Breaking news: Michael Lambrix was killed by the State of Florida on October 5, 2017.
Read more:
http://deathrowjournals.blogspot.com/



Michael Lambrix #482053
Florida State Prison
PO Box 800
Raiford FL 32083


For more information on Mike's case visit:





Contact Gov. Scott and ask him to suspend Mike's and ALL executions.
Phone: (850) 488-7146
Email: Rick.scott@eog.myforida.com - See more at: http://doinglifeondeathrow.blogspot.gr/#sthash.Cw0Zh7Sh.dpuf

recanted and the other gave inconsistent statements to police. Read more http://www.save-innocents.com/save-michael-lambrix.html

Wednesday, 2 December 2015

Clemency denied and execution date set for Mike Lambrix!!







Michael Lambrix #482053
Florida State Prison
7819 NW 228th street
Raiford Florida 32026-1000


Gov. Scott has already broken the record for most executions by a Florida governor!


Contact Gov. Scott and ask him to suspend Mike's and ALL executions.
Phone: (850) 488-7146
Email: Rick.scott@eog.myforida.com
- See more at: http://doinglifeondeathrow.blogspot.gr/#sthash.Cw0Zh7Sh.dpuf

Contact Gov. Scott and ask him to suspend Mike's and ALL executions.
Phone: (850) 488-7146
Email: Rick.scott@eog.myforida.com - See more at: http://doinglifeondeathrow.blogspot.gr/#sthash.Cw0Zh7Sh.dpuf

Tuesday 31 May 2016

Scratching at the Scars of a Shattered Soul

Written for Minutes Before Six

By Michael Lambrix
I would argue that the transformative power of a simple mirror is the foundation for the evolution of self. Looking deep into the image staring back at us, we are compelled to scratch at the scars of our own shattered souls and confront truths we want to avoid.  From the beginning of time this has been true. I can only imagine a primitive version of humankind finding himself crouched down at the muddy edge of a pond looking deep into his own reflection and questioning who he was and wanted to be.  It was that self-examination that brought about evolutionary change.

I was barely 16 and out on my own, far away from any “home” I might have had and struggling to survive on the streets while others my age were still in school.  I found work with a traveling carnival and slept at night in the tents along the midway that housed the games and concessions. I was not alone, but only one of many “midway misfits”.  After the show shut down each night and silence blanketed the darkened grounds, we would emerge from the shadows and congregate in our groups, each chipping in what we could to buy whatever alcohol or drugs might be available. As we each indulged in our vice, the past each of us had run away from would be forgotten.  We had survived another day.


One particular cold winter night outside of Chicago, as our little band of midway misfits broke up,  each to stagger away each in their own direction, I sought warmer shelter. I ventured into the “House of Mirrors.” I was drunk and stoned, but the surreal experience came to define that time in my life. Although I knew each mirror was deliberately made to reflect a distorted image, as I stared I found that it was I who was so damaged and all I wanted to do was run from that reflection of who I was.

It would take another 16 years before I found myself in a solitary cell on Florida´s infamous Death Row, looking deep into a simple plastic mirror at the man I had become. I could no longer pull away.  I had already been condemned to die years earlier and even come within hours of being executed (please read: “The Day God Died”). But it was only then that after years of refusing us any form of mirror under the pretense that mirrors posed a “security threat”, that suddenly we were allowed to purchase and possess simple plastic mirrors.  For the first time in many years I found myself staring at the image looked back at me.
That was over 20 years ago. The experience motivated me to write a widely published essay “To See the Soul – a Search for Self” (published in Welcome to Hell by Jan Arriens as “A Simple Plastic Mirror”)  in which I struggle to confront who I was and who I want to become after realizing I didn´t like the man looking back at me and I’d wanted to become something better.  That mirror contributed to changing who I was, giving me direction in my journey through life. I continue to stagger along the path toward my still unknown destination, as the uncertainty of my fate remains undetermined.

But what I didn´t know then, and do now, is that with each step of the journey we continue to grow. To paraphrase the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “That which does not kill us can only make us stronger.” I came to embrace the belief that each experience is an opportunity to grow, and that I alone possess the power to determine how the misery inflicted upon me might affect me.  And being condemned to die at the hands of man did not deprive me of who I wanted to become.

The poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling became my inspiration as I found myself cast down into an environment of lost souls.  Ones consumed by the hate I would come to know well, because when all else fails, hate finds a way to prevail.  Each day is a struggle to not allow it to possess my soul, too.  And when I do find myself becoming influenced by the destructive darkness of hate, I again read these words:

 If you can keep your head when all about you
    are losing theirs and blaming it on you –
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    but make allowance for their doubting, too –
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
    or being lied about, don´t deal in lies –
or being hated, don´t give way to hating,
    and yet don´t look too good, nor talk too wise –
If you can dream and not make dreams your master,
    If you can think and not make thoughts your aim –
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
    and treat those two imposters just the same –
If you can bear to hear the truth you´ve spoken
    twisted by knives to make a trap for fools;
or watch the things you gave your life to broken
    and stoop and build  ´em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss;
And loss and start again at your beginnings
    and never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    to serve your turn long after they are gone;
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    except the will whish says to them “hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
      or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes or loving friends can hurt you,
    if all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    with sixty seconds worth of distance run;
Yours is the earth and everything in it,
      and which is more, you´ll be a man, my son.

Even under normal circumstances, few reach the point in their lives at which they are compelled to confront who they are, not merely accepting that they can be something better, but taking it to the next step of making the conscious effort to evolve into an improved self.  For most of us, we are leaves fallen into a stream, our destiny by defined where the water might take us with little effort spent changing its course.  Each decision along the way is contained within the boundaries of the stream as if John Calvin´s definition of pre-destiny (a tenet of the Presbyterian faith) dictates the direction of our life, each option (“free will”) limited to that small world we live in.

If a normal life can be compared to flowing peacefully down a stream, then prison life would be like being cast over a cliff, upon raging rapids, violently cutting its way through steep canyon cliffs. Unable to escape nor float downstream, every second of every day you must struggle not to sink and even one moment of weakness will be your last.

Death Row is no different.  Each of us is kept in continuous solitary confinement, but we are still swept toward our own destruction in those same white-water rapids.  Most become so caught up in keeping their own head above the water that they no longer search for elusive pods of calm water hidden in the eddies along the way, and their own survival comes at the cost of dragging others down in their own attempt to rise above.

As the passing years would patiently teach me, after long ago looking into that plastic mirror and making the conscious decision to become a better man than I was, that the image remained incomplete.  I couldn´t have known that by choosing this particular path I would find myself repeatedly tested.  Accepting myself being cast down into an environment consumed by misery and hate, each day I had to find the strength not to become part of the very thing I didn´t want to become.

But in this world, I was expected to be a “convict.” Conforming to an abstract set of values that, while generally written in stone (i.e. – mind your own business, don´t rat on others, be true to your word, etc.), were still subjectively defined by those around you meant that when tested, the choice not to respond as expected would result in a perverted form of peer pressure.  In the eyes of others, you were reduced to something less than a “convict” and in here, anything less than a convict makes you a target.

But as long as a man continues to define himself by what others think, he can never be his own man.  This place is its own hell, and I find myself trapped in a world where doing the right thing is often the wrong thing to do. I find myself precariously balanced between those two conflicting worlds, each pulling at me as I hang above an abyss threatening to consume me. I am not alone. I know of many others who struggle daily to be better men, yet give into those raging rapids and become what they perceive to be a “convict.”  And for that, their lives in here become easier, but their inner struggles become harder.

Many years ago I thought in my ignorance that by looking deep down into theplastic mirror I had discovered my true self. But just as when I found myself alone in that “house of mirrors,” I know now that what you think you see in a mirror is not necessarily a true reflection.  It becomes a distortion of what you want to see.  People go into the “House of Mirrors” expecting to see a distorted image.

Now I look into a mirror knowing that when I do, the reflection will be altered as I consciously scratch away at the scars of a shattered soul.  And it took me many years before I scratched away enough to start to confront the past that formed me into who I was.
When I wrote “To See the Soul – A Search for Self,” I didn´t realize just how pathetically superficial that self-examination was. I only saw the reflection I wanted to see at the time.  It was enough to know I didn´t like the man I was and that I wanted to become something better.

For most of my life I never talked about my childhood or family life beyond the grossly distorted surrogates I created in my own imagination.  I heard it said once that those who didn´t have a life before prison create one.  Crack-heads become self-proclaimed drug lords, pimps become players and killers become “convicts.” To run with the big dogs you had to be willing to become one of them.  But few dare to scratch beneath the surface of their own scarred souls and until they do, they can never hope to evolve into something more than what they are.

