‘One of those chosen could be me.’

Billie Allen has been imprisoned on federal death row since 1998 for a murder he says he did not commit. Allen and his supporters say the case was tainted by misconduct, racial bias, and factual inaccuracies, including significant DNA discrepancies.

Allen’s team is now campaigning to push President Joe Biden to pardon Allen before Donald Trump is sworn in on January 20. The Appeal is publishing an excerpt from a graphic novel Allen recently wrote, which has been edited for clarity. 

Sixty-one days remain until Trump takes office. For information about how to support Allen, visit www.freebillieallen.com.

It was the Summer of 2021, and I was lying in bed with my eyes closed, exhausted but unable to sleep. I’d just returned from a week-and-a-half-long hospital stay, where I’d received a blood transfusion and underwent surgery. I had hoped it would fix me—or at least give me a break from being in and out of the hospital every month because of the medical condition waging a war within my body for more than a decade. 

I was still in pain from the surgery, but the pain wasn’t the reason why I was unable to sleep. While in the hospital trying to heal, I’d overheard them—my overseers, the correctional officers. I think they’d been intentionally having an animated conversation about how they had heard rumors from the prison’s executive staff that Trump’s henchman over the Department of Justice—William Barr and his staff—had been successful in the courts. Not only had new federal death warrants been signed, but new execution dates had been set as well.

I couldn’t help but take in what was being said because it affected me. I listened as they described how, only a few days beforehand, staff at the facility in which I’m incarcerated had conducted several mock executions at the death house where prisoners are killed. My overseers added that staff would soon come to the unit I’m housed in to do a mock drill for those who would receive a death date. The officers would run drills on how they would take the chosen from their cells to be read their death warrants by the warden. Staff would practice taking people to the death watch range, where prisoners are watched 24/7 on a camera to make sure they don’t kill themselves before the government can do so first. The condemned are then escorted from the death watch range to the death house in a restraint chair by the biggest officers within the prison, who would all be cloaked in dark clothing and ski masks to hide their identities.

Most of the time, it’s easy to ignore the rumors from officers or other prisoners. But the details that came with their story reminded me of the actions and protocols used in the executions of Timothy McVeigh, Juan Garza, and Louis Jones at the end of President George Bush’s term in office. So I knew in my gut that things were about to get real. And soon.

When my overseers in the hospital saw that my eyes were no longer closed, they then asked me whether or not I thought the executions would occur. Thanks to a moratorium President Barack Obama put in place, it had been over two decades since there had been a federal execution. The guards asked if I thought there would be enough time to carry out the rumored number of killings.

I didn’t respond to their questions. I had heard some of these same officers over the years talk about wanting executions to start back up and how they couldn’t wait for Trump to start killing people as soon as he took office. Some even went so far as to rank the top ten people they wanted killed first. Miserable bastards.

So I just laid there for the rest of the day. They talked about what they had heard, what they wanted done, and what they would do if those dates came. Eventually, the next shift of officers came on. But it seemed like the new overseers picked up where the first group left off. They peppered me with more questions, which I ignored.

The next day, only two days out of surgery and still in pain, I was told by the doctor that I was being sent back to prison, despite his suggestion that I stay a few days longer. After all this talk of execution, the thought that I was being discharged so soon after major surgery sent my mind wondering. I was out of appeals. One of those chosen could be me. Had they discharged me from the hospital just to give me an execution date?

ICYMI—From The Appeal

The U.S. Department of Justice found deplorable conditions inside Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail—including attacks on teenagers, malnutrition, and death.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens secretly tried to replace a popular jail diversion program before activists cried foul. The city council then voted to save the program.