[bright tones]
[tense jazzy music]
♪ ♪
- I don't wanna fight nobody!
- In America we all have certain inalienable rights.
Like the right to bear arms,
and the right to remain silent.
But the state has the ultimate right.
It can kill us.
And due to popular demand, Governor James Devlin,
revived capital punishment,
and he decided that Jefferson Keane,
a man he doesn't know,
a man he will never even meet,
should be put to death.
Should be put down like a rabid dog.
- No!
- The mood in this country has changed.
People are sick of crime, sick of being afraid.
They need a sign that something's being done.
- Even, Governor, if it's been proven
that executions have no effect
on the increase or decrease of crime whatsoever?
- Especially if it has no effect.
These days, murders are random, senseless.
Maybe the punishment should be, too.
Jefferson Keane will be the first person executed
by this state in 34 years. He's the first,
because he snapped the neck of another inmate.
He's the first because he deserves to die.
- Jefferson Keane is the first because he's black and young.
The public is not gonna feel safe
if we execute a 70-year-old white guy.
- You're not gonna turn this into a racial thing
with me are you? - Oh, please.
- Has anybody thought about all the protesters
we're gonna have outside?
Marching around, yelling slogans,
and then the counter-protesters yelling at them?
- Yeah, and we'll have even less parking spaces.
- The protesters aren't gonna be a problem.
- I want you to know that when those protesters come,
I'm standing with them.
- I can't have an employee of mine
out there at a vigil
holding a candle in front of a camera.
- The last time I looked, we had freedom of speech
and freedom of assembly in this country,
or did you guys eliminate those rights too?
- The governor's been biting my ass,
saying he's gonna make more budget cuts,
and he means it.
Up to and including your job.
- Is this a threat?
I've got a job, Leo.
I've got a permanent vocation.
I can go teach fifth-grade kids at Cathedral School.
I can go be a missionary in Pago Pago.
- [sighs]
Don't join the protesters.
- And if I do?
- You're fired.
- Well, that's fine.
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
I'll send you a postcard from Pago Pago.
- Hey, Markstram, man,
what if Keane didn't kill Martinez, huh?
Look, what if they got the wrong man?
- He did it, Kenny. - Look, man, I know he did it.
I'm saying what if he didn't do it?
- I don't understand. - All I'm saying, Dino, is
makes you wonder what the guy's doin'
what the guy's thinking,
sitting on death row, knowing he's gonna die.
- The only difference between you and him, Joey,
is he knows the exact date he'll die.
- So the state's gonna let Keane choose
which way he wants to go out.
Me, I'd take hanging.
- What about lethal injection? - That's for pussies.
- They say lethal injection causes no pain.
How do they know?
Someone come back from the dead
and say they didn't feel anything?
- Did you hear? Sister Peter Marie got fired.
- Yeah, I know, I was her assistant.
She got fired 'cause she's against the death penalty.
So am I. - Me, too.
Were you around when the last person
in the state was executed?
- I was the last person in the state executed.
- ♪ The warden threw a party in the county jail ♪
♪ Prison band was blowing they began to wail ♪
♪ The joint was jumpin' and the place began to sing ♪
♪ You should've heard those knocked out jailbirds sing ♪
all: ♪ Let's rock ♪ [vocalizing]
- ♪ Everybody... ♪ All: ♪ Let's rock ♪
♪ Everybody in the whole cellblock ♪
♪ Was dancin' to the jailhouse rock ♪
- ♪ Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone ♪
♪ Little Joe was blowin' on the slide trombone ♪
♪ The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang ♪
♪ The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang ♪
all: ♪ Let's rock ♪
- ♪ Everybody... ♪ All: ♪ Let's rock ♪
- So you're saying your life was saved
by the '65 blackout.
- All the electricity in five states, gone.
To this day they don't know
whether the shortage kept me alive
or if I caused the power to go "pfft".
- And you had no after effects?
- Sure!
That's when I first met God.
He shook my hand, smiled, and said,
"Bob, play the oboe."
- The oboe? - The oboe.
- And do you? - What?
- Play the oboe? - No.
I don't have the lips for it.
- [laughs]
Gonna share?
- Hey, law-boy.
I thought Schillinger said you couldn't get high anymore.
- Yeah. Fuck him.
[both chuckle]
- You go over my appeal?