The path I choose to journey down is a solitary one. Often it alienates me from those I live amongst.  When confronted by a perceived wrong, such as someone “disrespecting” me, or another form of transgression in this world, I am expected to respond with violence.  Anything less makes me appear as a “coward. ”Those who remain determined to be seen as “convicts” can never understand that for me and others, being labeled a “coward” is preferable to a “killer.”  It takes a conscious decision to turn the other cheek and not be reduced to the kind of person we’ve struggled so hard not to become.

I find my own refuge in books.  If I could, I would give every prisoner a copy of my two favorite books…Dante´s “Inferno,” which provokes a lost soul to contemplate the consequences or our actions, and Victor Frankl´s “Man´s Search for Meaning,” which through profound truth teaches that within each of us is the strength to not simply survive even the most incomprehensible atrocities, but to overcome them.
As Frankl wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one´s attitude in any given set of circumstances; to choose one´s own way….. “forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing: your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation … when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

I no longer keep my mirror taped to my wall.  Now I keep it tucked inside my Bible, so that as I search for strength in the wisdom of the ages, I have it to look into.  And it rests alongside my favorite quotes from “Man´s Search for Meaning”.
Knowing that I live in a world in which in which hate prevails in the absence of love and spreads like a cancer, I find my journey defined by the pursuit of a tangible sense of “love.”  It begins with love of self.  One cannot love oneself if he doesn’t like himself, and one cannot truly love another until they´ve first embraced the love of self. Again, to quote Victor Frankl:

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers.  The truth – that love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire.  Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret – that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: the salvation of man is through love and in love.”
Few can begin to comprehend the depth of misery inflicted upon those condemned to death under the pretense of administering “justice.” Day after day, month after month, year after year we are relentlessly beaten down by the inescapable reality that society has found us unfit to live.  We are cast down into the bowels of a beast devoid of mercy and compassion.  Each day is a struggle to find the strength to hope.
Our artificial environment has been methodically structured to break both body and soul, to erode all sense of hope.  To alienate any pretense of love until all that remains is the flesh they seek to kill.  And few possess the strength, much less the motivation, to rise above it rather than become one with it.

But again, to quote Victor Frankl, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by a lack of meaning and purpose,” and “those who have a “why” can bear with almost any “how,” as in some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”

I found my “meaning” in that simple plastic mirror so long ago, and have tried to stay true to the path I chose to follow.  That doesn´t mean I haven´t stumbled and even fallen along the way. I would be the first to admit that I am far from perfect.  But it’s not about being perfect. It’s about striving to become something better than I once was.  And that in the many years since I found the strength to look into that first simple plastic mirror, I´d like to think I have become someone better.

My journey is coming to an end.  I know I will soon be put to death.  Knowledge of this weighs heavily on my soul and I fight not to be overcome by the gross injustice of my conviction and condemnation.(please check out: www.southerninjustice.net)

But as I look into the mirror, I realize the uncertainty of my fate remains irrelevant, because in the end, nobody gets out alive.  We are all born condemned to die. And perhaps for the purpose of discovering who I was, and had the strength to become, it was necessary for me to follow this particular path. I know that had I not been wrongfully convicted and condemned to death, I would never have had the opportunity to find myself in the simple plastic mirror, and subsequently discover that strength within myself that made me a better man.

I continue to scratch at the scars of my own shattered soul. Scars remain, but with each scratch I come to understand them better, and finding strength to grow in spite of an environment intended to suffocate  growth.  I have found my meaning.  Through the reflection staring back at me.  Even when all else fails, love will prevail.
(end)

NOTE:  If you would like to read about Mike´s “actual innocence” case, please check out www.southerninjustice.net 

If you would like to sign a petition requesting clemency for Mike, please do so at www.save-innocents.com

Click here to read a recent story on Mike and his case


Michael Lambrix 482053
Florida State Prison
P.O. Box 800 (G1205)
Raiford, FL 32083
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Friday 22 January 2016

Execution Day – Involuntary Witness to Murder


By Michael Lambrix
This essay was written by Mike Lambrix for the website Minutes Before Six


As if a scene straight out of The Twilight Zone, circumstances trapped me within the cold and calculated process that resulted in the murder by state sanctioned execution of Oscar Ray Bolin on January 7, 2016. In all the years I´ve been on Florida´s death row, I´ve never been in such close proximity to an execution as it unfolded around me, forcing me to become part of the very process that they intended to then subject me to in precisely five weeks’ time.

