Sergeant Packer had worked on the Row for twenty-one years.
For eight hours each morning, he was in charge of fourteen
prisoners and two guards. MSU was not a bad place to work. The
inmates were generally quiet and well-behaved. They spent twentythree
hours a day alone in their cells. They were allowed an hour of
outdoor exercise per day. Fourteen cells faced the hallway, each 6
feet wide and 9 feet deep. The front of each cell was a wall of iron
bars, so that an inmate could never be completely private. Anything
he did — sleep, use the toilet — could be observed by the guards.
Packer hated executions, but fortunately they had been rare in
Mississippi. He’d been through only four since 1982. He came to
number six cell, Sam’s cell. It was less than ninety feet from the
gas chamber.