- Ryan, I told you I was in litigation not criminal law.
- I got no chance, huh?
- Considering the number of eyewitnesses?
No. - Ah, fuck it.
At least I'm not getting the juice
like that scum-fuck Keane.
They should've just let the Latinos take him out.
That's the reason why they were there.
- What do you mean? - Huh.
- The Latinos were in the gym to kill Keane?
- Never mind. - Are you saying he was set up?
- Never mind, Beecher. - No, no, no, no.
If it was self-defense, he shouldn't be executed.
- Fuck that!
Don't make trouble or you'll be next!
[door bangs]
♪ ♪
- Excuse me.
I'd like to get a fax copy
of the transcript from the Jefferson Keane trial.
[indistinct chatter]
- Bitcher, get your ass over here.
- Yes, sir?
- That laundry's not gonna wash itself.
- Sir, have you heard any--
anything about Jefferson Keane being set up?
- Oh, yeah...
Yeah, the hacks made him a "Gladiator".
Even got the whole thing on videotape.
Wouldn't you love to see that?
- Yeah!
If we could get that videotape,
he wouldn't be executed.
- What are you talking about?
Another nigger's going down.
I'm glad. - But...
- "But--but" what?
- Nothing, sir. - [grunts]
Don't forget, a little starch.
- So I'll go to McManus,
tell him what might have happened in the gym,
get him to investigate. - You can't.
- Why not?
- If you say anything, they'll kill you.
- They who?
- Exactly.
- Hey, Beecher.
Sorry I got a little testy before.
- That's okay.
- You wanna get high?
- No, thanks, man, not right now.
Kind of trying to keep my head clean.
- Later.
- What I should do, is represent Keane
and appeal his murder conviction.
- You? - I'm a lawyer.
- The state disbarred you.
- The state can't take away what I do, who I am.
I can help the man.
He killed Martinez in self-defense.
He shouldn't die.
- You need to talk to Keane himself,
find out what really went on that day.
- Yeah, I know, but getting into death row isn't easy.
- I have a way.
- I'm in fear for my life. - From who?
- I can't say. You know I can't say.
I need you to put me in protective custody.
- You can't be going in and out
of protective custody whenever you want.
It's to be used only in extreme cases.
- Well, this is.
- Next time you ask for protection,
I may say no. - I'll take that risk.
Keane?
Keane!
- Who wants me?
- Beecher. Tobias Beecher.
I need to talk to you about your trial.
I read your transcript.
You weren't very cooperative with your attorneys.
I killed Martinez.
- Why didn't you tell the lawyers you were set up?
- Look.
Johnny Post killed Dino Ortolani because I told him to.
Now the Wiseguys know that. Now they want me dead.
If they kill me,
one of my homeboys is gonna kill them,
and then they're gonna kill another one of my boys,
and on and on and on.
My death can put an end to that.
- Not necessarily.
- Look, if I die,
I feel like I might go to heaven now,
but if I go back to Em City,
I might go back to my old ways.
I may lose my faith, my soul.
I'm at peace right now, Beecher.
Please don't take that from me.
- Look, I'm not responsible for your soul,
but as a lawyer,
I am responsible for justice.
I don't need your cooperation
to file an appeal on your behalf.
- Beecher, please don't.
- It's something I have to do.
We gotta get a hold of that tape.
It's got the fight between Keane and the Latinos.
- What are the chances of one of the hacks giving it up?
The video would implicate them in the murder.
Well, do what you can, Bob.
- Sure.
- There you are.
- Oh, yeah, hey.
- Why did you go into "P.C."?
- You know, I just needed some time alone.
- What are you doing here?
- Working on Ryan O'Reily's appeal.
- Really?
Thought you said that was useless.
- Well...
yeah, you know but he asked me to take another stab at it,
so I figured I would.
- You wouldn't be bullshitting me, would you?
You want to take a break?
Huh?
You wouldn't be up to something else?
- No, sir.
- "Argen versus The State of Tex--"
This is about a stay of execution.
Since when is O'Reily being executed?
♪ ♪
Eat it.
- What?
- Eat the page.
- No!
- Do not fuck with me, prag.
Eat it!
♪ ♪
Another one?
[indistinct shouting]
- Rebadow... - Yes?
- I understand you've been asking a lot of questions
about a certain videotape...
