Condemned man’s wife works as advocate for those on death row

STARKE, Florida (AP) -- Hannah Floyd lives 10 miles from her husband and sees him once a week for a little hand-holding and two kisses. That’s the only contact allowed on death row.

James Floyd has spent nearly the last 20 years at Florida’s Union Correctional Institution for killing an 86-year-old woman. His cell can be stifling hot in the summer or bone-chilling cold in the winter. His constant companion is boredom.

Hannah believes James is innocent and will eventually be freed, but her fight is not to spare him. It’s to improve his day-to-day-living -- as well as for the 361 other men awaiting execution dates.

She runs the Florida Death Row Advocacy Group, which she calls a voice for the condemned. A similar group, Lamp of Hope, helps Texas inmates and their families.

“We are not an anti-death penalty group,” said Hannah, who met James about four years ago through a newspaper ad. “We try to take care of little things. We are not radical or try to be revolutionary.”

That approach has gotten the attention of prison officials. Corrections Secretary James Crosby has met personally with some of the 40 members to discuss their concerns, said spokesman Sterling Ivey.

The group runs a Web site and publishes a monthly newsletter, which includes jokes, poetry, artwork by inmates, discussions on religion and lethal injection, and news from inside prison.

Hannah was repulsed by the prison’s conditions from the first time she visited James. She had traveled thousands of miles to Starke, near Gainesville in northern Florida, from her home in Denmark to see James face-to-face.

“I remember the first year I was here, I cried every time,” she said. “It was so dehumanizing to me I couldn’t handle it.”

The first issue Floyd’s group took on was contact visits between death row inmates and their families and friends. At the time, the corrections department was considering a ban on touching.

“We are not an anti-death penalty group. We are not radical or try to be revolutionary.” - Hannah Floyd

Group members wrote letters and made telephone calls. They don’t know if their protests had any effect, but the policy has not changed. Family members, visitors, and inmates are allowed two kisses -- one at the start of the visit, the other at the end -- and can briefly hold hands.

Other issues the group has protested are inmates’ food, the extreme temperatures in the cells, prohibitions against inmates advertising for pen pals and the lack of activities for those sentenced to die. The state prohibits hobbies and crafts, such as painting, drawing, knitting and making models.

“Some of the guys are artistic. They like to decorate their envelopes. They can’t do that anymore,” said Diane Abshire, a member from Ottawa, Ohio. “They are horribly, horribly bored.”

Besides the Web site and newsletter, Floyd’s group publishes a guide for those recently sentenced to death row so they and their families know the rules -- unwritten and written -- for visitation and mail.

For example, once the tables set aside for inmates and their guests are filled up, no other visitors are allowed. Most of the time, however, about a third of the 27 tables are empty.

“A lot of the men don’t get visits for years at a time. Some have five to 10 years between a visit,” Hannah Floyd said. “That is pretty heartbreaking.”

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/22/death.row.advocate.ap/