Yes, Inmates Are Human Beings
Dublin Core
Title
Yes, Inmates Are Human Beings
Creator
Mello, Michael
Source
Mello, Michael. “Yes, Inmates are Human Beings”. Valley News, April16, 1995.
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1995-04-16
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
2 JPGs
300 DPI
Language
English
Coverage
West Lebanon, New Hampshire
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
To the Editor:
According to Edwin Vaile's satirical letter (Forum,
April 5) , Donella Meadows' recent column observed that
"criminals" might actually be human beings as well--
an insight lost on the likes of scholars who prefer car-
toonish views of "them." Folks such as Ms. Meadows
actually let their opinions be influenced by conducting
their own field research-- i.e., actually meeting, getting
to know and (gasp!) perhaps even coming to like and
respect the shared humanity of people whom society
would prefer to write off as alien species and forget
about. I have been a fan of Ms. Meadows' writing for
years, and she recently granted me permission to use one
of her past pieces in my forthcoming book on capital pun-
ishment. But I missed this column, and I am grateful to
Mr. Vaile for bringing it to my attention.
Full disclosure: For the past 12 years, I have worked
as an attorney on behalf of Florida death row inmates.
Over that period, I have come to know a fair number of
people who the Sunshine State is trying to kill-- along
with the families and loved ones who were victims for my
clients' crimes. The only generalization I can make about
the killers I have known is that no generalizations really
work. They're surprisingly random slice of American
culture, with one only clear unifying characteristic being
that virtually all of them came from backgrounds of
extreme poverty and family dysfunction.
Not that that explains away or justifies their hideous
crimes (except for the surprising--to my mind, at least
-- number who are factually innocent of the crimes for
which they are to condemned to die,i.e., they didn't do it,
period). And as often as not, they are ashamed of their
backgrounds and reluctant to let me raise their histories
as legal issues, even when raising such claims might well
get them off death row. They'd rather die in the electric
chair than to let their lawyers tell the world about how they
were raped by their parents or about how their family
lived in tar-paper shanties and subsisted on dog food.
The fact is that prisoners are more like us normal peo-
ple than we often want to admit or acknowledge. Some-
times they are too recognizable for out comfort. "Ted"
Bundy, for instance, remains our culture's leading
metaphor for incomprehensible evil and horror, even half
a decade after his execution. If you were to meet Bundy
in your local bar, you'd never know he has confessed to
many, many murders. You'd think he was just like you,
and for the most part you'd be right. That's the scariest
part: not that he's so different from us, but rather that
he's so similar. As we are similar to him.
There is no "us" and "them." We're all part of "us"
MICHAEL MELLO
Professor of Law
Vermont Law School
South Royalton
According to Edwin Vaile's satirical letter (Forum,
April 5) , Donella Meadows' recent column observed that
"criminals" might actually be human beings as well--
an insight lost on the likes of scholars who prefer car-
toonish views of "them." Folks such as Ms. Meadows
actually let their opinions be influenced by conducting
their own field research-- i.e., actually meeting, getting
to know and (gasp!) perhaps even coming to like and
respect the shared humanity of people whom society
would prefer to write off as alien species and forget
about. I have been a fan of Ms. Meadows' writing for
years, and she recently granted me permission to use one
of her past pieces in my forthcoming book on capital pun-
ishment. But I missed this column, and I am grateful to
Mr. Vaile for bringing it to my attention.
Full disclosure: For the past 12 years, I have worked
as an attorney on behalf of Florida death row inmates.
Over that period, I have come to know a fair number of
people who the Sunshine State is trying to kill-- along
with the families and loved ones who were victims for my
clients' crimes. The only generalization I can make about
the killers I have known is that no generalizations really
work. They're surprisingly random slice of American
culture, with one only clear unifying characteristic being
that virtually all of them came from backgrounds of
extreme poverty and family dysfunction.
Not that that explains away or justifies their hideous
crimes (except for the surprising--to my mind, at least
-- number who are factually innocent of the crimes for
which they are to condemned to die,i.e., they didn't do it,
period). And as often as not, they are ashamed of their
backgrounds and reluctant to let me raise their histories
as legal issues, even when raising such claims might well
get them off death row. They'd rather die in the electric
chair than to let their lawyers tell the world about how they
were raped by their parents or about how their family
lived in tar-paper shanties and subsisted on dog food.
The fact is that prisoners are more like us normal peo-
ple than we often want to admit or acknowledge. Some-
times they are too recognizable for out comfort. "Ted"
Bundy, for instance, remains our culture's leading
metaphor for incomprehensible evil and horror, even half
a decade after his execution. If you were to meet Bundy
in your local bar, you'd never know he has confessed to
many, many murders. You'd think he was just like you,
and for the most part you'd be right. That's the scariest
part: not that he's so different from us, but rather that
he's so similar. As we are similar to him.
There is no "us" and "them." We're all part of "us"
MICHAEL MELLO
Professor of Law
Vermont Law School
South Royalton
Original Format
Newspaper
Contributor of the Digital Item
Brooks, Anna
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Dickinson, Terra
Files
Citation
Mello, Michael, “Yes, Inmates Are Human Beings,” HIST299, accessed July 12, 2026, https://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/155.