Warden: Texas Prison Life and Death from the Inside Out

by Jim Willett, Ron Rozelle

The story of the author's thirty-year career in Texas prisons, from his first night as a shotgun-wielding guard to the last man he accompanied to the death chamber, Willett remembers not just the big events of his career but the small ones that give prison life its texture. In measured but powerful prose, he describes the efficient actions of the tie-down team, the prisoner's often meandering last words, and the way that he himself lifted his glasses from his nose to signal the executioner to start the IV flow.

Genres: Nonfiction

232 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came to my attention through my work-place friendship with Tim New who served as Assistant Warden to Jim Willett during Willett's service as warden of The Walls Unit of the Texas Prision System in Huntsville, Texas. This book follows Willett's career from the time he first walked into the Walls Unit as a college student needing a temporary job to see him through graduation until he retired thirty years later with the dubious distinction of having presided over 89 executions.


Jim Willett writes a very engaging memoir. He covers the facts of his employment with TDCJ in an easy-going, straight-forward manner. With the help of co-arthur Ron Rozelle, Willett leaves the reader with the feeling of a man who did his duty, neither shirking the sensational aspects of his job nor revelling in the final moments of death row inmates who reached the end of a life-long spiral downward. His account of the last hours of life of a few of the 89 men he accompanied to the death chamber are very interesting, but I found his observations of the evolution of the Texas prison system over his thirty years there to be what interested me most.

Jim Willett's years with TDCJ saw him, as a young guard, trying to get a better view from a cooling tower exhaust portal of the dramatic and bloody ending of the Carasco hostage-taking incident in the seventies. He also presided over the execution of Gary Graham who had become the cause de jour of many Hollywood celeberties in the ninties. He did his job with compassion and good humor and I was impressed with his response to a question he apparently got often about his views on the death penalty and his part in the system that administered final justice.

I highly recommend this book regardless of your reason for reading it. I purchased the book from Amazon.com but it can also be purchased from the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville. I am extremely pleased to now have a copy of the book signed by Jim Willett who, in his retirement, oversees the museum.

[John Hubbard · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second book in a row and second of the year in which with someone to help the subject tell their tale. Agghh. Willet lives his entire life in the prison system from his job helping pay for Sam Houston State to retirement. His story is very average. He takes a job knowing he will only keep it for a short time, leaving for something better. He never finds the energy or motivation to do such and decades later finds he is retiring from that job. The dull plotline is enhanced by the excitement of occasional prison riots, a few fairly interesting inmates, and the details the Texas politics of incarceration. Interspersed amongst the primary memoir are selections from his execution journal. The first tells the tale of an executed Willet believes may have been innocent and taking the place of his son. It feels the argument Willet wants to make is that he executes these 89 men only as a function of his job and only circumspectly as an active participant. Though, I think, his mixed opinion on the death penalty is genuine.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Huntsville, Texas, all executions of Texas death row inmates take place at the Huntsville Prison. Jim Willett began working as a correctional officer at the prison and through years of good service and good work, became a warden at Huntsville Prison and witnessed a total of 89 executions by lateral injection. Willett is now retired from the prison and is the working director of the Texas Prison Museum. I met Mr. Willett at the museum and bought his book. This book was educational and the most interesting parts of it for me where the sections where he writes about some of the executions he experienced. I would have liked for him to discuss a little more about the prison rodeos that took place at the prison. However, there is a lot more information about the rodeos at the museum. The annual event ended in 1982, when it was found that the stadium was becoming unsafe with wear and tear, but the state did not want to fund to fix it.