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DYING INSIDE
Inmate 48713 — The hands of Plutarcho Hill. He has the oldest inmate number in the state. He was given his number January 16, 1948. He’s serving life for murder. Hill has escaped ten times. He couldn’t tell me why he was so much better at breaking out, rather than staying out, of prison.
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DYING INSIDE
Inmate 134826 — Mary J. Rowe is a mother, grandmother, published poet and convicted murderer. She’s serving life at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McCloud, Oklahoma. She’s been given an additional seven years for a successful prison escape as well.
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Inmate 94953 — Willie Prenell is serving a life sentence since his conviction of murder in the first degree in May of 1977. He killed Kieth Thompson, who he claims was a friend, on October 21, 1976 in Oklahoma City. Prenell is incarcerated at James Crabtree Correctional Facility in Helena, Oklahoma. Crabtree is a medium security facility strictly for older inmates.
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Inmate 96638 — Since suffering a stroke behind bars, Bobby Moore, 58, resides in a special medical unit of the Dick Conner Correctional Center an hour north of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He’s been serving a life sentence since his murder conviction in 1978.
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Inmate 126209 — Leonard Mikes told me he was a US Marine who trained Hmong in Laos during the Vietnam War. Now he’s incarcerated at James Crabtree Correctional Facility in Helena, Oklahoma. He’s serving a 200-year sentence for forcible sodomy with a seven-year-old boy. He claims innocence. He has been convicted three previous times for lewd or indecent acts or proposals to a child and once for indecent exposure. Crabtree is a medium-security facility strictly for older inmates.
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DYING INSIDE
An elderly inmate stares out of his cell at the Joseph Harp Correctional Facility in Lexington, Oklahoma.
This is a behind-the-scenes photo of a Fault Lines episode called Dying Inside. Scroll down to find the video.
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DYING INSIDE
Scene from the Joseph Harp Correctional Facility in Lexington, Oklahoma.
This is a behind-the-scenes photo of a Fault Lines episode called Dying Inside. Scroll down to find the video.
View high resolution
DYING INSIDE
Inmates in the Joseph Harp Correctional Facility in Lexington, Oklahoma.
This is a behind-the-scenes photo of a Fault Lines episode called Dying Inside. Scroll down to find the video.
DYING INSIDE
The New York Times this morning has a front-page piece about the increasing power prosecutors have in extracting guilty pleas from defendants without going to trial.
After decades of new laws to toughen sentencing for criminals, prosecutors have gained greater leverage to extract guilty pleas from defendants and reduce the number of cases that go to trial, often by using the threat of more serious charges with mandatory sentences or other harsher penalties.
These tougher sentences have led to a boom in elderly inmates in US prisons. The fastest growing segment of prisoners is those who are 50 and older. In Oklahoma they expect that group to increase by 45% a year for the foreseeable future. For the Fault Lines episode above we gained access to prisons across the US and were shocked by what we found…
I’ve posted this once before, but I’ve gained a lot of followers in the last few weeks and with the Troy Davis story in the headlines today, it seemed relavent to put it out there one more time.
Feel free to share your thoughts about the episode. I’ll do my best to respond to every reply…
Last year Fault Lines traveled to Oklahoma where we gained access to death row:
To interview condemned inmate Michael Selsor:
We were Michael’s first visitors in more than ten years. He told us last June that he would see “this Christmas, but probably not next.” His last appeal was denied in October, so now he’s waiting for a date to be executed.
We also interviewed a number of families that have been effected by murder and had to deal with the death penalty in different ways.
It was one of the more difficult films I’ve been a part of. I cried during three of the interviews. They are stories and people I will never forget.
The result is an episode, of which I am very proud, on an extremely complex and gravely important story.
