Appendix
Everything you need
The practical companion to the book and to the work of the Institute: checklists, formats, templates, vocabulary, and every avenue this site offers for beginning and sustaining correspondence with people on death row.
A
How to use this site
I want to start writing today
Work the eight steps, copy the model message, then email the Dean for a name.
How to Begin →I want the Institute to match me
Five-step matching process, plus four other avenues if you would rather not wait.
Get Matched →I am already writing and it is heavy
Six support groups, from the first year to grief after an execution.
Support Groups →I want to study the discipline
The complete book, free, with a chapter for nearly every question in this appendix.
Read the Book →B
First message checklist
C
Setting up your account
Prisons are largely digital now. Correspondence runs through a tablet or kiosk platform rather than the mail. Confirm which vendor that state contracts with before you create anything — the wrong platform simply will not find your person.
VERIFIED EMAIL & ID, AS THE VENDOR REQUIRES
#DOC / TDCJ / ADC NUMBER
STATE & FACILITY AS THE SYSTEM LISTS IT
KEEP A BALANCE LOADED SO NOTHING STOPS MID-MONTH
D
Screening realities
Everything is read
Every message is screened before delivery, and often stored indefinitely. Write nothing that could be used against them, and nothing you would not say aloud.
Nothing is guaranteed
Messages get delayed, withheld, or rejected without explanation. Number your messages so you both notice gaps.
Rules change without notice
Vendors, credit prices, photo limits, and tablet privileges change. Re-check the platform's terms a few times a year.
Tablets get taken
Access is a privilege that can be suspended for a disciplinary write-up, a broken device, or a unit-wide restriction. Silence is often the tablet, not the person.
Delays around executions
Delivery slows during lockdowns and in the weeks around a scheduled execution.
Your identity is visible
Accounts require your real name, and your profile is visible to the department. Decide what distance you need before you start.
The most important thing is not to get discouraged. The system will keep trying to interrupt your presence. You keep being present.
E
Forty things to write about
When people say they have nothing to say, they usually mean they have nothing profound to say. Ordinary life is the gift.
F
Message templates
Dear ______, My name is ______ and I would like to write to you regularly. I can offer messages — steady ones — and I intend to keep sending them. I am not able to send money or make promises about your case. A little about me: ______. If you write back, tell me what your days are like. I will write again in two weeks either way.
Dear ______, I have not heard from you in a while, and I want you to know that is all right. I am not keeping score. I am writing anyway because I said I would. Here is what has been happening here: ______.
Dear ______, You asked me about ______, and I want to answer you straight rather than let it sit. I am not able to do that. What I can do is keep writing, and I will. I would rather tell you the truth than quietly pull away.
Dear ______, I heard about the date. I am not going to pretend I know what to say. I am not going anywhere. Tell me what would be useful — messages more often, a particular subject, or nothing but ordinary news. I am with you.
Dear ______, I want to say this while you can still read it. Knowing you changed what I understand about being a person. I saw you. I still see you. Whatever the state does, it does not get the last word on who you are.
Dear ______, I have been writing ______ for ______ years. I wanted you to know that he was known and that his messages mattered to someone outside. If it would be welcome, I would be glad to stay in touch.
G
Hard conversations
They tell you about the crime
Do not interrogate and do not absolve. Receive it. Say what is true: that you heard them, and that you are still writing.
They ask for money
Answer plainly and once. A clear no keeps the relationship; a vague maybe corrodes it.
They stop writing
Keep your rhythm for a while. Lockdowns, transfers, illness, and depression all look identical from outside.
They are angry with you
Anger inside a cell has almost nowhere to go. Do not match it and do not vanish.
You are burned out
Say it in group before you say it in a message. Reduce the frequency rather than disappearing.
Their date is set
Tell the Institute immediately. Do not do that stretch alone.
Worked through at length in Chapter 14 and Chapter 7: Boundaries as Sacred Space.
H
The legal road, roughly
You are not their lawyer, and you should never give legal advice. But knowing the shape of the road helps you understand what your friend is living inside.
Years 0–2
Trial & sentence
Years 1–6
Direct appeal
Years 3–12
State post-conviction
Years 6–20
Federal habeas
Anytime after
Cert & final appeals
30–90 days of intensity
Warrant, clemency, execution
I
When a date is set
- 01Email the Institute the same week. You will be placed in the Vigil Group.
- 02Ask your friend directly what they want from you in these weeks.
- 03Write more often and shorter. Ordinary news still matters, maybe more.
- 04Learn the clemency process in that state and whether letters from correspondents are accepted.
- 05Find out about visits, calls, and witness lists — and accept that the answer may be no.
- 06Arrange your own support for the day itself. Do not be alone that night.
- 07Write the last letter early, so it is not written in panic.
- 08Afterward, come to the After group. Grief without a socially recognized place still needs a place.
J
Glossary
DOC / TDCJ / ADC number
The identification number assigned by the department of corrections. Messages without it never reach anyone.
Committed name
The legal name a person is incarcerated under; the only name the messaging system recognizes.
Direct appeal
The first, automatic appeal of a capital conviction in state court.
Post-conviction / habeas
Later challenges raising issues outside the trial record, like ineffective counsel.
Certiorari
A request that the U.S. Supreme Court review a case. Almost always denied.
Death warrant
The order setting an execution date.
Clemency
A governor's or board's power to commute a sentence. Rare, and often the last stop.
Stay
A court order temporarily halting an execution.
Spiritual adviser
A person permitted to accompany the condemned, sometimes into the chamber itself.
Vigil
A gathering held during the hours around an execution.
K
Caring for yourself
Keep a rhythm, not a mood
Write on the schedule, not on the feeling. The schedule will carry you through the flat months.
Tell someone what you carry
A support group exists for exactly this. Isolation is the main reason correspondents quit.
Let it change you
It will. That is not a side effect of the practice — it is the practice.
L
Chapter index
Every chapter of The Deliverance of Hope is on this site in full.