A Saint on Death Row Read online

  Each October, the Community organizes a torchlit March of Remembrance for the Roman Jews and all other Jews who perished under the Nazis. This march winds dramatically from the portico of Santa Maria and ends at the steps of Rome's great Synagogue. Almost as dramatic is the enormous feast for the poor that the Community hosts each Christmas afternoon inside the Basilica of Santa Maria.

  More than fifteen years ago, members of the Community, believing they had a gospel responsibility to act as peacemakers, undertook a series of quiet, amateur efforts on their own and succeeded in arranging a peace in Mozambique between the guerrillas and the government (after sixteen years of war and one million casualties). The peace has held ever since. Not only did the Community go on to help achieve a similar, if less certain, peace in Guatemala, it continues to attempt reconciliation in Algeria, the Balkans, Burundi, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and other hot spots, working intuitively and patiently, never abandoning hope, and true to the belief that “war is the greatest poverty of all.”

  Each year, for more than twenty years, the Community has hosted an international interfaith conference in the hopes of building peace in troubled parts of the world by encouraging informal bonds of interfaith friendship and cooperation. At these conferences I have seen Arabs lunching with Israelis, Serbs dining with Bosnians, Irish Protestants drinking with Irish Catholics. Italian food and Italian wine are most helpful in establishing the right atmosphere—but above all there is the magic of Italian hospitality. As in so many of the Community's initiatives, the overriding goal is to quell hatred and division and to strengthen the bonds of community and fellow feeling wherever these can be encouraged.

  The Community of Sant'Egidio has recently begun to build clinics for HIV/AIDS patients throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, for which medical doctors of the Community train local staff. These clinics have already had signal success, especially in halting the communication of the virus from pregnant woman to fetus and in reaching more children than any other program in Africa. To help pay for its efforts, the Community has somehow lured the prosperous Italian wine industry into backing its Wine for Life program by which many of the best bottles of Italian wine sport a Wine for Life decal. The decal represents a small tariff on each bottle, which in turn supports the building and staffing of the African clinics.

  As I read over the above paragraph, the thought presses upon me that to write that “the Community has somehow lured the prosperous Italian wine industry” is more than a little disingenuous. I know exactly how the Community has managed to do this: they have a secret weapon named Mario Marazziti.

  Mario was among the first Roman teenagers to join the Community. Not as securely bourgeois as many of the other early members, he was orphaned fairly early. His mother died when Mario was six; his father, a piano player and erratic provider who sired children by several different women, died when Mario had barely finished university. Such experiences set Mario well apart from his contemporaries. I doubt there are any children on this earth better cared for than middle-class Italian children, who generally live with their parents into their thirties, can count on substantial trust funds to cushion their way in the world, and may even have their mamma installed as cook-housekeeper for the duration of her natural life. To find oneself cast out upon the world with little but one's own wits as weapons is an experience few middle-class Italians would be familiar with. It might be expected to leave an Italian boy crabbed, resentful, even permanently disoriented. It made Mario strong, graceful, and resourceful.

  Now in his midfifties, Mario has what for lesser mortals might be considered three full-time jobs: a director of RAI, the national television service, he has recently been named president of a government-sponsored foundation that tackles problems associated with diseases of the blood that especially afflict people born in the Mediterranean region. (Like Tay-Sachs and sickle-cell anemia, these blood diseases can be found almost exclusively within certain genetically related groups.) Mario has been married for many years to another member of the Community, Cristina, a quiet, effective doctor, who is largely responsible for turning the African AIDS program into such a success.

  Together, after fulfilling every jot and tittle of the long and excruciatingly difficult adoption process demanded by the Italian state, Mario and Cristina succeeded in adopting Andrea, a boy who came to them at last as a ten-year-old from the Community's shelter for children. There were, of course, a few rough patches in the raising of Andrea, who had no confidence in himself at the outset and required much shoring up by his adoptive parents. I recall Mario's intervening when a teacher told Andrea at the age of thirteen that he should give up school and “go to work.” “Professoressa stronza!” exclaimed Mario under his breath, invoking the most vivid Italian slang. In his carefully composed letter to la professoressa, however, Mario merely suggested that she, not her student, would be well advised to seek another line of work, so as not to destroy teenagers just starting to bloom. Not long ago, Andrea graduated cum laude with a degree in the science of education from the Roman university LUMSA. Today, Andrea is himself a father—of little Matteo—and Mario and Cristina are what can only be called supergrandparents.

  But being a grandparent, super- or otherwise, should never be considered a job. Mario's third job, which he has held for many years, is as portavoce (press spokesman) for Sant'Egidio. Whereas his first two jobs yield modest salaries, this third one, like all Sant'Egidio jobs, pays nothing. It was in this third job that he came in contact with Dominique Green.

