Swinn talked about the causes of Sam’s problems. He described
the horrors of living in a cell, near the gas chamber, twenty-three
hours a day; of being denied companionship, good food, sex,
movement, exercise, fresh air. He’d worked with many death row
inmates and knew their problems well. Sam, of course, was very
different because of his age. The average death row inmate was
thirty-one years old, but Sam was sixty when he first arrived at
Parchman. Physically and mentally, he was not suited for it.