It is not fashionable today to write something good about an ex-convict. Nevertheless, that is what I am setting out to do in this essay.
I received a letter recently from a correspondent who lives in Wales. In it, she relates having met a man, Mike Cervi, who had been imprisoned with me several years ago on Georgia's death row. It is a good story. We can be sure that there are many stories not unlike this one to be told, but mainstream media lacks the requisite political courage to tell them.
I remember Mike very well. What I remember most about him was his courage. One clear and sunny morning on Georgia's death row, a man named Richard Tucker was taken from the cell block by the execution squad and locked down in the cell next to the execution chamber. Mike was Richard Tucker's best friend. Mike literally begged the lieutenant in charge to give him a moment to say goodbye to his friend before the squad took Richard out to kill him.
To grant such a request would have been a very human thing to do. Of course, the request was denied.
On the day of the execution, Mike was scheduled to go outside onto the fenced-in exercise yard. Once on the yard, he quickly scaled the twelve feet of razor-wired fence and climbed up onto the cell block roof.
Several automatic rifles and shotguns zeroed in on him. One guard after another shouted, “Get down or I'll shoot!”
It is important to note here that Mike never went in the direction of the prison's perimeter double fences — 3- and 5-metres high respectively — both topped with razor wire.
Undaunted by the threats, Mike briskly walked several hundred yards to the other end of the roof. He sat on the edge just above the window of the cell in which his friend, now just a few feet away, was awaiting death in Georgia's electric chair. From that position he and his friend yelled last words to one another. Before each had said his final goodbye, a group of guards came and took Mike away.
He lost a lot of blood; he had been cut to ribbons by the layers of razor wire.
Alas, the newspaper accounts of that incident said that he had “tried to escape from death row”.
The report scared the government so much that $30,000 of state funds were immediately allocated to purchase more razor wire for all of the state's prisons.
To this day, Georgia's citizens do not know that there was no escape attempt but rather a forced and dangerous farewell between two good friends — one of whom was to be killed in a matter of hours.
These days, Mike gives international lectures against capital punishment. It was after one of his presentations in the United Kingdom that my correspondent went up to him and shook his hand. I was deeply moved by the things that were said about me by both of them. During the meeting he told her that he has married his high school sweetheart and now has a 2-year-old daughter. I am glad for him and his family.
Mike is yet another classic example of how stupid the death penalty is. It is too bad that a story like this will never get ink in mainstream newspapers. You see, the factual aspects of his story, and others like it, conflict with the establishment's politics — politics which are not into humanising convicts, or even ex-convicts. We do not fit into its agenda.
BY BRANDON ASTOR JONES
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns (include your name and full return address on the envelope, or prison authorities may refuse to deliver it). He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA, or email <brandonastorjones@hotmail.com>. Jones is seeking a publisher for his collected prison writings. Please notify him of any possible leads. Visit Jones' web page at .]