Download or read book Death Row Chaplain written by Earl Smith and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting, behind-the-bars look at one of America's most feared prisons: San Quentin-- by a minister to the lost souls sitting on death row. Himself a former criminal, Smith shares the most important lessons he's learned from years of helping inmates discover God's plan for them. Their stories show us that it is still possible to find God's grace and mercy from behind bars, and that it's never too late to turn our lives around.
Download or read book Death Row Chaplain written by Byron E. Eshelman and published by Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1962 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An eyewitness account of life on Death Row, executions of the condemned, and a searching analysis of capital punishment by the chaplain at San Quentin State Prison."--Cover.
Download or read book Within These Walls written by Rev. Carroll Pickett and published by Crossroad Press. This book was released on 2017-02-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FORMER TEXAS PRISON CHAPLAIN REV. CARROLL PICKETT, WORKING WITH TWO-TIME EDGAR AWARD WINNER AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR CARLTON STOWERS, PROVIDES THIS ELOQUENT, UNFLINCHING LOOK AT CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Within These Walls is the powerful memoir of Rev. Carroll Pickett, who spent fifteen years as the death house chaplain at “The Walls,” the Huntsville unit of the Texas prison system. In that capacity, Reverend Pickett ministered to ninety-five men before they were put to death by lethal injection. They came with sinister nicknames like “The Candy Man” and “The Good Samaritan Killer,” some contrite, some angry—a few who might even have been innocent. All of them found in Reverend Pickett their last chance for an unbiased confessor who would look at them only as fellow humans, not simply as the convicted criminals the rest of society had already dismissed them as. This firsthand experience gave Reverend Pickett the unique insight needed to write an impassioned statement on the realities of capital punishment in America. The result is a thought-provoking and compelling book that takes the reader inside the criminal mind, inside the execution chamber, and inside the heart of a remarkable man who shares his thoughts and observations not only about capital punishment, but about the dark world of prison society
Download or read book Crossing the River Styx written by Russ Ford and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2023-03-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Reverend Russ Ford, who served as the head chaplain on Virginia’s death row for eighteen years, raged against the inequities of the death penalty—now outlawed in Virginia—while ministering to the men condemned to die in the 1980s and 1990s. Ford stood watch with twenty-eight men, sitting with them in the squalid death house during the final days and hours of their lives. In July 1990 he accidentally almost became the 245th person killed by Virginia’s electric chair as he comforted Ricky Boggs in his last moments, a vivid episode that opens this haunting book. Many chaplains get to know the condemned men only in these final moments. Ford, however, spent years working with the men of Virginia’s death row, forging close bonds with the condemned and developing a nuanced understanding of their crimes, their early struggles, and their challenges behind bars. His unusual ministry makes this memoir a unique and compelling read, a moving and unflinching portrait of Virginia’s death row inmates. Revealing the cruelties of the state-sanctioned violence that has until recently prevailed in our backyard, Crossing the River Styx serves as a cautionary tale for those who still support capital punishment.
Download or read book Now I Walk on Death Row written by Dale S. Recinella and published by Chosen Books. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As one of the most influential finance lawyers in the country, Dale Recinella was living the American dream. With prestige, power, and unthinkable paychecks at his fingertips, his life was perfect... at least on paper. But on the heels of closing a huge deal for the Miami Dolphins, Dale's life took an unfathomable turn. He heard--and heeded--Jesus's call to sell everything he owned and follow him. Thus began a radical quest to live out the words of Jesus--no matter what the cost. In this quick-paced, well-written story, Recinella shares his amazing journey from growing up in the slums of Detroit to racing through "the good life" on Wall Street to finally walking the humble path of God--the path of ministry on death row.
Download or read book God s Feet are in My Sandbox written by Rick Anderson and published by Tate Publishing. This book was released on 2011-04 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God's Feet are in My Sandbox is one of the most powerful and captivating first-hand accounts of God's movement in our world to affirm life, love, forgiveness and hope. Rick's story will rock your world! Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents Having spent 16 years as chaplain for a unit of 2200 men, and ministering to 95 men on their last day in the Death House, I am totally committed to the fact that this is an important ministry and that these are people. Rev. Anderson writes greatly of how important it is to see them as people and to understand the fact that restorative justice is possible. He still has to face the system. Rev. Carroll Pickett, author of Within These Walls Dare to enter one man's Spirit-filled world that overflows with the rejuvenating power of Almighty God. Join him as he ministers to condemned men in their dungeons and testifies to God's unbridled love poured out. Walk beside him as he risks it all to reach out to the most hated man on Texas' Death Row.
Download or read book The Prisoner and the Chaplain written by Michelle Berry and published by Wolsak and Wynn. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last twelve hours of his life, a death-row prisoner relays his story to a chaplain.
