mental health organizations in filing an amicus curiae brief with the Court on Hall’s behalf.“We are saying that if a state relies on some definition of mental illness or intellectual disability, then that definition should reflect current research and current thinking,” said Colleen Coyle, J.D, APA’s general counsel. That definition requires more than just a pass/fail grade on an IQ test.APA’s position calls for not only recognizing the standard error of measurement but for applying all three criteria—IQ, functionality, and age of onset—in the context of a full evaluation of the person facing execution.“Using a single IQ score goes against how we think about intellectual disability,” said Richard Frierson, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and director of its forensic psychiatry fellowship. Frierson was not involved in the Hall case.“It is possible to diagnose a person with an IQ score above 70 but who has difficulties with adaptive functioning—their ability to care for themselves or live independently,” said Frierson, in an interview with Psychiatric News.“The oral argument underscored the differing perspectives with respect to the death penalty,” said APA Treasurer David Fassler, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont. “A majority of the justices seemed skeptical of the limitations imposed by the current Florida law. The prevailing view was that judges and juries should have access to as much information as possible when considering whether or not a defendant is eligible for the death penalty.”APA and other mental health organizations and advocates may have more work ahead of them, regardless of the Court’s decision, which is expected later this spring.“We must better educate judges and lawyers about the role of adaptive functioning to remind them that this is a gray area, not one that is simply black and white,” said Frierson. “There are still so many disparities regarding persons on death row with mental illness and intellectual disability, and it will be interesting to see if the Court takes them up in the future.” ■A transcript of oral arguments to the Supreme Court in Hall v. Florida can be accessed here. The amicus brief filed by APA can be read here. ISSUES NewArchived

Justice Paradox: Victim's Perspective

"What other penalty would suit perpetrators of such brutal acts? What other penalty is called for if the crime is proved beyond reasonable doubt? What happens is that, we forget the past. We see only the face of the accused, who is before us and his family. We forget the victims and their families." Justice R.C. Lahoti (35th Chief Justice of India)In January, 2014 the Indian Supreme Court delivered a landmark verdict on death penalty in the case of Shatrughan Chauhan and Anr. vs. Union of India, holding in particular that an excessive and unexplained delay in carrying out the death sentence is an essential factor in a plea for commutation. This judicial precedent was embraced by human rights activists for its clarity, fidelity and the relief it brought to the death row convicts. But very few ventured into the other side of the picture and realized the plight of that unknown face who actually suffered the most in the scenario. In order to cover the lapse of delay on part of the executive, adequate reparation is given to the death row convict but no heed is paid to the plight of that aggrieved person who had suffered at the hands of the convict, to whom justice was given at the first instance and then was taken back. The convicts who were initially awarded the death penalty keeping in mind the gruesome extent of the crime, the social costs incurred and their incorrigible nature could now be effortlessly commuted because of callousness by the executive. The paper argues that the precedent set by the Supreme Court, however celebrated, can have repercussions on the justice and punishment system and therefore suggests that commutation should be granted considering the perspectives of both the aggrieved person as well as the convict. The paper further outlines the need for accountability in exercise of the constitutionally vested powers in the executive in a responsible and efficient manner with regard to the disposal of mercy petitions and further proposes that a balance should be maintained between the rights of a victim vis-a-vis convict.

Delay in Disposal of Mercy Petition: Violation of Article 21 of the Constitution

The Executive's power to pardon under Article 72/161 of the Constitution is wide, unbridled in nature and is not subject to any limitation or qualification, but, the same has to be exercised within the sweep of the Constitution to be valid. The said power is open for judicial review, though, scope of the same is very limited. This paper analyses delay in exercise of the said power as one ground requiring consideration by the executive for commutation of death penalty into life imprisonment. It further examines delay in exercise of power to pardon vis-a-vis violation of fundamental rights of the death row convicts on account of delay in disposal of mercy petition and discusses recent judgement of the Supreme Court. It concludes with need to establish balance between interest of death row convicts alleging violation of their fundamental rights on account of delay in disposal of mercy petitions and interest of nation at large.

