Wishing for a way to get horses inside prison
walls
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
Special to the National Catholic Reporter Huntsville,
Texas
You know the way a donkey, a lamb or a pony just sort of shows up
on the stage of a Christmas pageant, or how the elephant walks behind the
giraffe up the aisle of St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York every October
for the blessing of the animals.
Thats what I wished for Jan. 24 while flying home from Texas
to Newark, N.J.
I wanted some kind of divine FedEx deliverer to park his van on
Avenue I at 12th Street and to escort a horse any kind of horse
into the death chamber of the Walls Prison in Huntsville, Texas, and to
announce to the warden: Special delivery, sir. A package for Mr. Billy
Hughes.
Oh, go ahead, warden, do something not in the rulebook. Its
Hughes last day on earth. Hes been a model death row prisoner for
24 years, with not a single lapse or disciplinary infraction by your own and
others accounting. Let him pet that horse, perhaps even sit on it in his
white prison uniform.
How does one spend two-dozen years on death row? I had some idea
in Hughes case. We had met behind the glass and wire-net partition where
the press can talk on Wednesday mornings to inmates on the row. I had arrived
on Oct. 24, 1984, five days before the State of Texas was to take the life of
Thomas Andy Barefoot for killing a Waco cop.
I had heard about Hughes, the artist, cartoonist and editor of a
magazine-from-prison that circulated to horse handlers. Hughes hung close by
Barefoot during our interview, almost a kind of big brother to Barefoot, who
was part Cherokee, part Louisiana oil roughneck.
When I asked Barefoot whether he needed a stamp to write to the
widow of his victim, Hughes was quick to reply. Ive got
stamps, he said, unfolding his black vinyl wallet and revealing a host of
membership cards. Hughes was a dues-paying member of the American Civil
Liberties Union, of the Texas Civil Liberties Union, of CURE (Citizens United
for the Rehabilitation of Errants), of HOPE (Help Our Prisoners Exist), of the
United Farm Workers and of many horse clubs.
Hughes and I corresponded until I left Texas in 1986. Most of his
letters contained news of his studies and activities and always a sketch,
drawing or cartoon. One of the cartoons depicted the then eight Supreme Court
justices sitting at their bench deliberating. Each was holding an instrument of
death or torture in his/her hand. At the end of the bench, Justice Sandra Day
OConnor sat knitting a noose.
How did a man who while on death row became a certified paralegal,
earned a B.A. in religious education, became an ordained minister; earned over
360 correspondence credit hours in writing, religious studies and Braille
transcription from the Library of Congress and who was working on a
masters degree program how did such a man come to be strapped to a
gurney at 6 p.m. Jan. 25, his veins opened for the lethal drugs that would end
all future studies?
Easy. He killed a state trooper. Although Hughes has always
claimed that he never saw or intended to kill Mark Frederick, the officer who
pulled him over on April 4, 1976, he does admit that he was at the scene when
Frederick was killed. Wanted for credit card theft in Alabama, Hughes was
stopped by troopers in Texas. Hughes story is that he never saw anyone
but people in his rearview mirror and that all of a sudden he was being shot at
as he reached for his wallet in the glove box. He also admits reaching for a
gun and firing a shot out of self-defense before racing off.
At his trial Trooper Jack Reichert testified that hed seen
Hughes shoot Frederick. Many whove looked at the case wonder how it was
possible for Hughes, while still in his car, to kill a man who was behind his
vehicle on the passenger side. Reichert testified that he fired six times at
Hughes fleeing auto and then attended to Frederick, who was pronounced
dead at the scene.
In an interview with The Huntsville Item shortly before his
execution date, Hughes said: No matter how you look at it, its my
fault because I was there. I was the reason [the troopers] were stopped.
Its my fault and thats why Im so sorry for his
family.
While some prisoners request a last good meal, Hughes final
wish an impossible one was to spend just one last day with his
mother, who was too ill to come to Huntsville, and to go somewhere where he
could ride or pet a horse.
Never a cowboy, but a trained horse handler, Hughes had written
Horsemans Travel Guide from the row.
In the death chamber, witness Charlie Sullivan recorded snatches
of Hughes last words: Isnt this all so silly? Theyre
executing an innocent man. Then he winked at us, Sullivan said.
This madness will end one day. Continue the struggle. Dont give up.
Dont give in, Hughes is reported to have said.
Death at 6:18. Death at 6:18. Those are the only words
ever said by an official in the execution detail to witnesses.
My plane lands in Newark at exactly 7:18 p.m. Im still
hatching miracles, still trying to wish that horse to Huntsville. I recall the
last prayer of petition read by the pastor of St. Thomas Church in Huntsville
at Saturdays 6 p.m. Mass: For all those executed and those about to
be executed. Heading to pick up my baggage, I respond: We pray to
the Lord.
National Catholic Reporter, February 4,
2000
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