Download or read book Death Row Chaplain written by Brenda Jackson and published by Signet. This book was released on 1972-06-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Let the Lord Sort Them written by Maurice Chammah and published by Crown. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America “If you’re one of those people who despair that nothing changes, and dream that something can, this is a story of how it does.”—Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times Book Review WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment. Then, amid a larger wave of criminal justice reform, came the death penalty’s decline, a trend so durable that even in Texas the punishment appears again close to extinction. In Let the Lord Sort Them, Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched. We meet Elsa Alcala, the orphaned daughter of a Mexican American family who found her calling as a prosecutor in the nation’s death penalty capital, before becoming a judge on the state’s highest court. We meet Danalynn Recer, a lawyer who became obsessively devoted to unearthing the life stories of men who committed terrible crimes, and fought for mercy in courtrooms across the state. We meet death row prisoners—many of them once-famous figures like Henry Lee Lucas, Gary Graham, and Karla Faye Tucker—along with their families and the families of their victims. And we meet the executioners, who struggle openly with what society has asked them to do. In tracing these interconnected lives against the rise of mass incarceration in Texas and the country as a whole, Chammah explores what the persistence of the death penalty tells us about forgiveness and retribution, fairness and justice, history and myth. Written with intimacy and grace, Let the Lord Sort Them is the definitive portrait of a particularly American institution.
Download or read book Death Row Texas written by Michelle Lyons and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Tells the story of a traumatic life spent witnessing hundreds of people being executed in Texas’ most infamous prison.” —Daily Beast “I can’t remember his name or his crime. What I remember is the nothingness. No family members, no friends, no comfort. Maybe he didn’t want them to come, maybe they didn’t care, maybe he didn’t have any in the first place. It was just a prison official and two reporters, including me, looking through the glass at this man strapped fast to the gurney, needles in both arms, staring hard at the ceiling. When the warden stepped forward and asked if he wanted to make a last statement, the man barely shook his head, said nothing and started blinking. That’s when I saw it: a single tear at the corner of his right eye. A tear he desperately wanted to blink away, a tear he didn’t want us to see. It pooled there for a moment before running down his cheek. The warden gave his signal, the chemicals started flowing, the man coughed, sputtered and exhaled. A doctor entered the room, pronounced the man dead and pulled a sheet over his head.” —Michelle Lyons, from the Prologue Michelle Lyons witnessed nearly 300 executions at the Texas State penitentiary. This “haunting, dark and hard to put down” behind-the-scenes look at those final moments of life relates shocking true stories of the inmate, his/her family members, prison officials, the death-row chaplain and the victim’s loved ones—all of whom come together in the death chamber (Houston Chronicle).
Download or read book Jesuit Post written by Patrick Gilger and published by Orbis Books. This book was released on 2014-03-31 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawn from the eponymous blog essays on faith, culture, and lives of Christian discipleship by young Jesuit priests and seminarians for young adult seekers.
Download or read book The Voices We Carry written by J. S. Park and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reclaim Your Headspace and Find Your One True Voice As a hospital chaplain, J.S. Park encountered hundreds of patients at the edge of life and death, listening as they urgently shared their stories, confessions, and final words. J.S. began to identify patterns in his patients’ lives—patterns he also saw in his own life. He began to see that the events and traumas we experience throughout life become deafening voices that remain within us, even when the events are far in the past. He was surprised to find that in hearing the voices of his patients, he began to identify his own voices and all the ways they could both harm and heal. In The Voices We Carry, J.S. draws from his experiences as a hospital chaplain to present the Voices Model. This model explores the four internal voices of self-doubt, pride, people-pleasing, and judgment, and the four external voices of trauma, guilt, grief, and family dynamics. He also draws from his Asian-American upbringing to examine the challenges of identity and feeling “other.” J.S. outlines how to wrestle with our voices, and even befriend them, how to find our authentic voice in a world of mixed messages, and how to empower those who are voiceless. Filled with evidence-based research, spiritual and psychological insights, and stories of patient encounters, The Voices We Carry is an inspiring memoir of unexpected growth, humor, and what matters most. For those wading through a world of clamor and noise, this is a guide to find your clear, steady voice.
Download or read book The Buddha in Jail written by Cuong Lu and published by OR Books. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book of 52 vignettes—stories and teachings about Cuong Lu’s six years as a prison chaplain. Lu shares insights into the prisoner’s mindset, something with implications for us all, whether or not we are in a conventional jail. As a prison chaplain, Cuong discovered that when the men inside allowed themselves to feel their pain—including remorse from committing crimes—knowing and feeling the truth became a source of strength for them. And when the inmates felt listened to, understood, and not judged, it transformed their sense of who they are, and as a result changed their attitudes and their behavior. This book is not just about the prisoners. It’s about all of us. We’re each caught in distorted and limiting ideas of ourselves. We don’t believe freedom and happiness are attainable. But when we come to believe in ourselves, we discover the freedom and happiness already within. Cuong Lu, Buddhist teacher, scholar, and writer, was born in Nha Trang, Vietnam, in 1968. He majored in East Asian studies at the University of Leiden, and in 1993 was ordained a monk at Plum Village in France under the guidance of Thich Nhat Hanh. In 2000, he was recognized as a teacher in the Lieu Quan line of the Linji School of Zen Buddhism. In 2015, he received a master’s degree in Buddhist Spiritual Care at Vrije University in Amsterdam. Lu is the founder of Mind Only School, in Gouda, the Netherlands, where he teaches Buddhist philosophy and psychology, specializing in Yogachara Buddhism combined with the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) School of Nagarjuna.