[both grunt]
- Well... - Said videotape does not exist.
- Oh, really?
- You don't believe me? - No, why should I?
[dramatic music]
- Maybe a couple of days in "the hole"
will help clarify reality for you.
- Heard you talked to Keane even though I said don't.
- Yeah. - That took some balls.
- You starting to grow some balls, Beecher?
- I had balls
a long, long time ago,
and I thought I could get 'em back again
by saving Jefferson Keane.
[chuckles wryly]
But the lawyer in me...
Got stretched out on the rack
and hung by the neck until dead.
[chuckles sadly]
[sighs]
You got any dope?
- What you need, pal, is an upgrade.
What you need is some heroin.
[whispers] Go ahead...
- [sniffs]
- You swat a fly, step on an ant,
squash a cockroach,
you don't think much of it.
In fact, killing a bug gives you a sense of accomplishment.
Fucking ant was ruining your picnic!
Cockroach was crawling through your kitchen cabinet.
You put an end to their disgusting,
miserable little lives
and make a better world for everyone.
Only, for every one you kill,
more appear,
bigger, uglier,
meaner than before.
- As a man of color, I'm outraged by that verdict.
As a Muslim, I have to be concerned
with Tizi Ouzou's soul. - Tizi Ouzou?
- Oh, since the conversion, that's the name
that Jefferson Keane chose for himself.
- Ah, and so you wanna serve as his minister.
- As his Iman, yes.
- Mm, do you have any objection?
- No.
- Okay then, here's the deal:
you can go see Keane in death row
and talk to him,
but only about spiritual matters.
If I get wind of him or you
or any of the brothers stirring up shit,
I will give him a rabbi.
[inmates chanting]
- As the day of execution draws near, tension grows.
Both outside the walls at
the Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary, and inside,
where the debate on the death penalty is no less fierce.
- I don't believe in murder.
First degree, abortion, or by jury decree.
It's all murder! - Lethal injection?
What's wrong with the good old electric chair?
- Jefferson Keane will die tomorrow in this prison.
In light of the historic, moral,
and political nature of the event,
we might lose sight of the human factors involved.
We spoke today with Cornelius Keane,
the inmate's father, and Helen Martinez,
mother of the murder victim.
- You teach a boy right from wrong,
then you just hope-- you just hope for the best.
- I want him dead!
I want him in the ground, dead!
Dead! Dead!
- [exhales]
[slaps door] - Hey.
- Jefferson Keane's sister's in kidney failure.
They think she'll die.
- Oh, this is just great.
Well, life just keeps getting better and better.
I fucked this up from the get-ready.
Ortolani's dead 'cause of me
and now Keane's gonna join him.
- You think you're responsible
for that bad boy being on death row?
Timmy...
and I mean this in the nicest way possible...
you are one fucked-up guy.
- Hmm...
Well...
Does that mean we're not going to the play tonight?
- [laughs softly] - Doctor...
We need you.
[jazzy dramatic music]
- [mumbling]
♪ ♪
- On three. One, two, three.
♪ ♪
We should run some tests.
- I'm gonna be fine.
- Hey, some say there are five stages of death:
denial, anger, bargaining,
depression,
and finally, acceptance.
The moment when you say to yourself,
"I'm gonna die,
and ain't shit I can do about it."
[chuckles]
Oh yeah, in Oz, we know all about that.
We know all about acceptance.
- Look at your hair.
Come on, let me braid it for you.
- Nah, that's all right.
- C'mon, I'll make your hair look so nice,
they won't wanna kill you.
[both laugh]
Come on. - You crazy.
Come on.
- If you really want to.
- I saw pop on TV yesterday. - Yeah?
- Talking about you,
talking about our family.
Sorry I ain't who you want me to be.
I like being queer. [sniffles]
[crying softly]
- I love you, Billie.
Allah loves you.
- But dad don't.
- Jefferson--
I'm sorry, Tizi...
I've got some bad news.
Your sister Grace is in the hospital.
Kidney failure.
The doctors think that she'll probably die soon
unless she gets a transplant, but organs are scarce.
- Why don't you take one of mine?
Not like I'm gonna use it much longer.
Make that happen, McManus.
- I'll try. - No, you do more than try.
Make it happen.
Make it happen!
