Death Watch Journal for Kevin Varga – DAY 67

I have just finished writing a letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles asking them to vote for recommending me for clemency. You see it is not the Board that decides whether or not I am granted clemency or not. The Board only voted to recommend to the governor to grant clemency and he either grants it or denies it depending on what he feels is necessary in my case. I hope and pray that he will grant it to me. I have lost faith in the legal aspects of my case. I see the men who have dates before mine being executed and to me they have better claims in court that I do, so what will become of me? I think that by the time this is posted on the site my case will have been decided by the courts. Am I still breathing as you read this or am I literally reaching from beyond the grave as you read my words? It is kind of surreal for me to think about this. I want to live of course, or do I? I guess I have moments that make me believe that I am ready to just say, lets end this today. I think that it if weren’t for my loved ones I would just let them have me. I am so sick of living in cages. I know that it was my actions that brought me here, we not exactly “here” but to prison. I believe that I should be punished for the crime I committed, which is negligible homicide. This crime carries a two-year maximum sentence. I have paid that sentence four times over since I was arrested in 1998. Twelve years is a lifetime when you live inside a box. Some people in here have actually gone certifiably insane from having to live in a box with no human contact, with the exception of the officers placing them into hand restraints to be walked from one cage to another. Is it any wonder that some of the men here long for their release; even it is means they will be executed? I never would have thought that I would think that way, but looking at another twelve years here in this box, and well I could see it/ I would treat going to population almost like being set free. The freedom to just walk from my cell to go eat in the chow hall would seem to me a vacation. But no matter if I am still alive as you read these words or not, please know that each of you reading these words have supported me and for that I am eternally grateful to each and every one of you. Thank you.