Once on death row, two speak of living
Debra Milke and Juan Melendez, once convicted criminals on death row, are advocating for community awareness about the system that almost killed them.
The pair spoke about their experiences on Wednesday to a crowded room of students and community members at Phoenix College. Together, they warned the audience of a system that wronged them and promoted the elimination of the death penalty.
The event, named “Life After Death Row,” was sponsored by Amnesty International and Death Penalty Alternatives.
“It promotes awareness,” said Deborah Webster, department chairwoman for behavioral sciences at Phoenix College, who planned the event with the school’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
In the audience were dozens of people, including members of the school’s NAMI chapter, students studying criminal justice and community members. Following presentations by Milke and Melendez, the audience had the opportunity to ask them questions.
Debra Milke
“Today is really hard for me,” Milke began. She explained to the audience that Friday, Dec. 2, would mark the 27th anniversary of her son’s death.
“Ever since December 2nd, it’s just been a living nightmare,” said Milke, 52.
On that day in 1989, her 4-year-old son, Christopher, had been told he was going to the mall to see Santa Claus, but was instead taken to a remote area and shot in the head by a man living with her in Phoenix.
Police accused her of conspiracy in the murder, but Milke thought it would pass because she said she wasn’t involved.
To her surprise, in 1991, Milke was convicted of participation in the murder of her son and sent to death row in the Arizona Department of Corrections.
“Going through all of this, I felt like I was watching the story of someone else and not me,” she said.
Though Milke wouldn’t go into detail about her experience because of a pending lawsuit, she spoke about death row in broad terms.
“At that time, I was the only woman on death row, so they didn’t know where to put me,” she said.
To protect herself from the pain of her “double fragility” — the loss of her son and her conviction — she said she compartmentalized her grief to fight for her freedom.
“It was never, if I was going to get out, it was when,” she said.
Milke was released in September 2013 after a federal Appeals Court ruled that her constitutional rights had been violated during her case, making her conviction void. The Phoenix police detective who claimed Milke had confessed her part in the murder had a record laced with misconduct, and Milke’s trial was not the only one to have been tainted by his involvement.
Since her release, Milke said she has spent most of her time getting used to the new world around her and dealing with her grief.
“What happened to me could happen to anyone,” she told The Arizona Republic after the event.
“I was young once, like these people,” Milke said, referring to the attendees on Wednesday. She said she hopes to make change through awareness of death-row issues.
Juan Melendez
Juan Melendez took the stage with energy and vigor — not the demeanor of a man who spent nearly 18 years on death row.
In his darkest hours, Melendez recalled yelling, “I don’t want to die.”
Melendez was convicted of a murder in Florida he did not commit and, like Milke, sat on death row for the crime.
Years into his sentence, his lawyer came across a tape of the real murderer’s confession that had never been brought forward as evidence. In 2002, Melendez was released from prison.
He recalled how the corrections officers treated him differently the day of his release.
“They called me something they had never called me before: ‘Mr. Melendez,’ “he said with a laugh.
But what he remembers the most from that day was saying goodbye to a friend, an inmate on death row who he would have to leave behind.
“December 20, 2007,” he said, reciting the day his friend was executed.
Melendez spoke passionately as he advocated for the elimination of the death penalty, calling it “cruel and unnecessary,”
“We can always release an innocent man from prison,” Melendez said. “But we cannot release an innocent man from the grave.”
“Going through all of this, I felt like I was watching the story of someone else and not me.” DEBRA MILKE FORMER INMATE ON DEATH ROW