(crowd yelling)
- [sighs]
The governor says no, he won't grant a stay.
- Fuck.
Even that little prick Devlin can't be that heartless.
- He says Keane is too dangerous
to be released to a hospital.
- He's changed.
- This conversion of his could be bullshit.
- I talked to him, Leo. It's real.
We gotta fight for this one.
- How?
If we go public, we stoke the protesters.
Piss Devlin off even more.
- Devlin thinks he's God.
- Yeah.
- Maybe it's time we got some help from the real one.
- You want me to call the cardinal to intercede?
- Yes. - Tim.
Cardinal Abgott is more conservative than
Jesse Helms and Bill Buckly all rolled into one.
He once gave a speech where he justified
the torture of the Holy Inquisition.
- That's fucked up, even so,
you gotta make the call. - [scoffs]
You make the call.
- What, Ray, are you afraid?
- No, of course I'm not afraid.
- Then?
- Why do you think that I work here, huh, Tim?
I went to the Pontifical Gregorian University
in the Vatican. I was in the top of my class.
I was the cardinal's "Great Yellow Hope",
until I started working in his office
and I just asked a few too many questions.
I had a few too many opinions.
I defied him...
Instead of deifying him.
So His Excellency decided to punish me
by sending me to Oz
to extinguish my career.
- So Jefferson Keane's sister dies
because you and the cardinal had a tiff?
- I didn't say I wouldn't make the call.
I'll make the call.
I'm just warning you, it probably won't...
[door closes]
Do any good.
- Sorry to disturb you.
- You've come about the transplant.
- Governor James Devlin,
under pressure from religious leaders,
including Sheik Zahir Farrah and Francis Cardinal Abgott,
has granted a 30-day stay of execution
to Jefferson Keane... (cheers)
The man convicted of killing another inmate
at Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary.
Keane will donate a kidney to an ailing sister.
He is expected to go into surgery sometime today.
The governor was quick to point out that
all medical costs are being covered
by the family's own insurance.
- "Clemency" that's a fancy word for "mercy."
You see, the governor can commute a death sentence.
He has the power to just pick up the phone and say no.
But to me,
the only time the governor shows clemency
is when he don't make that call,
'cause life in prison without parole
is a shitload worse than death.
Death is parole.
Death is the real mercy.
- King me. - Oh, fuck.
- [laughs] - O'Reily...
- Yeah. - Come here.
- Why? - Because I say.
- So? - We got business.
- Don't move any pieces, I got 'em memorized.
- [laughs] Would I do that?
- Uh, yeah. - Man, what do you think of me?
- Hey, Joey. I'm here.
You bet Detroit on the Sox/Tigers game?
- Yeah. - You lost.
- Fucking Thomas. - You owe.
- I know. - So?
- I'm good for it. - Says you.
- What, I haven't paid before? - I want it now.
- Why? - 'Cause you owe.
- Why you busting my balls?
- 'Cause I don't like your face.
- Hey, pal, take a look in the mirror.
- You wanna die? - You wanna try it?
Problem, guys? - Yeah, the joint smells
of too much... [sniffs]
Garlic. Come on.
- D'Angelo, count to ten and walk away.
Fucking dago jizzbag.
- You lose, white boy.
- No, I never lose when it counts.
I'm telling you, Jefferson was set up.
- By who? - Come on.
You don't have to be John Thompson
to figure out the game plan.
- I know it was the Wiseguys that did it.
- Schibetta sent Jefferson to the gladiator ring?
- No, not Schibetta.
I've been asking around.
Looks like Joey D'Angelo was roguing.
Ever since Ortolani croaked
D'Angelo's been wanting to move up,
but the old man's been slow,
so D'Angelo took it on himself
to off Jefferson just to impress the old man.
- That fuckin' mook, D'Angelo?
If D'Angelo got Jefferson the death penalty,
we gotta execute that mother-- - Shut up.
- I swear to g--
- Look, you fellows do what you gotta do,
but with all the shit that's been goin' on around here,
if you whack D'Angelo,
Glynn's gonna lock us down for good.
- So what are we supposed to do?
- You two work in the kitchen, right?
- D'Angelo works in the kitchen.
Maybe he has a little accident.
- Yeah, yeah, I like that. - Yeah, yeah.
And why you so hot on justice for Jefferson now, white boy?
