Al Jazeera recent­ly released a video of an inter­view with for­mer Oklahoma death-row inmate Michael Selsor (pic­tured). Selsor was the most recent per­son exe­cut­ed in the U.S. and prob­a­bly the inmate who served the longest time between con­vic­tion and exe­cu­tion of any­one in U.S. his­to­ry. He was first sen­tenced to death in 1976 for mur­der and was impris­oned over 36 years pri­or to his exe­cu­tion on May 1, 2012. Although his sen­tence was reduced to life when Oklahoma’s death penal­ty was over­turned in 1976, he was re-sen­tenced to death for the same crime in 1998. The inter­view was con­duct­ed in 2010 and was the only inter­view Selsor grant­ed. When asked about the dif­fer­ence between the death penal­ty and life with­out parole, Selsor said, ​“The only dif­fer­ence between death and life with­out parole is one you kill me now, the oth­er one you kill me lat­er. There’s not even a shred of hope. There’s no need to even try to muster up a seed of hope because you’re just gonna die of old age in here.…With the death penal­ty sen­tence I’m enti­tled to more appeals — the gov­ern­men­t’s gonna pay for it. I don’t have to do it myself if I don’t have the mon­ey for a lawyer which I don’t have. Instead I’m rely­ing on pub­lic defend­ers to do my appeals.” Selsor was also asked about how he was han­dling his inevitable exe­cu­tion: ​“I’m not gonna beg ​‘em to spare my life. I’ll try to keep my head up with a lit­tle bit of dig­ni­ty, and I’m gonna be buried out on Periwood Hill.” See the video of the interview.

(J. Rushing, ​“Interview with a death row inmate,” Al Jazeera English, May 10, 2012; Photo cred­it: Al Jazeera English). See Death Row and Executions. See Time on Death Row. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast on Death Row.

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