Knock, Knock

Gotta love a guy with a sense of humor.

Condemned prisoner Patrick Knight was executed Tuesday evening for the deaths of an Amarillo-area couple without delivering on a promise to tell a joke in his final statement.

Patrick Knight has been soliciting jokes in the mail and on a Web site, sometimes receiving as many as 20 a day, saying his humor was intended to raise the spirits of other inmates. He said he received as many as 1,300 proposals.

But when the moment came, Knight thanked God for his friends and asked for help for innocent men on death row. He named several he said were innocent. His voice shaking and nearly in tears, he said, “Not all of us are innocent, but those are.”

After expressing love to some friends, he said, “I said I was going to tell a joke. Death has set me free. That’s the biggest joke. I deserve this.”

“And the other joke is that I am not Patrick Bryan Knight and y’all can’t stop this execution now. Go ahead, I’m finished.”

1. I know why we execute people but it seems silly to execute someone for a past mistake if they have becaome a model citzen and have actually reformed.

   Posted by on June 27, 2007 at 0116 hrs




2. Because rehabilitation is not the primary goal of our prison system—punishment is.

   Plus, it’s a huge stretch to say he’s “becaome [sic] a model citzen [sic] and [has] actually reformed.”

   Posted by Jed on June 27, 2007 at 0630 hrs