Count Down for Death

Abstract

This article is a chronology of the day-by-day life of an inmate in his final week on death row. The procedures designed for this special prisoner—involving, for the warden, unique problems of management—deal with every detail that can possibly be regu lated : counting, feeding, shaving, clothing, mail, visits, preserva tion of good physical condition, etc. The daily schedules present a rhythmic application of traditional prison practices and unique death row procedures; together, they make up a script of how executions have been carried out for years in California. In space- age terms, this ritual of procedures in the last week of the con demned man's life is a "count down" to death.