On November 30, 2015, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed my death warrant and I was immediately transferred from the main death row unit at Union Correctional (less than a mile away) to the “death watch” housing area on the bottom floor of Q-Wing at Florida State Prison. I joined Oscar down there—his own death warrant had been signed about 5 weeks earlier and they intended to murder him on January 7. There are only three cells in the death watch area, and Oscar was in cell one, and I was place in cell three, with an empty cell separating us.

Through those five weeks, each day brought him closer—his wife of almost twenty years solidly by his side, uncompromised in her commitment to stand by him and prove that he was innocent. And those familiar with the case knew that recently developed evidence did establish a persuasive issue of innocence, too.

His final rounds of appeals focused specifically on evidence supporting his innocence and the hope that the courts would do the right thing. As the New Year weekend passed, the Federal District Court summarily denied review of his innocence claim upon the finding that the lower Federal Court didn´t have jurisdiction to hear his claim of innocence. But there was hope, as the District Court granted a “Certificate of Appealability” (“C.O.A.”) authorizing appellate review before the Eleventh Circuit, and soon after the Eleventh Circuit issued an order establishing a “briefing schedule” in March…it seemed all but certain that Oscar would be granted a stay of execution and his claim of innocence would be fully briefed and heard by the appellate court.

Monday, January 4 passed as he anxiously awaited word that a stay of execution would be granted, but there was only silence from the court. Each day his wife spent every minute she could and it is impossible to imagine the pain she felt—she too was unquestionably a victim caught up in this cold process that unfolded around her.

I sat in my solitary cell not more than ten feet away and found myself impressed with the strength Oscar exhibited, and the concern he held for his wife and what this process inflicted on her. Society wanted to label this man a cold-blooded killer, yet if only those only too willing to throw stones could see the desperate concern he had for his wife, they could see how wrong they are.

Now I struggle to find the words—and with a reluctance to even write about what I involuntarily witnessed. But if I don´t, then who will? And is it really fair that the record of what transpired would otherwise be the state´s own version, leaving no perspective from those that they kill?

I must emphasize that even as much as these events impacted me due to my close proximity to this process, it is not comparable to what they were forced to endure, and the loss those who loved Oscar Bolin suffered. My attempt to share what transpired from my own unique perspective is done in the hope that perhaps by bearing witness, others would see just how incomprehensibly inhuman this process is, and how truly cold-blooded this act of murder is…and to know it is carried out in all of our names.

And I apologize for rambling on—it is not easy for me to find the necessary words. I can only hope that I can convey the true impact of what unfolded and compel those that read this to ask themselves whether this truly is what we aspire our society to be? It´s easy to justify the death penalty by claiming that it is in the interest of justice to kill those convicted of killing another—to become a killer ourselves.

But how many give a thought at all to just how much contemplation is put into this process employed to take that life? I am again reminded of what I once read, written by the philosopher Frederick Nietzsche, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.”
Think about that. It´s easy to dismiss what I say by blindly insisting that a jury convicted Oscar Bolin of murder and that justice demands that society take his life. But really—who is actually investing more conscious thought into the act of taking a human life?

It is for this reason I´m determined to share my own unique perspective of what this process is, and how by these very actions it reduces society itself to that very level of becoming “the monster.” Perhaps in my attempt to share this, others can see just how wrong this is.

On the early morning of Monday, January 4, the day began with the death watch staff advising both me and Oscar of our scheduled visits and phone calls for that day, I had already asked my family and friends not to visit that week as I didn´t want my visits to interfere in any way with Oscar´s visits. All I had was a phone call from my son early that morning and a legal phone call with my lawyer later that day.

Oscar had a visit with his wife and both anxiously awaited any word from the Eleventh Circuit courts hoping that a full stay of execution would come and the court would allow full and fair review of his innocence claim. But the day passed without any word from the court. By that evening Bolin was down to 72 hours—and I know from personal experience how difficult that was, as I had come within hours of execution myself when I was on death watch years earlier—only I was granted a stay.