Hmm?
- 'Cause Jefferson took care of Ortolani for me.
I owe him.
- Good morning.
I'm Carlton Auerbach... - Who?
- And, as you know, Sister Peter--
Sister Peter Marie is not around,
so the--the warden asked me to pinch hit.
- We want Sister Pete. - [clears throat]
She's not here. So, uh, today we're gonna be--
- Shut the fuck up!
[laughter] - Thank you.
Today we're gonna talk about anger management.
Controlling the savage beast inside you.
[all grunting]
- You fuck!
- Fuck!
[screams]
[knocks] - Mr. Schibetta...
Can I come in?
I heard what happened to Joey.
Steam pipe bursts, knocks him backward,
hits him in the head.
Is he okay? - He's unconscious.
He'll be laid up for a while.
- I don't mean to be reaching,
but if you ever need an extra hand,
I mean, come one.
I-I-I took care of Jefferson Keane for you.
He's going to die and both our hands are clean.
- One of my best buddies in the army
was Donny O'Reily,
Irish guy...
From Howard Beach.
Tough little fucker didn't take any bullshit from anybody,
including the sergeant.
He loved women,
he loved boats.
He loved women on boats.
He loved vodka.
He loved women who drank vodka on boats.
Who knows?
Maybe we can do some business.
- Okay.
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[machines beeping]
- Poor son-of-a-bitch.
- [laughs] Yo, padre.
- How you doing? - How's my baby.
- He's not doing so good, Miguel.
He's not getting any better.
- Shit!
- The doctors...
they're thinking of taking him off the life support.
- What do you mean, pull the plug?
No, no, no, no.
- Maritza thinks it's the best thing, too.
- No, Maritza's sweet. She gonna listen
to anything anybody tells her to.
I don't want them to kill my baby.
- They're not killing the baby, Miguel.
The machine's are the only thing keeping the baby alive.
If they turn the machines off, then the baby can have
a natural death. - I want to speak to Maritza.
I want to see my baby right now.
- You can't see Maritza. You can't see the baby.
They're not even gonna let you make a phone call.
They're gonna start a psychiatric evaluation of you.
- They think I'm a bug?
- You cut yourself all up!
- So?
I did it for the baby.
- What do you mean you "did it for the baby"?
- You tellin' me I gave the baby life, right?
That he's my responsibility.
Well, the baby being sick,
you know, I don't know what to do.
I ain't a fucking doctor.
- And slashing your face did what, huh?
- That's between me and god.
- Oh, Miguel, you tell the shrink that
and you're gonna be in here till you're 90-years-old.
- You gotta help me.
You gotta get me out of here.
You gotta help me see my baby.
You gotta tell them not to kill it.
You gotta-- you gotta let me see my baby!
You gotta tell them not to kill it!
I wanna see my baby!
- You see, I got Alvarez on the road to redemption.
I got him to start caring,
and I guess that's tearing him up inside.
- The doctor at the neonatal unit says that
keeping the baby alive is actually cruel at this point.
- I'm just trying to catch up here, all right?
I've had one meeting with Alvarez.
He sort of just whined about his kid.
- See, all I want is-- I just want him released
so that I can take him to the hospital,
because I think that when he sees the condition
that the baby's in, he will understand why
they're going to take the life support away.
- I need more time.
- We don't have time.
They want to turn the machines off tomorrow.
- Tomor-- forget it.
- Okay.
I don't need his permission, you know.
- Well, yeah, but you're not--
you're gonna take this responsibility on yourself?
- Absolutely.
[buzzer sounds]
[angelic choir singing]
♪ ♪
[flatline]
- You know... [clears throat]
I appreciate everything you've done for me...
Especially, like, you know, with the baby and all.
Um--I mean, I--
you know, I guess sometimes
that's the way things go, you know.
I mean, things just work out like that.
You're right.
You know, I feel-- I feel better about myself.
I mean, I never thought that
I'd--I'd love a baby with all my heart.
And I--you know,
never loved anything before in my life,
so it's like it, like, opened up,
like, a whole--whole new me.
[laughs softly]
That's--that's important, right?
Figuring out who you are,
you know, and--and...
about--about yourself.
So, you know, I know now.
- Well, I'm real glad.
- Well, you know, I owe it all to you.
- Well, I gotta go.
