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304. Jason was placed on a sixty-day suicide watch, but he never thought of taking his life. To the contrary, he worked at adapting to the prison routine. He played basketball with the chaplain, studied Bible booklets, which were plentiful in the prison, and forced himself to eat food that he thought his mother wouldn’t have served to their dog and cat at home. When officials moved him to the nearby unit at Varner, Arkansas, Jason told a few inmates that he was innocent, but he soon gave that up, as hardly anyone believed him. He worked long days in the Arkansas sun on one of the infamous prison hoe squads. As the months passed, he got used to just about everything except the occasional visits from his mother. Her sorrow and his inability to help her he found nearly impossible to bear.

305. The letter writer was Danny Williams.

306. From a letter from Williams to Jason dated January 7, 1995.

307. Ford argued that on the last day of the trial, after Fogleman sought to introduce Damien’s blood-speckled pendant after the state had already rested its case, Burnett met privately with Davis and Fogleman to discuss the unusual request. Ford claimed that during a recess called by Burnett, the judge and the prosecutors “convened in the office of Judge Templeton, at which time anex parte conversation occurred.” In a sworn affidavit, Ford stated his beliefs “that during saidex parte conversation, the court [Burnett] advised the prosecuting attorneys that in the event they proceeded to offer the evidence of the test results on the necklace…that the court would have no alternative but to grant a severance and/or mistrial to…Baldwin” and “that based upon said information…, the prosecuting attorneys elected not to offer the evidence…and thus avoided having the court grant a severance and/or mistrial to the defendant, Charles Jason Baldwin.”

308. Ex parte communications are those that involve one side only.

309. From author interview in February 2001.

310. Damien would later maintain that getting off the antidepressant drugs was the best thing that happened to him during his first year at the prison. He said later that once he had gotten over the shock of withdrawal, he had been able to think more clearly.

311. The inmate, Mark Edward Gardner, had been sentenced to death for the murder of three members of a family in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

312. Gardner also told the author that he was responsible for planting the knife. One time when she visited him, he demonstrated a similar access to drugs by having a guard deliver to her, on the other side of the glass that divided them, a hand-made greeting card, which bulged where a joint of marijuana had been (not very well) hidden. The episode illustrated both the availability of marijuana at the state’s maximum security unit and the willingness of certain officials to participate in what was obviously a suspicious transaction.

313. Damien’s friends on death row came to include Frankie Parker, Gene Perry, Mark Gardner, Don Davis, and Daryl Hill. During the period when Damien arrived on death row, this author was reporting on prison conditions for the weeklyArkansas Times. She corresponded with Gardner and spoke with him frequently. Elements of the plot reported here are based on statements made by Gardner and information provided by Department of Correction officials. By the time this book was written, Parker, Perry, and Gardner had been executed.

314. In another expression of distress, Damien notified the Arkansas Supreme Court on June 27, 1995, that he wanted to waive all challenges to his death sentence and to concentrate only on efforts to overturn the guilty verdict. If that could not be done, he said he was willing to die. The state Supreme Court sent the issue back to Judge Burnett, asking that he make the determination whether Damien had “the capacity to understand the choice of life or death and to knowingly and intelligently waive any and all rights to appeal the death sentence.” Before the matter had to be resolved by Judge Burnett, however, Damien’s lawyers prevailed on him