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A fairly remarkable letter appeared in this newspaper [ Dallas Morning News] recently.

I read it with interest at the time. But I have to admit that the real irony of the thing didn't hit me until a colleague pointed it out later.

You see, it may be that Texas' death row is now named for someone who opposes the death penalty.

How's that for irony?

Kind of like Madalyn Murray O'Hair Baptist Church.

Texas is the capital of capital punishment, so when the former head of the state prison board raises doubts about it, that's probably worth further discussion.

Dallas insurance executive Charles Terrell Sr. isn't quite ready to proclaim himself an opponent of capital punishment.

For now he simply says, "I have questions."

But his questions run deep enough that he expressed them in a letter sent to newspapers all over the state.

A better way

It must have come as a shock to many. No one has better crime-fighting credentials than Charles Terrell - former chairman of the Greater Dallas Crime Commission, former chairman of the Texas Criminal Justice Task Force, former chairman of the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Crime.

He was Gov. Bill Clements' appointee to the state prison board and served as chairman of that board. In his honor, a new prison in East Texas was named the Charles T. Terrell Unit in 1993.

"Let me emphasize, first and foremost, I'm still for crime victims," he said. "I spent my life working for the victims."

And on one level, his doubts about the death penalty are all about fighting crime. He doesn't believe the current system of quietly, clinically executing people by lethal injection does much good in deterring crime.

"It makes me look like an ogre to say this, but if we truly believe in the death penalty as a deterrent, then we ought to go back to the electric chair," he said.

"And if we don't believe in it strongly enough to do that, then we ought to go to life without parole."

And that's the way he is leaning right now. "Life without parole is a far harsher punishment - especially to someone who is 20 years old," he said. "And I believe it's more of a deterrent."

Life without parole also eliminates Mr. Terrell's second major concern over capital punishment - the potential for executing innocent people.

He points to a book he recently read, Actual Innocence . It's an examination of numerous flat-out wrong convictions.

"It's pretty darn scary," he said. "Can you imagine being sentenced to death for something you didn't do?"

And he said it's clear that minorities and the poor still face a far greater risk of being wrongly convicted in our criminal justice system.

Time to reflect

On the morning of July 4, 1995, Mr. Terrell got up, staggered across his bedroom and spent the next five months in the hospital - paralyzed by Guillain-Barre syndrome.

He is still recovering. And he says that experience played a role in his reconsideration of the death penalty.

"For one thing, I had plenty of time to think. I couldn't do anything else," he said.

"I know what it's like to be a prisoner. I was more imprisoned than any inmate ever was. And I know from the experience that life can be worse than death."

His misgivings grew last year when state prison officials decided to move death row to the Terrell prison unit.

"That's eerie," he said. "I don't like it. I just don't like my name being associated with death row."

Would he ever ask that his name be removed from the prison?

"I have thought and prayed about it," he admitted. Then he corrected himself.

"I am thinking and praying about it."

(source: Dallas Morning News)

Source: Letter to the Editor, Dallas Morning News

Second thoughts from a longtime supporter

I have been thinking and praying a lot lately about the death penalty, particularly after the Texas Criminal Justice Department started moving death row inmates to a prison with my name on it. This was a decision that did not thrill me. For most of my life, I have believed the death penalty to be a deterrent to the brutal crimes that result in such a sentence. However, today I'm not as sure.

First of all, death by injection doesn't send the same message or fear as the electric chair, hanging or the gas chamber does. Second, we now have an option of life without the possibility of parole.

I have visited many prisons: from the Terrell Unit in Livingston to San Quentin in California to Angola in Louisiana. They aren't nice places. I think the specter of life without parole in one of them is much more frightening than death by injection.

There are new calls to review the death penalty as to how it applies to the mentally retarded, juveniles, racial disparity, bad court-appointed attorneys and DNA testing that could prove a convicted person was innocent. I don't think it's possible to prove one attorney worse than the rest. I am doubtful that any vicious killer or child rapist is completely with it mentally. I am sorry, but there are 14- and 15-year-olds who are just as mean and poisonous as rattlesnakes.

However, racial disparity is a legitimate issue to investigate. And I believe that anyone facing the death penalty should have the right to a complete investigation as to whether DNA testing or evidence can double check our legal system for error. Not doing so is a criminal act by society. If we can use DNA to determine whether Thomas Jefferson fathered racially mixed children 200 years ago, we should use such testing to make sure innocent people are not mistakenly put to death.

