Brighouse lawyer Roz Breaks on working on America’s Death Row

Jun 19 2009 by Joanne Douglas, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A LAWYER who spent six months working on death row described the inmates as forgotten prisoners.

Roz Breaks from Brighouse has just returned from six months in Mississippi where she worked with charity Amicus on the appeal cases for three death row prisoners.

She said her experience at Parchman Prison made her realise how people often ignored prisoners while they spend decades awaiting their death sentence.

Roz, 24, a former Greenhead College student, met inmate Ricky Chase a week after she touched down in Mississippi. He has served 19 years on death row for homicide and kidnap.

She also met Jeffrey Davies, who has served 17 years for homicide, and William Wilson who is just two years into his death row sentence for capital murder and child abuse.

Roz: “I was really nervous beforehand because I didn’t know what to expect.

“But part of my job is putting people at ease so I told myself it would be fine and it really was, they were easy to talk to and we’d chat about the case or sport or they’d give me sightseeing tips.

“They were all interested in where I was from and what Britain was like.

“I think it helped them to have someone to chat to.”

She would sit a few metres away from them at Unit 32 Death Row at Parchman Prison, set in 18,000 acres of land.

There would be a glass screen separating her from the inmate whose feet would be shackled to a chair and a band around their waist. They would speak on a phone but the band would often cut into the inmates wrists when they lifted the phone to their ear.

They all wore the death row prison uniform of red jumpsuits, a white T-shirt and tennis shoes.

Roz added: “The prison is so immense, nothing can prepare you for it.

“It’s security gate after security gate, you’d go through one door which would lock before another opened.

“The prison ground is massive. Urban legend is that years ago prisoners who escaped would be on the run for four or five days and they’d be captured and couldn’t believe it when they were told they’d not actually left the prison ground.”

Roz talked to the inmates about life inside and they revealed that they had just one hour yard time a day – staff and weather permitting. But their yard was actually a fenced run separated from others.