Download or read book 13 Ways of Looking at the Death Penalty written by Mario Marazziti and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nation states and communities throughout the world have reached certain decisions about capital punishment: It is the destruction of human life. It is ineffective as a deterrent for crime. It is an instrument the state uses to contain or eliminate its political adversaries. It is a tool of “justice” that disproportionality affects religious, social, and racial minorities. It is a sanction that cannot be fixed if unjustly applied. Yet the United States—along with countries notorious for human rights abuse—remains an advocate for the death penalty. In these thirteen pieces, Mario Marazziti exposes the profound inhumanity and irrationality of the death penalty in this country, and urges us to join virtually every other industrialized democracy in rendering capital punishment an abandoned practice belonging to a crueler time in human history. A polemical book, yes, yet one that brings together a wide range of stories to compel the heart as well the mind.
Download or read book Karma and Punishment written by Adam J. Lyons and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-03-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite being one of the most avowedly secular nations in the world, Japan may have more prison chaplains per inmate than any other country, the majority of whom are Buddhist priests. In this groundbreaking study of prison religion in East Asia, Adam Lyons introduces a form of chaplaincy rooted in the Buddhist concept of doctrinal admonition rather than Euro-American notions of spiritual care. Based on archival research, fieldwork inside prisons, and interviews with chaplains, Karma and Punishment reveals another dimension of Buddhist modernism that developed as Japan’s religious organizations carved out a niche as defenders of society by fighting crime. Between 1868 and 2020, generations of clergy have been appointed to bring religious instruction to bear on a range of offenders, from illegal Christian heretics to Marxist political dissidents, war criminals, and death row inmates. The case of the prison chaplaincy shows that despite constitutional commitments to freedom of religion and separation of religion from state, statism remains an enduring feature of mainstream Japanese religious life in the contemporary era.
Download or read book Dead Man Walking written by Helen Prejean and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-02-02 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment and an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty • "Stunning moral clarity.” —The Washington Post Book World • Basis for the award-winning major motion picture starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn "Sister Prejean is an excellent writer, direct and honest and unsentimental. . . . She almost palpably extends a hand to her readers.” —The New York Times Book Review In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier’s death, the Roman Catholic nun came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. She also came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job it was to execute—men who often harbored doubts about the rightness of what they were doing. Out of that dreadful intimacy comes a profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment. Here Sister Helen confronts both the plight of the condemned and the rage of the bereaved, the fears of a society shattered by violence and the Christian imperative of love. On its original publication in 1993, Dead Man Walking emerged as an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty. Now, some two decades later, this story—which has inspired a film, a stage play, an opera and a musical album—is more gut-wrenching than ever, stirring deep and life-changing reflection in all who encounter it.
Download or read book When Truth Is All You Have written by Jim McCloskey and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A riveting and infuriating examination of criminal prosecutions, revealing how easy it is to convict the wrong person and how nearly impossible it is to undo the error.” —Washington Post "No one has illuminated this problem more thoughtfully and persistently." —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy Jim McCloskey was at a midlife crossroads when he met the man who would change his life. A former management consultant, McCloskey had grown disenchanted with the business world; he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary at the age of 37. His first assignment, in 1980, was as a chaplain at Trenton State Prison. Among the inmates was Jorge de los Santos, a heroin addict who'd been convicted of murder years earlier. He swore to McCloskey that he was innocent—and, over time, McCloskey came to believe him. With no legal or investigative training to speak of, McCloskey threw himself into the case. Two years later, thanks to those efforts, Jorge de los Santos walked free, fully exonerated. McCloskey had found his calling. He established Centurion Ministries, the first group in America devoted to overturning wrongful convictions. Together with his staff and a team of forensic experts, lawyers, and volunteers—through tireless investigation and an unflagging dedication to justice—Centurion has freed 65 innocent prisoners who had been sentenced to life or death. When Truth Is All You Have is McCloskey's inspirational story, as well as those of the unjustly imprisoned for whom he has fought. Spanning the nation, it is a chronicle of faith and doubt; of triumphant success and shattering failure. It candidly exposes a life of searching and struggle, uplifted by McCloskey's certainty that he had found what he was put on earth to do. Filled with generosity, humor, and compassion, it is the soul-bearing account of a man who has redeemed innumerable lives—and incited a movement—with nothing more than his unshakeable belief in the truth.
