Death-row exoneree Ron Keine (pic­tured) reflects on spend­ing the hol­i­days on death row:

It is Christmas time on the row. At night I can hear the muf­fled sounds of a grown man cry­ing in his pil­low. His trusty pil­low which is his only safe con­fi­dant as emo­tions are seen as weak­ness in prison and can even get you killed. Everywhere in the world it is a time for hap­pi­ness, a time to rejoice, but here on death row it is depres­sion and sad­ness in the very souls of us death row denizens.

I miss the excite­ment of the myth­i­cal but harm­less pre­var­i­ca­tions and fibs employed to instill the con­cept of Santa Claus in the quizzi­cal minds of chil­dren. Memories that will last a life­time. The lega­cy of elves and fairies.

Awkward sad­ness per­me­ates every mol­e­cule of the stone and steel that sur­rounds us. That stone and steel that sep­a­rates us from our loved ones at this solemn time of year. While the chil­dren are open­ing presents on Christmas morn­ing, rev­el­ing in bliss, miles away in some for­got­ten dun­geon cell, a tear runs down my cheek. As the fam­i­ly sits down, heads bowed for the meal’s prayer, I sit alone on my steel bunk and try to pic­ture the lone bare table set­ting that my moth­er arranged in my hon­or. There will be no Christmas din­ner for me this year. My prison issued din­ner looks sick­en­ing as it defi­ant­ly slides down the win­dows and walls out­side of my cell as if it was try­ing to rejoin the steel tray lay­ing on the floor beneath it.

Why must I suf­fer like this? Why am I here? It will be almost anoth­er year before I will be exon­er­at­ed when it is dis­cov­ered that the pros­e­cu­tor hid the evi­dence of my inno­cence and man­u­fac­tured the case against me. I have done noth­ing to deserve this, but I feel help­less to change the sit­u­a­tion. That arro­gant pros­e­cu­tor is prob­a­bly sit­ting next to a beau­ti­ful Christmas tree, open­ing the presents with his chil­dren while I sit in despair. Who is the real criminal here?

I must fight these emo­tions or they will drag me down even deep­er in this pit of lone­li­ness. I must cast them off before they become too much of a bur­den to bear. Before I get so mired down in this hope­less­ness that I become like Larry, down in cell 14 who suc­cumbed to the pres­sures and hung himself yesterday.

Yes, the fol­low­ing year would bring both my exon­er­a­tion, and that of my best friend Doc who had occu­pied the cell next to mine. It would also bring Doc’s suicide.

It’s 40 Christmases lat­er now, and I still remem­ber the pain, lone­li­ness, and sense of help­less­ness of that place. I remem­ber those who were with me on death row, often think of those there now, and nev­er for­get the fam­i­lies who are suf­fer­ing along­side but apart from their incar­cer­at­ed loved ones.

Ron Keine, Christmas Memories from Death Row Forty Christmases Later, Spending the Holidays on Death Row, December 23, 2018. See Death Row and Innocence.

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