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Comforting the condemned: Inside the execution chamber with reverend focused on humanity

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Comforting the condemned: Inside the execution chamber with reverend focused on humanity



The Rev. Jeff Hood of Little Rock, Arkansas, has witnessed seven executions, including the nation’s most recent, that of David Hosier in Missouri. Hood helps ‘make them feel like a human being.’

When the Rev. Jeff Hood entered Missouri’s execution chamber this past week, he saw something hauntingly out of the ordinary: himself.

The window to the death chamber is one-way, meaning witnesses can see inmates but inmates cannot see who is watching them, Hood told USA TODAY, adding that every other execution he’s witnessed in other states has been in a room with a two-way window.

“It’s like a house of horrors,” Hood said. “It’s very, very bizarre.”

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Hood walked in to find his friend, David Hosier − a man condemned to die for the 2009 murder of a former lover − strapped to the gurney. Hosier’s final words to the reverend before Missouri executed him: “Give ’em hell, Jeff.” Encouragement for Hood to keep fighting against the ultimate punishment.

As Hood put his hand on Hosier’s shoulder and began to read scripture, the intravenous line to deliver the lethal injection was near Hood’s elbow. Soon the reverend was able to see the pentobarbital − or as he calls it, “poison” − travel to end Hosier’s life.

When time of death was pronounced at 6:11 p.m. on Tuesday, Hosier became the seventh man Hood has seen executed.

Hood says witnessing executions makes him feel ‘like a murderer’

In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that spiritual advisers must be allowed into execution chambers if death row inmates want them. Since then, the 40-year-old Hood − who lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with his wife and five children − has made it one of his missions to comfort the condemned in their final weeks, hours and minutes.

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“My job is to come into their lives when they have six to three months left to live and become their best friend,” Hood told USA TODAY in an interview shortly after Hosier’s execution. “I become their best friend in order to be their best friend when they die.”

After seven executions, Hood said it doesn’t get any easier. If anything, it’s gotten harder.

“You feel like a murderer,” he said. “I’m called to be there for my guy. I’m called to pray. I’m called to read scripture.  For all of my good intentions, I ultimately do nothing to stop it … I sit there and watch someone I love be murdered. In my inaction, I join the team of murderers.

“Being a part of the entire process is moral torture,” he added.

But Hood feels compelled to continue the work. Three inmates have asked him to accompany them to their executions in the next six months, and he works with about two dozen others throughout the country. This despite what he says have been numerous death threats against him and his family.

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Why?

“Giving someone a voice, that’s the only thing that can make them feel like a human being,” he said.

Hood witnessed world’s first nitrogen gas execution

While Hood says every execution he’s witnessed is disturbing, he’s particularly haunted by that of Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was put to death by nitrogen gas in Alabama in January for his role in a murder-for-hire plot of a preacher’s wife in 1988.

“He literally was heaving back and forth, his face was hitting the front of the mask,” Hood says. “Mucus and slobber were drizzling down the front of the inside of the mask … It was like his veins all over his body were spidering and that there were ants up on his skin that were moving in every single direction.”

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Marty Roney, a reporter with the Montgomery Advertiser − part of the USA TODAY Network − was also among witnesses and reported that Smith “appeared to convulse and shake vigorously for about four minutes after the nitrogen gas apparently began flowing through his full-face mask,” and that “it was another two to three minutes before he appeared to lose consciousness, all while gasping for air to the extent that the gurney shook several times.”

By appearances, lethal injections almost look like medical procedures, Hood said, while the nitrogen gas method “looks like a very vicious, horrible murder.”

Among Smith’s last words before he suffocated: “Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward.”

In a statement following Smith’s execution, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall noted that it “marked the first time in the nation – and the world – that nitrogen hypoxia was used as the method of execution.”

The state “has achieved something historic,” he added. Alabama is set to execute another inmate, Alan Eugene Miller, with nitrogen gas in September. Miller, who was convicted of killing three people during two workplace shootings in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1999, is arguing against the method in a lawsuit, saying it’s cruel and unusual punishment.

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Hood focuses on love at most recent execution

At the most recent execution Hood attended, that of David Hosier on June 11, he said he read from the Bible as he held the inmate’s shoulder.

As we was reading, Hood says Hosier repeated the phrase, “Give ’em hell,” an apparent reference to Hood’s hope to see the death penalty abolished.

