Dominique Green, a young African American sentenced to death, was killed in a Texas prison by lethal injection on 27 October 2004. He became a friend of the Community through a correspondence relationship: the friendship with him marked the beginning in 1995 of Sant'Egidio's commitment to the abolition of the death penalty and the correspondence with thousands of prisoners.
On the anniversary of 27 October, all the Communities of Sant'Egidio remember Dominique and all those on death row so that capital punishment may soon be abolished throughout the world.
The story of Dominique Green
Dominique was a 30-year-old African-American boy when he received the lethal injection in a Texas prison. He was sentenced to death when he had just turned 18, accused of a murder that occurred during a robbery. Caught with violence and subjected to interrogation without being allowed to see a lawyer, he suffered an unfair trial.
He was defended by a public prosecutor who had submitted documents that could be used in his defence after the deadline. It often happens to those like him who are poor that they cannot afford the cost of a proper defence.
His is a difficult story. Born into a poor family, his parents are separated, his mother suffers from mental disorders. Dominique grew up in the suburbs of Houston, where the poorest, those of coloured and Hispanic descent live.
At his trial in August 1993, he was sentenced to death, without any real evidence against him. Since then, for more than ten years, Dominique has lived on death row at Ellis One Unit, in Huntsville, Texas. From his letters, we learnt what it is like to grow up in prison waiting for the day of execution. Dominique told us about very intense friendships that have been formed on death row over the years. He told us how other death row inmates, older than him, taught him how to react in moments of greatest despair and fear, and how he himself became a support and reference point for others in the same condition.
There are times when suffering becomes intolerable, such as when the execution of someone who is a friend of yours takes place. The condemned person is taken away by the guards and will never return. You learn to live with fear.
We got to know Dominique by replying to a letter of his published in an Italian newspaper. From the first published letter we remember some words:" .... I am a prisoner on death row ... I need someone who wants to help me. I thought that you might be able to help me find someone who has the time to write to me or help me, because lately I really did not know how to ask for help or friendship ... I am in a place of loneliness. The loneliness of this place is beginning to have an effect on me, also because I realised that I may end up dying here for something I did not commit..." and again " ... on death row there are good and intelligent people, but many of them never had a chance in life: look at me, my life was just beginning and it ended because of a lie. Why?"
Dominique tried to make sense of his life: often in the long, lonely hours spent in the cell he wrote poetry or drew pictures. His pain emerges clearly from his poems, drawings and letters: '... here I learn to become a man, I who was trapped within the walls of this prison when I was a boy'.
Continue reading Dominique's story on the "No to the death penalty" blog
Video
In Rome, a park dedicated to Dominique Green, victim of the death penalty
On the occasion of the International Day Cities for Life - Cities against the Death Penalty "No Justice without life" (2007)