  Dominique told me when we first met that he had been advised by another Death Row inmate that, given his lack of familial support, he needed to look for a new family. Italy, the older man said, try Italy. The Italians are really bothered by the American institution of the death penalty. Maybe you could find support among them. Dominique took this advice and wrote to several Italian periodicals, asking for friends. One newspaper—l'Unità, at that time the Communist Party daily—translated his letter into Italian and printed it (as did a humor magazine, Linus, now defunct).

  Here is Dominique's letter. Unfortunately, the original has disappeared. I was able to obtain only the translation into Italian, as published by l'Unità in March 1995. Though I have translated l'Unità's Italian back into English, I can give no guarantee that the English words I have chosen are exactly the same ones Dominique used. This is as close as we can come to hearing Dominique's voice in his first attempt to move into the world beyond his prison cell:

  Hello, my name is Dominique Green. I am a prisoner on Death Row. I have been imprisoned for three years and I am twenty years old. I am an African-American teenager and I have been condemned to death for murder. The only problem is that I did not commit the crime I was accused of.

  And this is the reason I write: I need someone to help me. I thought you might like to help me to find someone who has the time to write to me or to help me—whichever they wish to do. Because in recent years I have not known exactly how to ask for help or for friendship.

  I ask you now not only because the loneliness of this place begins to get to me but also because I realize that I can end up dead for something I did not do. Also this: the date of my execution is not yet set because my case is at the beginning of the appeals process.

  I ask your help in this way: can you find someone who wishes to help me or simply someone who wishes to become my friend and to write to me? But if you do not wish to help me in any way I thank you for at least reading my letter and allowing me to make something more of myself by telling you my problems. Thank you.

  Stefania Caterina, a young member of Sant'Egidio, read this plea, underlining the words “simply someone who wishes to become my friend and to write to me.” Though she was hardly in a position to do more than this, she answered Dominique's letter—but in her native Italian, not knowing that Dominique knew no language but English. Here is Dominique's response, exactly as he typed it on an ancient typewriter the prison allowed him to use occasionally. As in the letters to
Jessica quoted above, the punctuation can sometimes be peculiar, but the letter also shows the first faint notes of the simple eloquence that would become the hallmark of Dominique's writing:

  June 13th, 1995

  Dear Stefania:

  Greetings from many miles away! Many thanks for your letter, which I received today. I must say that it was good to hear from you, to know you're interested in trying to help. But unfortunately, I was unable to read your letter because it was not written in English. I am sorry for failing to state this to you in the newspaper article, but I hope that you will understand and still want to help me if you can. So, as I sit down to write this letter to you today. I hope that it both reaches and finds you in the best of health, thoughts, and spirits.

  Since I knew that you do not know much about me, if anything. I would like to start this letter off by introducing myself to you. As you already know my name is Dominique Green, and I am a death row prisoner. I am an African-American male; 5 foot 10 inches tall; 158 pounds; and I have black hair and brown eyes. My birthday has just recently passed so I am now 21 years old.

  I've been on death row since August of 1993. I'm accused of committing the death of a man while in the course of committing a robbery. My case, which is solely based on circumstantial/indirect evidence, is on appeal at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin, Texas. But unfortunately, I do not have an attorney or any legal representation for my case. So that means that I can and may be executed or murdered at any given time, once my case can be ruled on.

  Luckily, I met a person who was kind enough to see me struggling and try to help me. And their help to me was putting me in a place where only you could find me. So if you would want to help me then, and become my friend. You would know where to look. Because I am in need of not only someone that is willing to help me, but also someone who is willing to become a piece of my life.

  If you do consider writing to me. I hope that you will come to me as yourself, and be yourself with me. So that we may possibly become close friends. Simply because I am on death row, and caged like an animal does not mean that I am a bad person. And I am that as time passes and our friendship goes through either good or bad times, you will see that I am a good friend to have, if not the best. But I also hope that you will be the same for me in my life, if not the best.

  During my time here on death row I read and study the law sometimes, so that I may be able to better understand it. I also write poetry, read, and draw or paint in some of my free time also. Since I am also allowed a form of recreation to keep myself in shape. I play basketball∗ as much as I can also. But other than that my hobbies are blank, and my time is dedicated to my case. So I write trying to get people to see and understand and the injustice that has happened to me.

  Stefania, I do not know what all that you can do for me, or will allow yourself to do for me. But I do know that even the least bit of your help would be greatly appreciated. Because I am trying to raise the money to hire an attorney to fairly represent me and my case once a ruling has been made on my case. And I really reed someone there for me who is really willing to help me, and not lie to me like most people and attorneys that I have met. If you are in a position where you could help me to some extent, your help would be greatly appreciated. But if you do not wont to do so, I'll understand. But please feel free to open your heart and share your thoughts with me, and even be yourself. Because I need for someone to come into my life and be my shining bright light, or my much needed last hope.

  I hope that you will choose to write to me soon. But until then, please take care of yourself because I will be thinking of you. But for now I just would like to mostly thank you for taking the time to sit down and share your thoughts with me in the form of a letter.