CHARLES T. TERRELL SR.
Past chairman of the board
Texas Criminal Justice Department
Dallas

No one told Charles T. Terrell that his name would adorn death row. He heard whispers, but no one called.

Maybe no one realized he was still alive. After all, many prisons in Texas are named for a crime fighter or lawmaker gone to his great reward. Maybe no one thought a man who once ran the prison system would mind.

Although Charlie Terrell, 61, has made a bad habit of facing death, he remains very much above ground. And with the move of death row earlier this year to the Terrell Unit in East Texas, yes, he does mind. "I cringed," he said.

Terrell is sitting in the office of his Dallas insurance company, where he mailed out an 8-paragraph letter to The Dallas Morning News in March. He has written more letters to the editor than he can count, he said, but this one, in response to an editorial about the death penalty, resonated.

"I have been thinking and praying a lot lately about the death penalty," the letter began, "particularly after the Texas Criminal Justice Department started moving death row inmates to a prison with my name on it. This was a decision that did not thrill me."

Until then, nearly everyone had forgotten about Terrell. State prison officials had not notified him when they transferred the 454 male death row inmates from the Ellis Unit in Huntsville to the newer Terrell Unit about 50 miles away. For 4 years, Terrell was chairman of the board that ran the state prisons, retiring in 1990 after overseeing sweeping reforms and a huge construction program.

He rejoined his insurance company full time, and the prison bearing his name opened in 1993, a small piece of posterity. Instead of a gold watch, he was given a shotgun.

But death row is not the monument he envisioned. Executions are still performed in Huntsville, as required by law, but officials say they moved death row to the Terrell Unit because it is larger, more secure and close to Huntsville. Prison officials say it is the toughest death row in America. It is by far the busiest.

Friends from around the country now call Terrell to tease him after reading articles about inmates "on death row at the Terrell Unit." They probably do not realize he no longer regards the death penalty with the certitude he once did.

"There are certain aspects that I think need to be re- examined," he said carefully. "I have questions."

Terrell admits his thinking is not consistent. He still supports the death penalty and still considers himself a champion for victims' rights. But he questions whether lethal injection is truly a deterrent to crime. He suggests instead the option of life without the possibility of parole, a sentence not available in Texas.

He believes minorities are often treated unfairly by the criminal justice system, and he says every inmate on death row should be able to use DNA testing, if doing so could unequivocally establish their innocence or guilt.

"If we can use DNA to determine whether Thomas Jefferson fathered racially mixed children over 200 years ago, we should use such testing to make sure innocent people are not mistakenly put to death," Terrell wrote in his letter to the editor.

He is wary of injecting himself into death penalty politics, particularly since he supports the presidential ambitions of Gov. George W. Bush, a staunch defender of the system.

Terrell also says he understands why the proximity to Huntsville made his prison an obvious choice.

Since his letter was published, 1 friend on the prison board has called, and Terrell hopes something will happen.

But every morning he sits in a chair in his bedroom and prays for friends and family. He counts his blessings, and he asks for guidance on several questions, including this one: What should he do about his name being on death row?

In the early 1980s, when he was trying to expand his insurance business into California, Terrell dabbled in screenwriting. His own life could have provided rich material.

He was born in 1938, grew up in the West Texas town of San Angelo and overcame a childhood case of polio to become a star football player at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

He later won a seat on the Dallas City Council, earning a reputation as a comer with an interest in race relations and fighting crime. He spent more than a decade serving on almost every commission and task force in town.

But he also suffered a bout with lymphoma and 3 near- fatal food poisoning attacks from his allergy to nuts. Then, on July 4, 1995, he woke up with double vision.

His wife of 41 years, Beverly, took him to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed a rare neurological disorder, Guillain-Barre syndrome. For months, he could not walk or swallow or close his eyes. He wore special goggles so his corneas would not dry out.

His friend Pettis Norman, a former tight end for the Dallas Cowboys, brought he Rev. Jesse Jackson to pray over his semiconscious body. "It's like being in prison, only you're in your own body," Terrell said. "It was like being in solitary."

So when he was finally able to regain his health and resume working, he said, he began to see life and death -- and the death penalty -- differently. Guillain-Barre, he said, showed him how bad life in prison without parole can be. The death penalty, he said, is a necessary evil, and he will not crusade.