By Tuesday morning, January 5, Oscar was down to sixty hours, and the clock continued to tick away and yet still nothing from the courts on whether they would allow his claim of innocence to be heard. Oscar spent from late morning until mid-afternoon with his wife in the non-contact visiting area. Upon his return, his demeanor was more subdued and the stress and anxiety he felt became all but tangible. And as I sat silently a few feet away in my own solitary cell, I wondered whether any of those willing to take his life gave even so much as a moment of thought into what they were inflicting upon other human beings—and again, Oscar was not the only one forced to count down those final hours anxiously hoping that phone would ring with the news that the court would allow his claim of innocence to be heard…every second of every moment, every hour that passed inflicted incomprehensible pain upon his wife and those that cared for him.

That evening passed in an uncomfortable silence as the courts would have closed their doors for the night and no news would come until at least that next morning. That psychological trauma of uncertainty weighed heavily upon them.

I doubt Oscar slept much that Tuesday night—I know I didn´t. His T.V. remained on into the early morning hours. By that next morning (Wednesday) he was down to about thirty six hours until his still scheduled execution and still no word from the court. It would be a long day. They brought the breakfast trays as they did each morning, but neither of us had any interest in eating. Down here on death watch, our meals are kept under direct supervision of security staff to ensure nobody (other prisoners or staff) has any chance of tampering with the food or smuggling anything to the condemned prisoner.

This methodical countdown to the intended execution actually starts a full week before, when they remove all personal property from the condemned prisoner´s cell, placing him (or her) on “Phase II.” From the moment they place the condemned prisoner on Phase II (that final week) a guard is posted directly in front of the cell twenty four hours a day, his only job to observe the condemned prisoner to ensure he (or she) doesn´t attempt suicide or harm themselves—and a few have tried. Any activity is written in a forest green “Death Watch Log.” Throughout this time, not even for one second are you allowed to forget that they are counting down your last days—and last hours.

Oscar again had a visit with his wife as she stood faithfully by him spending every moment she could—even if those visits were restricted to a few hours of non-contact (through glass) visits.
By early afternoon Oscar returned to his death watch cell—still no word from the court. The hours dragged by as Oscar talked to the guard stationed in front of his cell, simply talking about anything at all.

Warden Palmer came down, accompanied by Deputy Secretary Dixon (the second highest Department of Corrections employee). They talked to Oscar for a while mostly just to check on how he was holding up. But the preparations had begun and that final twenty four hours was quickly approaching. After they talked to Oscar, they stepped that few feet further down to the front of my cell and spoke to me.

I must admit that I was impressed by their professionalism and their sincerity that bordered on genuine concern. Perhaps the most heard expression on death watch is an almost apologetic “we´re just doing our job” and the truth is that the current staff assigned to work the death watch area and interact with the condemned prisoners counting down their final hours do go to great lengths to treat us with a sense of dignity and respect seldom even seen in the prison system.

The significance of this cannot be understated. I´ve been down here on death watch before years ago and came within hours of being executed myself, and there´s always been a deliberate distance between the condemned and the staff—especially the higher ranking staff. But it´s different this time. In the five weeks that I´ve been down here almost daily high ranking staff have come down to the death watch housing area and made a point of talking to us in an informal manner, abandoning that implicit wall of separation between them and us.

And now none other than the Deputy Secretary himself personally came down to talk to us—I´ve never heard of this before. Shortly after they left, Oscar asked the sergeant for the barber clippers. He wanted to shave his own chest and legs, rather than have them do it the next day. It had to be done, as the lethal injection process requires the attachment of heart monitors and Oscar preferred to shave it himself—as most would.

Oscar received another legal phone call later that afternoon—now down to almost twenty four hours until his scheduled execution and still no decision by the Eleventh Circuit as to whether or not they´d allow review of his innocence claim. The lawyers would call if any news came, but it was assumed that the judges deciding his fate already called it a day and went home. No further phone call came that night. Again Oscar stayed up late, unable to sleep until sometime in the early morning hours and he was not alone, as sleep would be hard to come by.

We reached the day of execution. Typically, they change shifts at 6:00 a.m. working a full twelve hour shift. But on days of scheduled execution, they change shifts at 4:30 a.m., as with the execution scheduled at 6:00 p.m. they cannot do a shift change then, as the entire institution will go on lockdown during that time.
With that final twenty four hours now counting down, each minute was managed by strict “Execution Day” protocol, and the day started earlier than usual. As if an invisible cloud hung in the air, you could all but feel the weight of this day as it was that tangible, and undoubtedly more so on Oscar. But he was holding up remarkably well, maintaining his composure even though the strain was obvious in his voice. How does one go about the day that they know they are to die? Again, I´ve been there myself and I know how he felt and it cannot easily be put into words.