- Hey father...
where was God when my son died?
Same place he was when his own son died.
- It's looking pretty good.
- I feel good.
- Well, the remaining kidney's functioning fine.
The rest of you is pretty healthy,
so this afternoon I'll have you transferred back to...
- Death row.
You can say it, Doctor.
- Keane, you have a visitor.
- Hey, Pop.
[both laugh softly]
How's Grace?
- Doctor says she recuperating
faster than expected.
That's some rocking kidney you gave her.
[laughs]
- So how you doing?
- I'm still a little turned around by all this publicity.
You know?
Having a microphone shoved in my face
every time I leave the house.
We've been getting lots of letters and cards,
mostly nice. [chuckles]
One guy from Iowa, he sent $100 cash.
Your Aunt Tilly said that I had to send it back.
- Did you? - [laughs]
- No fucking way.
[both laugh]
- Dad, um...
I need for you to do something for me.
- Well, anything, son. Come on now, you know that.
- I need for you to talk to Billie.
- He's turned into a fag.
- Dad, you don't know what it's like in here.
You don't know the things they do to you.
The loneliness.
Talk to him.
- I raised you three all alone.
Now your sister, she's-- [chuckles]
she's gonna make something with her life,
especially with what you done for her,
but when he leaves...
[scoffs] What's Billie ever gonna be?
- Your son, my brother, forever.
- Okay, time's up.
- [quietly] Hey, man...
- It's rare when you say good-bye to someone
that you know it's the last time.
You could try to say whatever it is
you should have said before.
Or you can just hold on tight.
Just hold on hoping the moment will last you a lifetime.
♪ ♪
- Shit!
[strains, gasps]
- You all right?
- Jefferson...
Was my oldest...
So he always had a special place.
A man...
shouldn't live to see his own son die.
- Hey, I-I brought you some tea.
- You brought me some tea?
Why?
- Well, it's herbal.
Maybe you don't want it.
- Hey, just so happens I'm out.
Thanks.
So... - So...
- Why are you here, McManus?
I mean, what do you want?
- I don't know.
I just, uh...
I just wanted to tell you...
that I'm sorry you're gonna die.
And...
- You'd like my forgiveness?
Well, whatever you think you've done...
I forgive you.
- Ooh.
- Did you get Kareem Said's test results?
- Um...oh, that feels so good.
So far, everything's fine.
I'm just waiting for the MRI results.
Oh good. You wanna go to dinner tonight?
- I can't.
- Why not?
- I'm witnessing Keane's execution.
- What?
- Yeah, I told you.
- What? You didn't tell me.
Oh, man, you didn't tell me. - Yes, I did.
- Gloria, this is not something I would forget, believe me.
Christ!
- Look, what is the big deal? - [exhales]
- I'm only prescribing the drugs, declaring the death.
It's not like I'm sticking the I.V. in his arms.
- Gloria...Gloria, doctors are supposed to be healers.
You're supposed to help keep people alive.
You're not supposed to kill them.
- You really see this as a killing.
- I don't want you doing this.
- You what? - I don't want you doing this!
- Look, Tim, we've only been going out
for a couple of weeks, okay, where do you get off
telling me what I can and can't do?
- Don't--wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
- Don't grab me.
[sighs]
You better take some time off, Tim.
You've been around this prison so much
you're starting to act like them.
[crowd yelling]
- Hey, lady!
[both shouting indistinctly]
- Thanks.
Is the governor here yet?
- No, I haven't seen him.
But a pro-death penalty marcher
just took a swing at Sister Pete.
- Is she okay?
- Good aim.
She just kicked him in the balls.
I take it you're not gonna watch the execution.
- How about you?
- Uh-uh.
Can't stand watching flowers die,
let alone another human being.
Closest I ever came was Bambi.
- "Bambi"? - Yeah.
My ex was a big hunter.
He was always going off with his buddies,
so I said to him one time "take me".
After some complaining, he did.
So I got out there in the forest
with this, uh... [chuckles]
This big hunky shotgun
and I fired at a deer.
Hit it dead-on.
So I went over to this thing
and I leaned down and...
This deer looked up at me with these eyes,
these eyes like flashlights.
I knelt beside it and I held its head
and I whispered, "I'm sorry".
Then like batteries going bad, the light in his eyes
flickered a little bit
and, uh...
went out.
