An Appeal from Death Row
MARGOLIS, RICHARD J.
States of the Union AN APPEAL FROM DEATH ROW BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS "The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la, have nothing to do with the case." —W. S. GILBERT, The Mikado MY FRIEND...
...A local florist took the order, arranged a delicate bouquet and telephoned prison authorities for delivery instructions...
...There'll be a better law next year...
...A brief gun battle followed...
...For the present, however, the state's plans are in disarray...
...As Judge Sol Wachtler, writing on behalf of the eight-man Appeals Court, pointed out, "Surely the prospect of a jury composed, in whole or in part, of correction officers would present a nightmarish specter to these two convicts on trial for their lives...
...AS THE State Court of Appeals noted in its unanimous decision for retrial, Singer's testimony was marred by inconsistencies, and "the prosecutor's evidence . . . presented substantial questions of credibility...
...it hasn't been used since 1963...
...Two years later, hoping to lighten their sentences, Culhane and McGivern asked for and were granted a day in court...
...in the second, the two men were convicted and sentenced to die...
...and in a separate action New York State attorneys urged the U.S...
...Gradually, the men succeeded in accumulating a few piles of soil...
...A. I would tend to believe him, yes...
...Four members of the panel the jury was drawn from were correction officers, and two of these were actually chosen to serve...
...Take the case of a man who kills his wife after 40 years of marriage...
...Culhane, like Oscar Wilde, but without Wilde's cadenced bitterness, has written affectingly about what a moment of fresh air can mean to a prisoner: The wind humming over the world Over my face entering my body Carrying a shiver to my bones Shuddering through my shoulders and thighs Now in a natural dance of the outer and the inner Giving praise to the wind To the sky the earth and the heavens...
...Maybe she kept at him all that time, if you know what I mean...
...I don't think he would lie...
...The first trial ended in a hung jury...
...Well," he said, "it's not always easy to know whether you're doing the right thing...
...Yet the state of New York clings to high-voltage dreams: Its lawyers tried to block an appeal by Culhane and McGivern for a new trial...
...Culhane and McGivern insisted it had been strictly Bowerman's show from start to finish...
...Q. Do you think that it is possible he could he under oath...
...On Death Row, the state seems to be saying, one ought not to die on whim but rather on demand, and in the prescribed manner...
...Consider this exchange between Culhane's attorney and a correction officer who eventually got on the jury: Q. If the main witness for the People's case is a police officer, a deputy sheriff, would you tend to believe him more than somebody else...
...The roof is asphalt, but there is a bit of dirt to be found in the corners, and in cracks between the bricks...
...and there was only Singer's testimony to send Culhane and McGivern to Death Row...
...That's my opinion...
...They were caught and convicted McGivern got 15-20 years, Culhane a maximum of 10...
...A. I don't think so...
...Five men occupy Death Row at Green Haven, and flowers are much on their minds...
...So the two convicts have won a new trial, and the State of New York is still out for blood...
...In the meantime, McGivern is drawing sketches and Culhane is writing poetry—and for an hour each day they are enjoying the relative freedom of the roof...
...Two deputy sheriffs drove them, along with a third prisoner named Bowerman, from Auburn State Prison toward the courthouse in White Plains...
...Earlier, McGivern's attorney had taken a different line with the same man: Q. . . . You do recall that the newspaper said that the sheriff was shot during the course of an attempted escape by the three prisoners...
...When it was over Bowerman and one of the deputies were dead...
...They planted zinnia seeds—who knows where they found zinnia seeds!—and before long they had a modest roof garden...
...In 1966...
...Last month the Supreme Court declined to review the lower court's decision, which means that executions in New York remain illegal...
...Only Joseph Singer, the deputy who had been driving, was unhurt...
...Some of the dialogue between the defense lawyers and the panel members is instructive...
...Apparently the state places great value on the heads of McGivern and Culhane...
...A. Right...
...After all, I reasoned, it's been gathering dust for more than 10 years...
...One morning, though, the sprouts shriveled and died...
...It is not their deaths that seem to matter—their cells have been stripped of clothes hooks, wires and other possible aids to suicide?it is their execution...
...That particular chair has hardly brought on the energy crisis...
...Singer claimed all three prisoners had been in on the escape attempt...
...S. GILBERT, The Mikado MY FRIEND Joan Potter?journalist, raconteur and befriender of people with problems—tried recently to get flowers into Death Row at New York Slate's Green Haven prison...
...Culhane was unconscious with a bullet wound in the back of his head, and McGivern had wounds in both arms...
...Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that had thrown out the state's death penalty statute...
...Joan's bouquet had been intended for two inmates, Charles Culhane (#13720) and Gerald McGivern (#13721), who for nearly three years have been sitting in cells one floor beneath the electric chair, waiting to be executed, hoping to be freed...
...Yet it was not these weaknesses that ultimately led to the judges' decision —it was the pretrial publicity, which had plainly tainted the opinions of the prospective jurors and the handling of their selection...
...No," he replied, "the chair will stay...
...both were born and raised in the Bronx, in families that had respectability but little money: and both have talent: Culhane is a poet, McGivern an artist (the adjacent drawing is his work...
...The other day I asked Superintendent Leon Vincent, who presides over Green Haven, if he planned to junk his electric chair...
...They have had a long ordeal, some of it of their own making, and it is by no means finished...
...The word came back, "You may not deliver flowers to a prisoner...
...I also asked Vincent if he favored capital punishment...
...A new law calling for two juries to do the job might satisfy the Court, and such a law has already been introduced in Albany...
...the guards had urinated on them...
...In any event, last October 23 the State Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Culhane and McGivern —hence the flowers—and as of this writing, although the two continue to reside on Death Row, they are innocent of murder in the eyes of the law...
...the two men attempted to knock over a gas station in Westchester...
...A. Well, I would have an opinion they were attempting to escape...
...Q. And I am asking you now whether you have an opinion as to whether or not the prisoners were attempting to escape or not...
...They never got there...
...You have to wonder how much she contributed to it...
...Both Culhane and McGivern are 29 years old...
...Still, the respite may only be temporary, since the Court nixed capital punishment on extremely narrow grounds, observing that no jury can both convict a defendant and sentence him to death...
...In mid-passage, the car stopped near an overpass to let Bowerman relieve himself, and instead of getting out, he grabbed a deputy's pistol and started shooting...
...They had an Easter lily once but it withered away...
...Last spring they tried gardening on an adjoining roof surrounded by high brick walls where each prisoner is allowed to stroll, alone, for an hour each day...
...Conversely, if [these] officers . . . were being brought up on charges of having brutalized prisoners, they would not want members of the Fortune Society [an organization of ex-convicts] to be the fact-finders in the case...
Vol. 56 • December 1973 • No. 25
