Hitting Left with former death row prisoners, now prison justice advocates

Nearly a thousand incarcerated fire fighters man the LA fire lines.

The 1600th exe­cu­tion in the mod­ern death penal­ty era occurred in September 2024. Public support for the death penalty remains at a five-decade low (53%), and recent Gallup polling reveals that more than half of young U.S. adults ages 18 through 43 now oppose the death penalty. Fewer people found the death penalty morally acceptable this year (55%) than last year (60%)

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My guests on Hitting Left Friday were Renaldo Hudson and Stanley Howard, former death row prisoners, and Chicago writer Liz Futrell, author of Lessons From Death Row.

You can listen to the entire show here.

RENALDO HUDSON -- Renaldo Hudson is an educator, minister, and community organizer and focuses his work on ending perpetual punishment in Illinois. Renaldo's journey is one of profound transformation and resilience. Convicted at 19 and sentenced to death, he spent 37 years in prison, during which he taught himself to read and write, earned a college degree, and became a mentor to fellow inmates. His sentence was commuted in 2020, and he now serves as the Director of Education for the Illinois Prison Project. Renaldo's story is a testament to the power of redemption and the human spirit. Renaldo is currently the Director of Education at the Illinois Prison Project.

STANLEY HOWARD -- Stanley Howard spent 16 years of his life on death row for a 1984 murder that evidence would later show he did not commit. Howard’s long-standing claim that he was tortured by police became central to a special prosecutor’s 2006 investigation, which determined former Police Commander Jon Burge and his “midnight crew” tortured men to extract confessions for two decades. Stanley is the author of Tortured by Blue: The Chicago Police Torture Story (Balboa Press), which he wrote in collaboration with fellow victims of torture by the CPD, Mark Clements, Marvin Reeves, and Ronald Kitchen. He currently works as a paralegal with the Uptown People’s Law Center.

Liz, Renaldo, Stanley and Mike Klonsky.

LIZ FUTRELL—Liz is a dedicated and talented writer based in Chicago. She is known for her in-depth and thought-provoking work on death row inmates. She has written extensively about her experiences and insights related to prisons and the death penalty. "Lessons from Death Row," reveals her journey working with men on death row and documenting their efforts to abolish the death penalty in Illinois.

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With the fires raging across the L.A. area, we began our show with Steve Earle’s Fire Break Line…

…And then played Dave Alvin’s California’s Burning at the break.

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A Hitting Left salute…

Incarcerated firefighters. (Max Whittaker for The New York Times}

…goes out to the nearly a thousand incarcerated firefighters who have been deployed to help contain the blazes. The crews make up nearly a fourth of those on the fire lines. They earn between $5.80 and $10.24 per day.