Ken Hairston is confident he won't die in prison.
Which says a lot, considering Hairston, 56, sits on death row at the state prison in Franklin Township, Greene County, convicted of bludgeoning to death his wife and 14-year-old son in June 2001.
He might not be far from the truth.
Pennsylvania hasn't executed anyone since Gary Heidnik on July 7, 1999. Heidnik, who tortured women in his Philadelphia basement, is one of only three killers executed since 1995, when the state changed from the electric chair to lethal injection.
The appeals process takes years.
And in May, state Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, and the American Civil Liberties Union proposed a two-year moratorium on executions until the state's death-penalty law can be reviewed.
Similar proposals in 2001 went nowhere.
Critics argue the death penalty is unequally applied among whites and minorities, and point to advances in DNA technology -- and, in some cases, exonerations -- as reasons to halt executions.
"Since the '80s in Pennsylvania, six people have been exonerated on death row," said Ferlo, who opposes the death penalty. "Constitutionally, morally, we have this perception of equal justice under the law. But you can see class, race and money can come into play."
District Attorney James Martin, of Lehigh County, president of the state District Attorney's Association, disagreed.
"You have checks and balances built into the sytem," Martin said. "I think the safeguards are already in place. ... Effectively, we've had a moratorium.
"I don't think you can conclude, in what DNA has done in certain cases, that the system is somehow broken beyond repair. DNA is a scientific fact of life, and it works far more in our advantage than our disadvantage."
The death penalty actually serves as a deterrent to murder, according to a series of studies, including one last year by an economics professor from the University of Colorado at Denver.
But Stephanie Walsh, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Center for Victims of Violence and Crime, endorsed a moratorium.
"There needs to be a discussion," she said. "Victims and witnesses of crime, they want justice.
"They don't want any more injustices."
Ferlo's proposal is a move that could have a profound impact on the state's 225 death-row inmates.
But what's it like waiting to die⢠Held captive in a 7-foot-by-13-foot concrete cell⢠With only a narrow window to look out into the world⢠Allowed outside your cell for just one hour a day⢠Permitted one shower a week?
Pretty good, if you ask Hairston.
"My life is great," he said. "I'm sober. My mind is alert.
"It's nowhere near what I expected. It's clean. The food is decent. We have our own rooms, color TV. I have cable."
Handcuffed and wearing the traditional orange prison uniform, Hairston, formerly of Garfield, painted himself as a reformed man.
Different than the one who used a 10-pound sledgehammer to fatally beat his wife and son.
Different than the man sentenced in 2002 to up to 122 years in prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting his stepdaughter.
A year and a half ago, he says, he found at the bottom of his storage box a Bible that his sister had sent him.
"One day a voice told me to take it out and read it," he said, his voice echoing through a glass window partition.
Hairston says he has read it three times over since November. And he prays. He prays a lot. For his family. For his wife's family. For world leaders. For those who prosecuted him.
He didn't care that he sounded like a cliche.
"It doesn't mean I'm praying because I'm sorry," he said. "I haven't prayed for forgiveness. I pray for deliverance for people and myself."
He doesn't pray for his wife, Catherine, or son, Sean, who was just 14 when he died.
"Praying for my wife and son now is too late," he said. "It's my desire that they are in heaven with God."
He spends about six hours a day reading the Bible, he said, in between catching episodes of "The Price is Right," "Jeopardy," "Wheel of Fortune" and any of the three "Law and Order" shows. He gets 43 channels on his 13-inch color TV, cable he pays for with money his family in North Carolina sends him.
"I'm comfortable, very comfortable," said Hairston, a self-described alcoholic who smoked pot every day before being arrested. "It doesn't feel like I'm in prison.
"I can't wait to get up in the morning."
He is served three meals a day and has a menu of options, from pastries, cereal and coffee for breakfast to pizza, spaghetti, soup and cake for dinner and dessert.
When he was free, he said, he was lucky to eat two meals a day.
"I don't miss nothing that's out there in the world," said Hairston, who turns in for bed by 8 most nights. "I don't miss sex. I don't miss drugs. I don't miss alcohol. I have everything I need."
Besides his Bible and game shows, one other desire fills Hairston's days, one that has gone unfulfilled -- he wants to talk with Catherine's family.
"I would like to stand in front of them and speak to them," he said. "I've been working on what I would say."
Only one thought consumes Catherine's family when it comes to Kenny Hairston, as her survivors call him: Kill him.
"He's scarred my wife, my children; my wife will never be the same. My mother-in-law will never be the same," said Theodore Jones, 58, of Friendship, Catherine's brother-in-law and family spokesman. "I want to go and witness him being executed. My tax dollars should not go to keeping Kenny Hairston (alive), to maintaining Kenny with a color TV and three meals a day."
An execution date hasn't been set for Hairston. If one is, he said, he would request his last meal be a Wendy's burger, cheesecake and a Frosty.
But he doesn't believe it will come to that.
"I think God has a plan for me," he said. "I'm here for a reason."
Death row
Besides Kenneth Hairston, 10 other death-row inmates were convicted in Allegheny County. Here's a look at who they are and why they were sentenced.
Richard S. Baumhammers
Age: 42
Date of sentence: Sept. 6, 2001
What he did: The former Mt. Lebanon lawyer, targeted and killed six racial and ethnic minorities in a shooting spree April 28, 2000.
Robert Bryant
Age: 56
Date of sentence: March 31, 1987
What he did: Bryant stabbed and killed a fellow inmate at the State Correctional Institute in Pittsburgh on May 15, 1984. He was serving a life sentence for murder at the time. His death sentence was vacated in 1998, and he awaits a new penalty-phase hearing Sept. 24.
Leroy Fears
Age: 45
Date of sentence: Feb. 7, 1995
What he did: Fears admitted he molested and strangled 12-year-old Shawn Hagan on the banks of the Monongahela River on June 18, 1994.
Anthony J. Fiebiger
Age: 43
Date of sentence: March 1, 1999
What he did: Fiebiger strangled to death his live-in girlfriend, Norma Parker, in 1989 and fatally stabbed 16-year-old Marcia Jones in 1982.
Thomas McCullum
Age: 63
Date of sentence: Nov. 1, 1989
What he did: McCullum raped, robbed and fatally beat 83-year-old Tillie Katz at a Squirrel Hill nursing home five months earlier.
Wayne C. Mitchell
Age: 29
Date of sentence: Dec. 8, 1999
What he did: Mitchell fatally stabbed his wife, Robin Little, 19, Sept. 10, 1997.
Salvador Santiago
Age: 44
Date of sentence: June 7, 1993
What he did: Santiago shot and killed clerk Patrick Huber during a robbery of a South Side print shop in 1986.
Ronald Taylor
Age: 46
Date of sentence: Jan. 11, 2002
What he did: Taylor killed three people March 1, 2000, during a racially motivated shooting spree in Wilkinsburg.
Gerald Watkins
Age: 38
Date of sentence: Dec. 13, 1996
What he did: Watkins received three separate death sentences for killing his ex-girlfriend, her son and Watkins' infant daughter July 20, 1994.
Connie J. Williams
Age: 56
Date of sentence: March 25, 2002
What he did: Williams dismembered his wife, Frances Williams, in their Crafton Heights home Aug. 18, 1999. He served 20 years in prison for the murder of his North Side landlord in 1974.