Oscar was diabetic and as with each morning, the nurse came to check his blood sugar level and administer insulin, if necessary. Now within that final twelve hours, nothing would be left to chance. Around 7:00 a.m., they let Oscar take a shower, and then after locking down the entire institution, they took him up front for a last visit with his wife. They would be allowed a two hour non-contact visit until 10:00 a.m., then an additional one hour contact visit—the last visit before the scheduled execution.

Shortly after 11:00 a.m. they escorted Oscar back to the Q-Wing death watch cell. A few minutes later “Brother Dale” Recinella was allowed to come down and spend a few hours with Oscar as his designated spiritual advisor. Contrary to the Hollywood movies depicting the execution process, the prison chaplain is rarely, if ever, involved as each of us are allowed to have our own religious representative—and many choose “Brother Dale” as he is well-known and respected amongst the death row population.

Many years ago Brother Dale was a very successful lawyer, making more money than most can dream of. But then he experienced a life-changing event and spiritual transformation, as chronicled in his book “And I Walk on Death Row” (see, www.iwasinprison.com). Brother Dale and his equally-devoted wife Susan gave up their wealth and privilege and devoted their lives to their faith and ministering to death row.

Even as these final hours continued to count down, I remained in that solitary cell only a few feet away and unable to escape the events as the continued to unfold around me. There are only three cells on death watch and I found it odd that they kept me down here as they proceeded with this final process—when I was on death watch in 1988, they moved me upstairs to another cell removed from the death watch area as they didn´t want any other prisoners in the death watch area as these final events unfolded.

Brother Dale left about 2:00 p.m. and the death watch lieutenant, a familiar presence on death watch, then made a point of talking to Oscar and they went over the protocol—shortly before 4:00 p.m. he would shower again and then be brought around to the west side of the wing where they had only one cell immediately adjacent to the door that led to the execution chamber. I listened as this process was explained, knowing only too well that in precisely five more weeks I would be given the same talk.
The warden and Asst. warden came down again and talked to Oscar. A few minutes later the Secretary (director) of the Florida Department of Corrections, Julie Jones, personally came to Oscar´s cell and sat in a chair and talked to him—I´ve never heard of that happening before. But her tone of voice and mannerisms reflected genuine empathy towards Oscar, and he thanked her for taking that time to talk to him.

As they now closed in on that final two hours before the scheduled execution, Oscar received another phone call from his lawyer—the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals still had not ruled on whether they would grant a stay of execution and allow a full review of his pled innocence claim. Oscar´s voice was obviously stressed. Per protocol, the nurse gave him 5 mg. valium to calm his nerves.

Just before 4:00 p.m., Oscar spoke to me, wanting to talk about a problem he and I had years ago—a problem that I alone was responsible for and of which I have often regretted. In the five weeks we had been on death watch together, it was not spoken of. But now, to my amazement, even dealing with all that he was dealing with, Oscar wanted me to know that he forgave me for what I did. And for a few minutes we talked. And then the warden and his staff removed Oscar from his cell and escorted him around to the west side of the wing, to the execution chamber holding cell, where he would remain until the court cleared the way for execution, or he received a stay of execution and was brought back to this side.

A single sergeant remained on this side, and for the first time since I was brought to death watch I was alone as the sergeant remained at the desk just outside the cell block area—and I didn´t want to be alone. As I do often, especially when stressed, I paced in my cell anxious to hear any word on what was going on and checking my watch almost every minute, and each minute dragged by so slowly it was almost as if time itself had stopped and I couldn´t begin to imagine what Oscar and his wife were going through.

At irregular intervals the sergeant would walk down to my cell to check on me and I asked whether there was any more news. The Eleventh Circuit had denied his appeal and the case quickly moved on to the U.S. Supreme Court. The designated time of scheduled execution—6:00 p.m.—came and went without any word from the Supreme Court.

Oscar would remain in that holding cell until the Supreme Court cleared the way for execution—but at least both he and his loved ones still had hope as the minutes continued to tick away.
Most don´t realize just how many people are involved in this execution process and everybody remained on hold not knowing whether the execution would proceed or not. Immediately adjacent to my cell was a solid steel door that led directly into a hallway stretching the entire width of the wing. Just inside this door was an area with a coffee pot and chairs, and I could hear a number of unknown people congregated only a few feet away from me on the other side of the door as they discussed the continued uncertainty.