The Hysterics of District 9

A German, an Italian, and Van der Merwe were on death row. The warden gave them a choice of three ways to die: to be shot, to be hanged, or to be injected with the AIDS virus for a slow death. So the German said, Shoot right in the head Boom, he was dead instantly. Then the Italian said, Just hang me Snap! He was dead. Then it was Van der Merwe's turn, and he said, Give some of that AIDS stuff They gave him the shot, and Van der Merwe fell down laughing. The guards looked at each other and wondered what was wrong with this guy. Then Van der Merwe said, Give another one of those shots so the guards did. Now he was laughing so hard, tears rolled from his eyes and he doubled over. Finally the warden said, What's wrong with you? Van der Merwe replied, You guys are so stupid. I'm wearing a condom Van der Merwe joke circulating on the internet EVERY SOUTH AFRICAN has a favourite Van der Merwe joke. Van der Merwe, the archetypal thickheaded Afrikaner, has been the beloved brunt of South African humour for decades. Alongside the adoption of apartheid as official government policy in 1948, Van der Merwe emerged as its foolish functionary, so it is no coincidence that the protagonist of Neill Blomkamp's film District 9 (2009) is the bumbling Wikus van de Merwe (played by Sharlto Copley), a walking Van der Merwe joke (for more on Van der Merwe, see articles by Sandra Swart and Deborah Posel). A petty bureaucrat (petty in every sense), he works in the Department of Alien Affairs at mnu, Multi-National United, the evil epitome of global corporate capital. But we like Wikus, despite his ineptitude, his nepotism, and his bigotry. So who is the joke on? In his director's commentary, Blomkamp repeatedly tells us that he finds certain moments in the film humorous, and they are often the most gruesome or graphic moments that push the and viewers into heightening horror. Opinion varies on whether District 9 is funny: in Safundis roundtable on the film, Stefan Helgesson finds it genuinely funny--the alien infatuation with cat food being just one example of its absurd humor (174), whereas in her article on masculinity in District 9, Claire Sisco King writes, Absent comic relief, District 9 produces a decidedly different sensibility ... [T]he tone of District 9 remains intense and stressful, inviting not laughter but anxiety, terror, and even disgust.. This visceral experience invites viewers to suffer (rather than laugh) with onscreen characters (83). Consciously or not, then, director Blomkamp is pointing out the fine, often vanishing, line that splits hysterics between what is hysterically funny and real hysteria. Not coincidentally, the title of a government parody playing the comedy circuit in South Africa these days, Mass Hysteria, also collapses the distinction. Featuring such faux leaders as the Minister Who Swears to Tell the Truth and the Minister of International Affairs and Pan-African Children, it is so titled because, says the co-producer, 'Mass Hysteria' is what South Africans are best at ... whether it's a penis or a march, we love a reason to scream and shout (Gilbertson). Since apartheid ended, South Africa has experienced a wave of incidents of alleged mass hysteria, mostly among schoolchildren in underprivileged areas (see Kapstein). If, under apartheid, South Africa was in a state of panic, with professional agitators and members of the Third Force planted to spur on violent protests against the regime so as to be able to represent black South Africans as out of control and with whites worrying about a total onslaught, then postapartheid South Africa is a nation in hysterics. District 9 allows us to examine the distinctions between, and the overlaps among, the hysterically funny, hysterical anxiety, and mass hysteria not only as they pertain to a South African sensibility and setting but to an emerging, specifically South African, breed of science fiction. …

Stay, Illusion by Lucie Brock-Broido (review)

