Dennis Dowthitt (left), Brian Roberson (centre) and James Collier, death row inmates whose last words before execution have been recorded by the state of Texas.

TEXAS. THE LAST WORDS OF EXECUTED PRISONERS

July 12, 2013: the last words of the 376 prisoners executed in Texas are faithfully recorded on the state justice department's website. These words not only represent how they wish to be viewed after their death, but it is also the final step before the actual execution begins.
The final statements vary from those who use it as an opportunity to apologize for their crimes to those who proclaim their innocence. Some are angry, blaming the system for their actions, blaming their victims and the victim's family, or blaming the ineptitude of their lawyer. Most will tell their families and friends that they love them; many times asking for forgiveness from them for all that they have endured. Most surprising are those that take a moment to thank the prison warden or to tell their executioner that they are forgiven.
The Texas death chambers are the busiest in the US, and correspondingly efficient: 376 prisoners have been executed since 1982. There isn't much time to dwell on rights and wrongs and regrets. Perhaps in order to cauterise doubt in a blaze of clarity, everything is catalogued: the minute the prisoner is injected with lethal medicine, the minute it starts to take effect, the minute they die. Now that there is nothing they can do to change their fate, the prisoners are allowed small freedoms: to choose their last meals, to say a few words. These last words, too, are catalogued, and are publicly available on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's website. The pages are cleanly designed, passionless, almost an artwork - but the minimalism cannot hide the fact that every name and number indicates whole blighted, messy lives, of victims and prisoners alike.
The statements are hard to read. They are at once public and very private. They are domestic. They ask partners to care for soon-to-be fatherless children. There is a lot of love - for friends, supporters, partners, already grieving parents. There is guilt. They are overwhelmingly religious, mostly asking for mercy from a Christian God, though there is the occasional invocation of Allah. The appearance of a foreign language is unusual. In more recent years the recorders have contented themselves with "...(Spanish)...", as if being foreign stripped the prisoner of their last words. Profanity gets the same treatment. State-sanctioned murder is fine. Swearing, it seems, is not.
Many are still pleading their innocence. This too is difficult to read, because there is no way for us to know whether they are telling the truth. Along with each statement is a description of the crimes each prisoner is accused of committing. Rape, sexual molestation and murder of a five-year-old. Rape, strangling and drowning of a 28-year-old woman. Murder, during robberies, of a whole procession of small-town store clerks. Many may well not be able to face, possibly even comprehend what they have done; others may be hoping for the last-minute stay. And some may be telling the truth: a careful Boston Globe review of the 127 death-row inmates who died during George Bush's governorship of Texas concluded that "there was powerful proof of guilt - uncontradicted scientific evidence, freely offered confessions, or an admission of regret before the execution - in nine out of 10 cases."
Read the statements at this link: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/dr_executed_offenders.html (Sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/)