Hosier was convicted in the 2009 shooting death of his former lover, Angela Gilpin, a married mother of two sons. Gilpin was seeing Hosier while she was separated from her husband but had decided to make her marriage work and broke it off with Hosier, who always maintained his innocence.

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Hood said that Hosier was 100% convinced of his innocence and that he wasn’t just “putting on a show.” Hood gave Hosier absolution for his sins and did not confess to the crime in his final moments.

While Hood says he was being tortured by his own emotions during the process, his focus was on ensuring Hosier felt love and felt like a human being.

 “I think that in the last few weeks, David got a lot of his dignity back,” Hood said.

“I’m the luckiest man on Earth,” Hosier said in a final statement sent to reporters shortly before he was put to death. “I’ve been able to speak the the truth of my innocence … I leave you all with love.”

Contributing: Marty Roney of the Montgomery Advertiser

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Self-described ‘jailhouse lawyer’ fights transfer in federal court | Arkansas Democrat Gazette

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Self-described ‘jailhouse lawyer’ fights transfer in federal court | Arkansas Democrat Gazette


An inmate transferred from the Arkansas Department of Corrections to a federal facility in West Virginia earlier this year was back in Arkansas on Tuesday to testify in federal court about the transfer, which he claimed was retaliation for his activities as a “jailhouse lawyer” with a record of successful litigation.

Gregory Holt, 48, is serving life in prison for a 2010 conviction for aggravated domestic burglary and first-degree domestic battery, and is classified by the Arkansas Department of Corrections as a habitual offender. He contended in a federal complaint filed July 10 that he was transferred June 9 to USP Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, W.Va., to short-circuit several civil rights lawsuits he filed that are currently pending, as well as in retaliation for successful litigation he has brought against the prison system in the past.

Holt was returned to Arkansas for a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky in the matter.

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According to the complaint, Holt, a self-described jailhouse lawyer and practicing Muslim who goes by the name Abdul Maalik Muhammad, gained notoriety for a lawsuit he filed against the Department of Corrections over its policy against beards that eventually wound its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor in 2015.

A 2022 strip search prompted another lawsuit that was settled in June with an order by U.S. Magistrate Judge Tricia Harris to allow Holt to wear modest clothing in accordance with his Muslim beliefs during cell “shakedowns,” and that he be provided with a hard copy of the order and judgement to show to officers.

Holt claimed in the complaint that Arkansas Division of Correction Director Dexter Payne initiated his transfer in direct response to ongoing, active litigation and after confidential mediation talks failed. The complaint asserts that the transfer was a deliberate attempt to disrupt Holt’s legal advocacy on behalf of himself and other inmates.

In court Tuesday, Holt was called to the stand by Carolyn Homer, an attorney with Morrison & Foerster LLP in Washington D.C., who is part of the team representing him. Homer first asked Holt if he wished to go back to West Virginia.

“I do not,” he said, emphatically. “I didn’t do anything to be transferred there … Arkansas is home … This is where I grew up … I’ve lived here my whole life.”

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Holt testified that he has been in the Corrections Department for 16 years and that on June 9, he was abruptly transferred to USP Hazelton “in retaliation for my cases helping other people and myself in litigation.”

Holt, who has six cases pending in federal court over civil rights violation claims, said as soon as he was transferred, the state began trying to get the cases dismissed as moot, citing his relocation to West Virginia. After he was moved, he said, he was denied access to his legal files, which he said crippled his ability to work on the cases.

He testified that he has filed “approximately 10” federal lawsuits, his first one a Section 1983 civil rights challenge to ADC’s grooming policy that at the time prohibited beards.

At one point, Holt said, department officials offered him a transfer to Tennessee, which he said he rejected.

“I wasn’t trying to run from the problem,” he explained, saying his goal was to effect “systemic change” in how inmates are treated.

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After the Supreme Court ruling, Holt said, the department changed its grooming policy to allow closely cropped beards.

His reason for filing the lawsuit to start with, he said, was because of the tenets of Islam that he follows.

“It is a command from the Prophet Muhammad,” he said, “that a Muslim is to trim the mustache short and to keep the beard as it is.”

