You may have heard of condemned Texas death row inmate Patrick Knight, who has expressed his desire to tell a joke as his final statement tonight. (June 4)
From the story:
Knight acknowledges there’s nothing funny about his likely execution later this month for the fatal shooting of his neighbors, Walter and Mary Werner, almost 16 years ago outside Amarillo. But to help him come up with his final statement, Knight is accepting jokes mailed to him on Texas’ death row or e-mailed to a friend who has a Web site for him. The friend then mails him the jokes…
He said he’s already received about 250 wisecracks.
“Lawyer jokes are real popular,” he said. “Some of them are a little on the edge. I’m not going to use any profanity if I can find the one I want, or any vulgar content. It wouldn’t be bad if it was a little bit on the edge. That would be cool.”
Thank goodness he is sparing lawyers from being subjected to an off-color joke. Good thing he’s on their side – unfortunately, it’s with everyone else that he gets a little “murdery.” And I especially appreciate his concern for the feelings of the family. Here’s a valuable tip when you want to show respect for a family – try to avoid shooting them to death. I read that in an etiquette book once, I think.
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Actually, I’d say he’s taking more responsibility for what he did than many murderers you hear about. He doesn’t quite come out and sya that he deserved it, but he’s trying to deal with “the punishment [he’s] been given” and “[He’s] about to die.” He’s not blubbering about the failure of the system, it’s really the gun/my ex/my shrink/society’s fault, etc.
He wants his last statement to be a joke (literally) – there are far worse things (on a regular basis).
Guy walks into an execution chamber…