The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
PTFO - Watching the Dallas Cowboys on Death Row: Our Visit to a Supermax Prison
Thu, 14 Nov 2024
A staggering number of death-row inmates have used their last words to do the same thing: pay tribute to their favorite sports teams. So we sent correspondent Dave Fleming to a supermax prison in Texas to find out why. Charles Flores — Inmate No. 999299 at the notorious Polunsky Unit in Livingston — has maintained his innocence for over 25 years and counting… while living in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. And Flores agreed to take us inside his hidden world of game-day enchiladas, trash talk, and fantasy football. Where there isn’t always next year.= To learn more about the case of Charles Flores: https://www.freecharlesflores.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the significance of sports on death row?
Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
So much of living under death sentences is the unknown. You know, we're sent here. We were convicted and sentenced to death and sent to death row to have our lives taken from us, to be executed, you know, to be legally murdered. And, um, That's pretty heavy, man.
Right after this ad. You're listening to DraftKings Network. Dave Fleming, time is of the essence with this episode in lots of very real ways. Thank you for being here. My pleasure, as always. This one started, as many great things do, with a website I had never heard about.
It started with me coming across a website, a database, where you can read the final last statements of every prisoner that's been executed by the state of Texas. Me being me, I went down that rabbit hole, started reading them. It is a gut-wrenching, awful, exhausting experience.
The very basic premise of there's a publicly available website that records the last things that every executed prisoner on death row in the state of Texas says, you're mesmerized, right?
You can't stop scrolling. This is William Prince Davis, prisoner number 614. He was executed on September 4th, 1999. His last statement was, quote, I just thank the Lord for all that he has done for me. That is all. That is all I have to say, warden. Oh, and I would just like to say in closing, what about those cowboys?
What's staggering is that that guy, the guy you just quoted, William Prince Davis, is not alone.
No, no, there's a shockingly large amount of death row prisoners who used that final opportunity to shout out their favorite sports teams.
John Burks, inmate number 949. His last statement says, quote, the Raiders are going all the way, y'all. Y'all pray for me and it's going to be all right. That's it. And it's time to roll up out of here. It's going down. Let's get it over with. That's it. June 14th, 2000. And so this is obviously the most remarkable proof of the power of sports that I'd ever encountered.
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Chapter 2: How do death row inmates express their last wishes?
I've taken pictures in the past. And it's usually better to put the phone down like this so you don't see that phone like right next to your ear. So if you want, you can just let them both hang down.
Okay. You guys want me to let the phones hang or leave them here? And Charles kind of saves me because it's clear that he wants to talk football. I looked at the Cowboys' schedule before we came over here, and I noticed, okay, they play the Texans. Is it like week? I think it's 11. Okay. Week 11. Week 11. Yes. Charles grew up big. You can tell that from the clips that we're watching.
Was an offensive and defensive lineman in middle school. And the first thing he wants to talk about is the Cowboys-Texans game on Monday night, of course.
So the way death row is, the population is its population. There's more guys from the big cities, the big counties. So there are more guys from Dallas and Houston than anywhere else. So that makes for a lot more fans of both teams. So on that day, football is the sport. We wake up thinking about it. You know, when the... When the weekend starts, that's what we're talking about.
And especially a big game like that, a big rivalry. Because I don't know, man. It seems like that because the Texans have been up and down a lot of times. They seem to play the role of... The little brother, you know what I'm saying? And so they want to get, they want to beat the Cowboys. You know, they don't beat nobody else. They want to beat the Cowboys.
And I've been telling the guys, the Texan fans, I'm like, you know, on that day, we're not going to be friends. We're going to be rivals, you know what I'm saying?
His cell, smaller than this studio, 9 by 12. It's probably...
three of these booths wide. One on this side and one on this side. So it's about nine foot.
Some of the death row cells are actually as small as 60 square feet. And they are in there 23 hours a day without exception.
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