Holt testified that during his time in prison, he has assisted approximately 500 inmates with legal help and said in one case, he succeeded in getting a fellow inmate’s sentence reversed by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

On May 8, Holt said he attended talks with prison officials that were mediated by U.S. Magistrate Judge Joe Volpe, which he said was where the idea of transferring him out of state began to take off. Holt said he told Volpe the major issues had to do with his legal papers and other property that had been taken from him after prison officials suspected he was in violation of the rules by having too much property in his cell.

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At one point, Holt said, he told Volpe “the only way I would even remotely consider a transfer is if it involved going to the Bureau of Prisons.”

“He lit up,” Holt said. “He jumped all over it.

“I had only thrown it out there,” he then explained. “I was not trying to get transferred like that. It was more of a flippant remark.”

The transfer, Holt testified, came just after midnight on June 9.

“I was put in a transport van and driven 14 hours,” he said. “No food. No water. I didn’t use the bathroom.”

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Once he arrived at USP Hazelton, he said, it became obvious that no one expected his arrival and no one knew why he was there. Describing his arrival, he said prison officials at the federal lockup regarded the transport officers as a threat and approached them with “hands on guns.”

After his arrival, Holt said a motion was filed almost immediately to dismiss the jailhouse lawyer case as moot, which he said, “confirmed what I suspected all along.”

Asked if he would consider mediation with Corrections Department officials again, Holt was adamant.

“I will never mediate with them again,” he said. “They can’t be trusted. They’re treacherous.”

Arkansas Division of Correction Director Dexter Payne, named as the defendant in the case, said under questioning that he submitted a transfer packet to the Bureau of Prisons on May 1 but said he didn’t tell Holt about it and didn’t mention it to Volpe. After the transfer was accepted on June 3, he said no one told Holt or his legal counsel it was approved.

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Asked about various cases Holt had filed, Payne professed to have little knowledge of the details but said in an email on May 12 to Classification Administrator Daisha Thompson that she was to tell the Bureau of Prisons that Holt “had become a management problem.”

“He insists on being a jailhouse attorney,” Payne wrote in the email, “and assisting other inmates in their legal ventures.”

Regarding the lack of disciplinary records documenting policy violations, Payne placed blame on prison staff for failure to write Holt up for disciplinary violations.

“Staff just failed to do their business and do their jobs,” Payne said.

Regarding the transfer, Payne said he was told following the May 8 mediation conference with Volpe that Holt himself had requested to be transferred, and he said he initiated the transfer request at that time.

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“It appears you initiated that request on May 1,” Rudofsky then asked from the bench. “Can you explain that?”

Payne said the May 1 request was simply an “exploratory” maneuver to determine if BOP would approve the transfer.

“Once I received information during the settlement conference that this was something Mr. Holt had raised,” he said, “I stepped on the gas.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Rudofsky said, his voice sounding skeptical, “but this comes about as close as I’ve ever seen to a lie. Explain to me why you don’t think this is a lie.”

“My intentions were exactly what I said,” Payne replied. “When I said May 1, it was exploratory … To explore the federal option I would have to do it prior to the settlement case.”

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Following Payne’s testimony Homer rested for the plaintiffs.

Trey Cooper, lead defense attorney, told Rudofsky he expects to call one witness Wednesday morning before resting. Rudofsky, citing a 9 a.m. hearing in another matter, told the attorneys to reassemble and be ready to begin by 10 a.m.



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Razorback Report: Arkansas kickoff time against Mississippi State announced

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Razorback Report: Arkansas kickoff time against Mississippi State announced


FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas won’t have any more games its favored to win except for one and fans now know when that game will take place.

The Razorbacks (2-5, 0-3 SEC) will host Mississippi State (4-3, 0-3 SEC) in a game that will kickoff at 3 p.m. on SEC Network Nov. 1.

The Bulldogs are currently on a three-game losing streak and could easily come to Fayetteville on a four-game losing streak with a game against No. 22 Texas this weekend.

The showdown between Arkansas and Mississippi State is a must-win game for both teams if they want to go bowling in December.

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ICYMI: What if famed booster made money no object in Hogs’ coaching search?

The Razorbacks have the harder path to get to six wins than Mississippi State and can afford just one loss to remain in the hunt for a bowl game.

The Bulldogs, meanwhile, are only two wins away from becoming bowl eligible and Arkansas is the only unranked opponent left on their schedule.