Reviewed by: Stay, Illusion by Lucie Brock-Broido Molly Desjardins Lucie Brock-Broido. Stay, Illusion. New York: Knopf, 2013. 112p. Like Horatio’s plea to the ghost of King Hamlet alluded to in the title of the collection, the poems in Lucie Brock-Broido’s fourth book of poetry represent the impossibility of commanding images “uncalled for, but called forth” (“Extreme Wisteria”) to “Stay!” and “Speak!” Stay, Illusion is filled with ghosts—there are elegies for Brock-Broido’s father, the poet Liam Rector, executed death row inmates Ricky Ray Rector and Tookie Williams, as well as elegies for lost relationships, possibilities, and selves. However, Brock-Broido is shrewdly aware of not only the [End Page 71] failure of poetry to speak to the dead (never mind to elicit a response), but also the danger inherent in attempting to “stay” an illusion through poetry. Throughout the collection, writing is represented not as a strategy that successfully command illusions to stay, but one capable of arresting the desire to issue such a command. After all, this is a speaker who counts among her illusions the “high editorial illusion of ‘control’” (“Extreme Wisteria”) and confesses that her true “heart’s desire would be only to desire, but not to grasp. / And not by yonder blessed celestial anything I swear” (“Lucid Interval”). The first poem in the collection lays out the tenacity of the compulsion that drives a writer to exaggerate, bend the truth, and construct myths in order to grasp at what is, by definition, ungraspable. The material of poetry is like the “[s]ilk spool of the recluse as she confects her eventual mythomania” (“Infinite Riches in the Smallest Room”). Filled with an impossible mixture of verb tenses, “Infinite Riches in the Smallest Room” explores the urge toward mythomania, understood both as a compulsion to lie, but also as a compulsion to rely on mythos as a way of telling the story of ourselves to ourselves. The speaker foretells a future when the compulsion will win out after a prolonged habit of bringing together, or “confect[ing],” mythos out of material as fragile as silk thread. In the mythos of this poem, the reclusive speaker becomes a double for a “violin spider,” also known as the brown recluse spider. The violin spider has “[h]as six good eyes, arranged in threes. / The rims of wounds have wounds as well.” The speaker confects herself as a double for both the violin spider, whose name has an explicit connection to lyric, and for the brown recluse spider, whose name recalls her admitted isolation. The problem of shaping mythos into meaning becomes apparent when, after describing the violin spider, the speaker abruptly halts and declares: “Sphinx, small print, you are inscrutable.” Like the markings of the violin spider, which are difficult to identify because they are so small, the signifying marks of writing threaten to dissolve into inscrutability. But, the poem insists, the barest signs still communicate: “On the roads, blue thistles, barely visible by night, and, by these, you may yet find your way home.” In essence, this opening poem presents the ars poetica Brock-Broido develops throughout the collection—that poetry communicates best when it does not insist on communicating fully. Many readers will have come to Brock-Broido through her last book, The Master Letters, published in 1993. The Master Letters took up the problem of poetic communication through what Brock-Broido calls a “refraction” of other voices, most centrally that of Emily Dickinson, whose posthumous letters to an unidentified “Master” organize the collection. As in The Master Letters, the speaker of Stay, Illusion does not so much an attempt to speak to the dead, or for the dead, but with the dead, stretching the possessive capacity of the pronoun: [End Page 72] Pronouns are not to be trifled with, possessive ones or otherwise.(Mine is a gazelle, of course.)I am of a fine mind to worship the visible world, the woo and pitch and sign of it.And all that would be buried in the drama of my going on. (“Dear Shadows,”) The speaker returns again and again to the seriousness of the pronoun in Stay, Illusion. The constraints...

The death penalty in a changing society: a survey of recent developments in Japan

Japan’s society and law in particular has recently undergone some significant changes. This article identifies five of these developments that could potentially impact practices relating to the death penalty there, and investigates the effect that they have had so far. Specifically, the developments introduced are: the amendment of the Prison Law governing for the death penalty; the introduction of citizen participation in death penalty-related trials; the change of power to the Democratic Party of Japan; the adoption of new abolitionist instruments by international and regional organizations in which Japan participates; and, the possible establishment of a National Human Rights Institution with power to make recommendations to the government. I argue that at least some of these developments have had a tangible impact, and at the very least are likely to bring down the veil of secrecy currently shrouding death row inmates.

Death Row Confinement and the Meaning of Last Words

Life under sentence of death can be a transformative process. One measure of this transformation can be found in last words, which often highlight the humanity of condemned prisoners on the threshold of execution, in sharp contrast to popular conceptions of these prisoners as evil, remorseless, and irredeemable. Our reading of last words suggests that the transformation process can be best understood by examining the dominant contours of the death row experience, the most recent formative experience in the lives of condemned prisoners before they are put to death.