For the next two years that we were married,
every time I walked into the den,
I had to stare at that fucking deer's dead eyes.
I had to dust them.
When we got divorced, that's all I asked for,
the deer's head...
and I buried it.
- That's how I feel tonight.
- What do you mean?
- Like my head's hanging on somebody's wall.
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
You wanna have dinner?
- Sure.
- Hey...
- Yeah?
- How you doing?
- Okay. You?
- Not bad for a man about to die.
- Yeah, you go tonight, huh?
- Yeah, you?
- Next Thursday,
but I'm in appeal.
- You ever see that old movie?
With--with that old actress-- what's her name?
Susan Hayward?
- Which movie?
- I don't know. It's called, um,
"She's Gotta Live" or something like that,
she's on death row, waiting to be fried or gassed
or whatever they used to do back in the day.
Only thing, her attorney has applied for some reprieve,
so she just waits and the clock keeps ticking,
waiting for that call from the governor.
- Yeah...
And at the last possible minute, he calls, huh?
- Well, you know, now that I think about it,
I think she fries.
- I need to ask some questions.
What do you want done with your property?
- Um...
give it to my dad.
- And the money in your trust account?
- To my brother and sister.
- Will your family be claiming your body?
- Yeah.
- Who are your witnesses?
- My dad and the Minister Said.
- [sighs]
You sure you should see this?
- Yeah.
Tizi and I have come on a long journey together.
I'm not going to turn my back on him now.
- [clears throat] Okay...
let's do it.
Officer.
- "Death is the supreme moment of truth," my brother.
So sayeth the Prophet.
- Praise be unto him.
- And peace be unto you.
- Minister, they took my corfi.
I don't wanna die out without my corfi.
- You take mine.
[both speaking foreign language]
- Over 3000 men and women are sitting on death row right now.
♪ ♪
Congress has denied state inmates
access to federal courts.
Congress has also eliminated financing
to law offices for death row appeals.
The states themselves are shortening the appeals process.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Lay down.
- In this country, there's now one execution
every single week.
There were more executions this year
than any time since the '50s.
And we know how righteous the 50s were.
- You can make any statement you'd like.
- I want my family to know,
that I love them.
And I believe that this punishes them
more than it punishes me.
I'm so sorry
for the three murders that I did.
And I wish, by killing me today,
you could bring them back.
My time on this Earth
has been far too short.
Maybe too short to get it all done right.
So...
I'm ready to move on.
♪ ♪
All praise...
to Allah.
All praise.
- [gasps and shudders]
- Governor? - Justice has been served.
- [grunting]
- L'Italien...
The Supreme Court refused to hear your appeal.
- Rehnquist is fag.
- Be that as it may,
your execution is scheduled for tomorrow.
Prisoner number 9-7-L-6-4-1 Richard L'Italien,
convicted April 3rd, '97, murder in the first degree.
Sentence: death.
- Tomorrow?
Well, my schedule's clear.
Okay.
Hey, warden, there's something I want to tell you.
Something I never told anybody.
I suffocated Jennifer Miller.
- Yeah, I know.
That's why you're gonna die.
- I also suffocated Dorothy Payne.
- Who?
- Dorothy Payne.
She waitressed up in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
- You confessing another murder?
- Uh-huh.
- I'll notify the proper authorities.
- Wait.
I also suffocated
Ethel Peterson and Gertrude Victor...
And Mary Rapp
and Christina Trudell
and Eleanor Hughes,
Wilma Lomax, Lisa Masters,
And Lorraine McCarthy,
and Betty Case,
and Irene Martin,
and Amelia Nugent, Elizabeth Phelps,
and Lucille Upton,
and Esther Voght.
[chuckles] What I did.
- Richard L'Italien confessed to 39 murders,
all young women. He suffocated them all.
- If the governor had his way,
he would execute L'Italien 39 times.
- I have to get over there.
- Ray, listen...
how can you go along with this?
You're as much against the death penalty as I am.
- Of course I am, Pete.
I don't know.
Maybe if anyone deserves to die,
Richard L'Italien deserves to die.
Maybe the world will, what?
Breathe a little easier once he's gone.
My job is not to make judgments.
My job is to be by his side.
My place...
is with him.
If he needs me.
[whispers] Pray for him, Mary.