  Yours Truly,

  Dominique

  Stefania found a translator, who helped her overcome the language barrier, and the correspondence grew quickly into “questa bella e profonda amicizia” (this beautiful and profound friendship), as Stefania called it. “Lui era come mio figlio. Lui era come mio fratello.” (He was like my child. He was like my brother.) Two people with what might have seemed an ocean of difference between them managed to connect almost immediately.

  Stefania began to tell other members of the Community about her discovery of this engaging correspondent trapped on Death Row in Texas. Other members of the Community wrote to Dominique, as well as to other Texas Death Row inmates, to offer friendship. Soon enough, Dominique, as well as some of his fellow prisoners, had a growing circle of friends. Surely, thought these new friends, there must be something more we can do for these men. As time went by, members of the Community began to visit the prison—not an easy thing to do because the State of Texas restricts severely visits to its Death Row. But a young priest of Sant'Egidio, Marco Gnavi, was able to visit as a religious counselor; and the resourceful Mario Marazziti was able to visit as a member of the press.

  In November 1999, Mario attended a San Francisco conference of Americans working to end the death penalty. He had been invited to this conference by Sister Helen Prejean, the author of Dead Man Walking. There he met Sheila Murphy. Not long after—in June 2000—I met Sheila for the first time in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Sheila, a retired judge from Chicago, who is never to be found without some project in hand, had brought a class of Chicago law students with her to learn something about Roman law, ancient and modern. Of course, she would soon rope me into giving them all a tour of historic Rome—with an emphasis on legal aspects, please. That summer, just before she returned to the United States, she herself would be roped in: Mario would ask her to represent Dominique in his final appeals, for which the Community of Sant'Egidio had begun to collect contributions.

  When we were introduced, Sheila Murphy put out her hand in a frank, comradely way, as if we were already old friends. She knew more of me than I of her. A few years older than I, she had grown up Irish Catholic in the self-congratulatory Protestant community of Colorado Springs and had suffered the taunts and disdain that accompany minority status in a hidebound town. She had read my book How the Irish Saved Civilization and felt it had finally justified her before that community of her childhood.

  The handshake also told me that she believed herself the equal of any man but that she was a genial woman who got a kick out of male carryings-on, in other words a woman with a bunch of brothers. How can one gesture tell you so much about a stranger? It sometimes can, especially when the stranger has a lot of red hair piled on top of her head and a smile that is both open and crooked.

  Despite her upbringing in the Rockies, Sheila speaks in an enviably credible Chicago accent, as if she'd been born in the Windy City and the winds themselves had flattened her vowels. Sheila is also a confessed alcoholic with a long history of success against addiction. One of the things I have come to admire most about her is her wanton openness on this subject. “Oh, you're a recovering alcoholic, too!” she will exclaim merrily to a fellow sufferer.

  When the Community of Sant'Egidio invited her to represent Dominique in his final appeals, she signed on immediately. This would not be a cakewalk, not by any means. Before being called to the bench, Sheila had handled capital cases as a defense attorney, and none of her clients had ever been sentenced to death. But she was not a Texas lawyer, the commute between Chicago and Houston alone could do her in, she was supposed to be living in leisurely semiretirement. What on earth was she doing? she had to ask herself. She didn't really have an adequate answer to her own question.

  So what. Sometimes there are things we have to go through, anyhow. Sheila forged ahead instinctively, as she often had in the course of her life. Where this would end she had no idea. Then, in the fall of 2003, I had lunch with Sheila in Chicago while on a publicity tour for one of my books. Where was I going after Chicago, Sheila asked. I gave her my schedule, which ended in Houston not long before Christmas. “Then you can visit Dominique,” she exclaimed. Book tours, which may sound glamorous to those who ha
ve never gone on one, are grueling exercises, a little like forced marches. I had already been out for many weeks and was looking forward to that last day in Houston, the return trip to my family in New York, and putting up my Christmas tree. Except for an unlikely accident—that the publicist who had arranged the tour was a Texan—I doubt Houston would have been on my schedule at all. Almost the last thing I wanted to do was visit a man on Death Row with whom I would have nothing in common. I foresaw an extra day in Houston and an embarrassing hour of trying vainly to find enough conversation.

  But, looking across the table at Sheila's expectant face, I found I could not say no.

  ∗ This was before Dominique's removal to solitary confinement in Livingston in 1999.

  4

  The first meeting between Dominique and Sheila Murphy gave off no adumbrations of instant karma. Dominique, a prisoner now for nearly eight years, had learned to be distrustful of lawyers; and even this late-middle-aged one, a woman whose sympathy is so effortlessly engaged that it seems to spill from her like mother's milk, was going to have to work hard to earn the confidence of this young convict, who had come to be skeptical, even cynical, toward outsiders who came to visit him. Many, both lawyers and sometime supporters,∗ had come and gone by this point; many more had shown themselves to have their own self-serving agendas unconnected to Dominique's crying needs.