I correspond with a Death Row inmate in Florida called Tommy Zeigler. He was sentenced to death 20 years ago for the murders of his wife, her parents and a customer in his furniture shop, but he says he was framed.
Certainly there were enough contradictions in the evidence given at his trial to raise genuine doubts about his conviction.
Twice he has been moved to the Death House and has been within hours of death in the electric chair. Appeals, however, won him temporary reprieve. He paints and crochets sweaters for friends, one of whom is Magda Finnegan from Clontarf, who campaigns for condemned prisoners and organises pen friends for them.
I could not but think of him last week as a Florida court investigated the workings of the chair following a gruesome execution. On July 8th Allen Lee Davis, a 15-stone convicted murderer, bled from the nose as the electric current went through him.
The court of inquiry in Orlando was shown poster-size photographs of Davis in the chair after his execution. "He appears purple, his mouth agape and his bruised forehead wrinkled. The areas around his eyes are blackened and his eyes are squeezed shut," wrote a local reporter who covered the hearing.
"These are distinct signs of pain," Prof Donald Price, a neuroscience expert at the University of Florida, told the inquiry. He was one of the witnesses testifying that death in the Florida electric chair is a "cruel or unusual punishment", and therefore contrary to Florida's constitution.
Prof Price said that a condemned prisoner can experience pain at three different times: when guards strap him in and tighten a leather belt over his mouth; when electrical currents penetrate his brain, and from burns and muscle contractions from the current.
Watching the proceedings was Thomas Provenzano who was supposed to have been executed in the same chair the week before. His attorneys won him a temporary reprieve until September 14th by which time the Supreme Court in Florida will have ruled on the results of the inquiry.
Last Monday, Judge Clarence Johnson, who headed the inquiry, pronounced that "Allen Lee Davis did not suffer any conscious pain while being electrocuted . . . rather he suffered instantaneous and painless death once the current was applied to him."
You wonder how the judge can be so sure. But Florida is very attached to its particular mode of execution. It is one of only four states that rely on the electric chair, as most now use lethal injection.
In recent years "Old Sparky", as the Florida chair is called, has been causing problems. In 1990 flames and smoke came from the head of Jesse Tafero during his execution. Two years ago, flames shot from the mask covering the face of Pedro Medina as he died in the chair.
This led to a suspension of executions as an investigation showed that a sponge under the electrode applied to Medina's head had ignited. Executions were resumed last year but it was decided that photographs would be taken in future if anything unusual occurred during the execution.
Because of the blood which oozed from Davis's mask and down his shirt, prison staff took the photographs which were shown to the inquiry last week.
Dr Victor Selyutin, who pronounced Davis dead, told the inquiry that the blood came from the nose and he speculated that a blood vessel may have ruptured when the strap to hold the head in place was applied to Davis's face. Other witnesses said that Davis let out two muffled cries after the mask was strapped on his face.
Mr Martin McClain, lawyer for Provenzano, whom the judge ordered to attend the inquiry, charged that Davis suffered pain because the face strap was applied too tightly and it was possible he may have suffocated while waiting for the current to be turned on.
The warden or governor of the prison, Mr James Crosby, said the leather straps were buckled "snugly", but not too tight. "Nothing in that procedure should produce any kind of extraordinary pain," Mr Crosby said. "It may not be comfortable but it should not be painful." Tightening the leather straps too much could choke the prisoner or fracture his jaw, he said. Mr Crosby told the inquiry that he instructed his staff to approach executions as if preparing for a "space ship launch."
Another inmate of Florida's Death Row died on June 19th, but not in the electric chair. He was beaten to death by guards trying to drag him out of his cell. The autopsy showed horrific injuries to Valdez, who had been convicted of killing a prison guard.
Eleven prison guards have been suspended with pay. The prison's own records show that Valdez was given electric shocks with a stun gun after a pepper canister was thrown into his cell.
A Baptist prison chaplain, the Rev Andrew McRae, told the Miami Herald that abuse of inmates by prison guards has grown worse since he began work there five years ago. He has been suspended himself while some of his practices are under investigation but says it is because he is black and was "taken as favourable to the inmates."
Meanwhile, Tommy Zeigler paints and crochets and wonders if the new Governor of Florida, Mr Jeb Bush, will soon sign his death warrant. In his last letter to me, he said that tension was growing on Death Row since Mr Bush's election last year and one inmate had committed suicide after receiving his warrant.
The other night, the satirical programme, Saturday Night Live, showed a sketch called "Death Row Bloopers" in which the electric chair collapses when the condemned man sits in it, and the guards roar laughing. In another sketch, white flour comes out of the ceiling and covers the condemned man when the switch is pulled. The audience loved it.
A man was executed in Alabama's electric chair early yesterday, penitentiary officials said.
Victor Kennedy, a 37-year-old black man, was put to death for the 1980 rape and murder of an 80-year-old woman.