Ronald W. Clark Jr.
The Death Row Poet
April 13, 2012

Blinders

Civility, human decency, the difference between creating two wrongs... try to make something right. The difference between right and wrong, the difference between a civilized nation and that of a barbaric society.

Here in America, what is supposed to be the leading country in human decency and civility, we murder our citizens under the mantel of justice, exchanging wrong for wrong, murder for murder, creating a second wrong in an attempt to make things right. Which is absolutely abused and goes against everything we try to teach our youth. That being that two wrongs do not make it right. So why then do we turn around and murder the murderer under the false pretense of justice? For all this is doing is creating a second wrong.

An officer and I were having a discussion on the death penalty when he stated, "There's no difference between the death penalty and our soldiers killing in war."

I went on to explain that our soldiers are not supposed to murder unarmed individuals who are helpless and have surrendered. They are only to use deadly force with deadly force. Whereas in our death chambers here in America, we strap down an individual in a chair or gurney to render them helpless and defenseless to this barbaric act of murder. Where we take the individual's life in a highly scripted manner that makes it hands down the "highest form" of premeditated murder that could ever exist. Hitler's death chambers weren't as well scripted as the murders that have taken place in America's death chambers, where men and women are murdered at an exact date, time, and location in the presence of designated personal and witness. Where these men and women have to do a walk through mock murders just days before they are to be murdered. This is hands down the most heinous and atrocious act of murder that there is! Where is the civility? Where is the human decency? Where is it? This is cruel and inhumane acts of murder like no other! For there's no doubt when you are going through the orchestrated mock murder. You are experiencing the murder that will unfold and take your life in the next 48 hours. If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, then cruel and unusual punishment does not exist in today's society. Running an individual through a mock murder is beyond insane! Only a psychopath would act out the murder of their victim in the presence of their victim! And the state of Florida is doing this.

Civility, human decency... no, we as a society are acting on human emotions of vengeance, acting in a reckless, irrational, demented capacity, trying to turn a second wrong into a right.You have to see there's absolutely no difference in what we are doing. Murder is murder. Open your eyes. Take off the blinders of vengeance and remember what we've been told all our lives: two wrongs will not make a right.

In peace and love,

Ronald W. Clark Jr.
The Death Row Poet
April 13, 2012

[hand drawing of a prisoner cell. Drawn from a bird's eye view.]

Ronald W. Clark Jr. #812974 P-2204
Union Correctional Institution
7819 N.W. 228th Street
Raiford, Florida 32026-4420