That's for him.
That's for all of them.
- Have you ever had bull's balls, Father?
- No, sir, I can't say that I have.
- Well, they serve them every year
at the Bohemian Grove.
- What's that, that's a restaurant?
- Oh, man, you never heard of Bohemian Grove?
[laughs] It's a retreat
in San Francisco.
You know, for investment brokers,
bankers, politicians, intellectuals.
I'm amazed you're not hip to it.
Of course, I grew up in the Bay Area,
so we always knew when it was happening.
Even as a kid, I always wanted to go, you know.
Wow.
Wouldn't that be something?
Swimming the Russian River with some Secretary of State,
pissing on a redwood next to Donald Trump.
[laughs]
I mean, these guys are the elite,
men of power.
Men! [grunts]
[sighs]
Women were excluded,
but the Supreme-fucking-Court
forced the Bohemian to let the "coozes" in.
Can you believe that shit?
Once they were in,
I wanted nothing to do with it. I was done.
- But who knows the women you would have met.
- Not the kind of woman I'd want to fuck.
- There's a big difference between
wanting to fuck a woman and wanting to kill her.
- Is there?
Have you ever been laid, Father?
- No.
- Then what would you know about pussy?
And what would you know about...
[clears throat] Anything?
- All I know is that once upon a time,
you wanted to walk in the woods with important people
and now, instead,
you're here.
- I'm here because
I love women.
I love every woman I see.
Tall ones, thin ones, fatties...
It's true.
You know, I once worked a circus one summer,
and I fucked the dwarf while the fat lady watched us.
Mm-hmm.
I fucked trailer park trash in West Virginia,
I fucked rich girls up the ass, in Aspen,
I fucked PhDs, retards...
You know, once I fucked an amputee with both legs missing.
- Fucking them isn't the same as loving them.
- You sound just like a shrink I had once in juvie.
She tried to tell me that I hated women.
[chuckles] I showed her.
- You fucked her.
- And her daughter.
Then I snuffed 'em both.
- If you love women so much,
why do you kill them?
Because...
when you love someone, they own you,
they possess you!
[clears throat] I will not be possessed.
- I'm here to give you absolution for your sins.
Do you wish to be absolved?
- Fuck, yes! [clears throat]
Shit!
You know, they told me I could order anything I wanted
as my last meal. [chuckles]
I shoulda ordered bull's balls!
I'm really not ready for this.
Oh, man.
- First the inmate's given sodium pentathol,
the same anesthetic used in hospitals for major surgery.
Then a massive dose of pancuronium bromide.
That paralyzes the diaphragm.
Then potassuim chloride to stop the heart.
- [groans]
[exhales]
- Don't try this at home, kids.
- It's finished.
- Ah, hello.
- Hello.
- Christ was executed, you know...
And if he hadn't been,
the world would be a very different place.
- A better place?
- I didn't say that.
I want my job back.
- Okay.
- I don't have to beg?
- If it'll make you feel better, beg.
- I just want you to know I still disagree with you
on the death penalty.
- Even for a cyst like L'Italien?
- Oh, Leo, "thou shalt not kill."
The Bible makes that pretty clear.
You cannot take a human life for any reason.
- Yeah, but the bible also says,
"an eye for an eye,"
which says to me that
if you kill, you die.
Seems to me god's talking out both sides of his mouth.
Maybe he's as confused about the death penalty as the rest of us.
All I know for sure is...
No one's going to claim L'Italien's body,
so we're going to stick him in a cheap pine box,
stamp an ID number on the lid
and throw him in a hole at Potter's Field.
There he'll be...
with no one to grieve for him.
- I grieve for him.
- Yeah I know.
That's why I love you.
That's why I'm glad you're back.
- There's this brother on death row somewheres.
He checked in when he was 16.
He sat there another 16 years
while the courts and lawyers argued about this and that.
While he waited, he painted a mural on his wall.
For all those years, he painted,
not letting a soul see what he was up to.
Finally, when he was 32 and had spent more life
on death row than in his momma's house,
all his appeals were exhausted.
He was about to die.
As he was about to be led out for the final time,
he finally unveiled his masterpiece.
All there was were six words.
"Death is certain life is not."
The next day, the hacks painted over it.
Peace out.
[tense jazzy music]
♪ ♪