Final Words

The state of Texas has executed nearly 600 men and women since 1982. Most of them had something to say in their last moments, and those words are now collected in a book, Final Words: 578 Men and Women Executed on Texas Death Row. About 100 chose to say nothing at all; “this inmate declined to make a last statement,” the book notes. But many more opted to share their final thoughts. Taken together, their words—on religious faith, love, violence, regret, and capital punishment itself—form an evocative portrait of the moieties of the death penalty in Texas: the crimes these men and women committed, and the death they now suffer for it.

Each entry appears as a two-page spread, with a prisoner’s final words on one side (obtained from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice) and a brief description of his or her crimes on the opposite page. There are exceptionally short remarks—Freddie Lee Webb, executed