So, the game that’ll take place at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in less than two weeks may not rival a game like Georgia vs. Alabama, but both will have a lot to play for.

ICYMI: Three storylines for Arkansas Razorbacks ahead of home showdown against Auburn

Both sides will also need to record upsets in the final five games of the season to reach six wins.

Yesterday’s Results

Men’s Golf: Fallen Oak Collegiate Invitational
Women’s Golf: Arkansas at The Ally at Old Waverly
Men’s Tennis: ITF 25K Norman
Women’s Tennis: ITA Central Regional

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Today’s Schedule

Women’s Golf: Arkansas at The Ally at Old Waverly
Men’s Tennis: ITF 25K Norman

Did You Notice?

Fallen Oak Collegiate Final Results:

T1  #9 LSU  273-276-283=832 / -32
T1  #20 Alabama 279-281-272=832 / -32
3  #18 Illinois  284-279-272=835 / -29
4  #5 Arkansas  282-275-289=846 / -18
5  #7 Ole Miss  278-286-285=849 / -15
6  #19 Tennessee  287-281-282=850 / -14
7  UNLV  290-287-284=861 / -3
8  #36 Georgia  281-289-293=863 / -1
9  Mississippi  State  294-284-288=866 / +2
10  Chattanooga  283-292-292=867 / +3
11  Southern Miss  294-283-292=869 / +5
12  Wisconsin  291-293-288=872 / +8
13  Iowa  292-288-302=881 / +17
14 #38 South Carolina  292-302-291=885 / +21

Arkansas Individual Results

T5 Cam Smith 69-70-69=209 / -8
T18 Erich Fortlage 70-69-74=213 / -3
T23 Nilo Maki-Petaja 72-68-74=214 / -2
T27 John Daly II 73-68-74=215 / -1
T40 Gerardo Gomez 71-74-72=217 / +1
T44 Willie Gordon (Ind.) 73-70-76=219 / +3

We’ll Leave You With This



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Wayne County boater death marks 23rd in Tennessee, surpassing 2024 total

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Wayne County boater death marks 23rd in Tennessee, surpassing 2024 total


Tennessee waterway deaths this year have climbed to 23, surpassed last year’s total, after an Arkansas man was killed in Wayne County Oct. 17.

The Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency reported 22 deaths for all of 2024, a decrease from 27 in 2023.

Wildlife resource officers were called to Kentucky Lake in Wayne County just before 3 p.m. Oct. 17 after a boater went into the water, according to a news release.

Wayne County is about two hours south of Nashville on the Alabama, Tennessee state line.

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Matthew Hubble, 37, of Brookland, Arkansas, was out on a boat with friends when he was ejected. The group had multiple boats on the water that day, the agency said.

Hubble’s friends immediately began searching for him, the agency said. They were successful and pulled him onto one of the boats where they took him to Clifton Marina. Paramedics met the group at the marina, the agency said.

Hubble ultimately did not survive.

He was not wearing a life jacket at the time of the accident, the agency said.

“The investigation is ongoing, and no further details are available at this time,” the agency said.

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Kentucky Lake reported the most the most boating injuries in Tennessee last year with six, according to the 2024 Tennessee Boating Incident Statistical Report.

Water deaths down in Nashville area

Despite the rise in the number of deaths this year, the Middle Tennessee region has largely been spared.

Between April and September of 2023, there were 17 waterway deaths on Nashville District Lakes. Last year there were 14 deaths, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

Percy Priest Reservoir and Old Hickory Lake led the state in fatal accidents on waterways in 2024 with three each, according to the statistical report.

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Percy Priest has seen fewer incidents this year.

In June, a child drowned while swimming with his family at Hamilton Creek Park. Tobias Henock, 5, went underwater and was missing for several minutes before his father found him. Family began CPR until paramedics arrived and took the boy to Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital. He was pronounced dead there.

A series of waves rocked David Holcroft’s sailboat, causing him to lose his balance and fall overboard Aug. 2. Nearby boaters heard a call for help.

Officers with the wildlife agency responded to the Hamilton Creek area of the Percy Priest Reservoir and pulled Holcroft from the water. Officers gave him CPR until paramedics arrived at the scene.

Holcroft was taken to TriStar Summit Medical Center, where he died.

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