A larger crowd of unknown participants congregated on the lower quarter-deck area between the west side of the wing where the death watch housing area was and the door that led into the east side where Oscar remained in the holding cell. I couldn´t make out what they were saying and wondered, especially when I periodically heard laughter. I suppose this long wait was stressful on them, too, and a moment of levity could be forgiven. And yet I found myself wondering what they could possibly find funny as they awaited that moment of time when they would each assume their assigned task and take the life of another human being.

One hour passed, and then another, and another yet. Then at almost 10:00 p.m. it suddenly got quiet—very quiet. All the voices that continuously hummed both behind that steel door and the quarter-deck area just suddenly went silent and without anyone around to tell me; I knew that they all moved to their positions in the execution chamber.

It remained utterly silent—so quiet that I could hear the coffee pot percolating at the sergeant´s desk on the other side of the gate and I held my watch as the minutes passed and I strained to hear any sound at all. But there was nothing and I knew they were now putting Oscar to death. I cannot explain it, but I just felt it—and I got on my knees and I prayed, and yet I couldn´t find any words and found myself kneeling at my bunk in silence for several minutes.

Then I heard what sounded like a door on the other side of that concrete wall that separated my cell from the execution chamber. Then I once again heard muffled voices on the other side of that steel door. It was over and it went quickly…Oscar was dead. A few minutes later I heard the sound of a number of people going up the stairs leading away from the execution chamber. Their job was done and in an orderly manner they were leaving.

For obvious reasons, I didn´t sleep that night. Only a few feet behind that wall of my cell, Oscar´s body now lay growing cold. There are no words that can describe how I felt, but that emptiness that consumed me and left me laying in my bunk in complete silence through the night.

Somewhere in the early morning hours I fell asleep, only to awaken just after 7:00 a.m. It was a new day. The death watch Lieutenant was already here and I was now the only one left on death watch. But just that quickly, I was instructed that I had to immediately pack my property as they had to move me to cell one—the cell that Oscar only recently vacated.

I didn´t want to move to that cell, but I didn´t have any choice. That was the same cell I previously occupied in late 1988 when I myself came within hours of my own execution (read, “The Day God Died”) and especially knowing that only a few hours again Oscar was in that cell still alive and holding on to hope, I just didn´t want to be moved to that cell. Every person who has been executed in the State of Florida in the past forty years was housed in that cell prior to their execution.

But it wasn´t a choice and I obediently packed my property and with the officer´s assistance, I was moved from cell three to cell one. And as I worked on putting all my property back where it belonged (storing it in the single steel footlocker bolted firmly to the floor), a long-awaited phone call from my close friend Jan Arriens came through.

While on death watch, we are allowed two personal phone calls each week, and since my warrant was signed five weeks earlier, I had anxiously awaited the opportunity to talk to Jan, but through the Christmas holiday he was visiting his family in Australia. Having only recently returned to his home in England, he arranged this phone call.

It was good to hear a friendly voice just at that time when I most especially needed a friend. But we only had a few minutes to talk and unlike those eternal moments of the night before, these minutes passed far too quickly. But just hearing the voice of a friend comforted me.

Shortly after that phone call, I then had a legal visit and was escorted to the front of the prison to meet with my lawyer´s investigator. We spent hours going over legal issues and then it was back to the death watch cell. Not long after I returned, I learned that the governor had already signed another death warrant. This machinery of death continued to roll along. By mid-afternoon a familiar face was brought down to join me…Mark Asay (who we call “Catfish”) had his death warrant signed that morning, with his execution scheduled for March 17, exactly 5 weeks after my own scheduled execution.

With the methodical precision of a mechanical machine, Florida has resumed executions with a vengeance, establishing a predictable pattern of signing a new death warrant even before the body of the last executed prisoner has grown cold.

Now I remain in the infamous “cell one,” next in line to be executed—and on February 11, 2016 at 6:00 p.m., the State of Florida plans to kill me. Until then, I will remain in a cell in which the last twenty three occupants, without exception, resided until their own execution. I do not like being in this solitary cell. 
Michael Lambrix 482053
Florida State Prison
7819 N.W. 228th Street
Raiford, FL 32026

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