P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

Out...and Then Back In! - 5

Recorded by David Smith
Interview with Don McClure
of Someone Cares Prison Ministry

CONNIE: It might be the last place in the world that you'd expect to find Christians celebrating communion. But Don and Yvonne Mcclure, have shared the bread and the wine on death row with some of the most notorious killers. What does Christian activist Don Mcclure, think of capitol punishment?

DAVID: Don Mcclure, we just have one last visit. It went by so quickly. I sure appreciate you being here with us.

DON: It's my pleasure.

DAVID: The Someone Cares Prison Ministry and you're right there. The Lord is doing wonderful things.

DON: Yes He is.

DAVID: Don I was just thinking. Prisoners are sometimes a number to so many people. We think of the famous 24601, Jean Vel-Jean, from Les Miserable. These people are not a number to you. You know these men. You know these women by name, you've shaken their hands, you've prayed with them…

DON: We've hugged them, we've even helped with aids inmates, we've held hands with them, we've prayed with them, were in there.

DAVID: The command of Jesus, that I was in prison and you visited me, or not. That must be very real to Yvonne, and to you, and to the people in your letter writing program.

DON: Jesus changed my life, and in changing my life I owe Him. See there's a debt to be paid, and you do the crime, you do the time, but Jesus wants everybody in heaven. And the only way is to get off your sofa, or if you don't want to get off your sofa stay on your sofa, and write a letter. Or join us in going to prison with us, somewhere.

DAVID: And you've always said, you said it the other day. When someone asks you to do something in the name of Jesus…

DON: I'll be happy too.

DAVID: Some of our listeners marked down those four words, Don, I'll be happy too. I would just love to see them get involved with you, and with you're program. Don there are so many people in prison, who never had a fair shake to even start.

DON: Well, there's so much corruption, and I will say corruption, in the legal system. A man I know, a perfect example just got out after seventeen years. The only witness against him in his original trial, was another convict, who told a jury, that he heard this guy say, he did it. For that testimony in court, he got his sentence done away with, and got released.

DAVID: Tainted motivation.

DON: Yeah and this guy spent seventeen years in prison. There is now, and I have a real burden for this. There is now a death row alumni society. Thirty-one men who have been released from death row, who have spent a cazillion years, because somebody has found that they weren't guilty of the crime that they were sent to death row for. Of the last one hundred men executed, they have now proven that seventeen were not guilty of the crime they were executed for. What do you say? I'm sorry?

DAVID: Now Don, I want to just talk about that, were here, it's February, 2001, these progrmas, they're going to air in April. When people listen to this, and Timothy Mcvay, his execution will be just a few weeks away as you know. I'm a born again Christian, but you know something? Something in my gut, roots for execution in some cases, a lot of Christians feel that way.

DON: The Bible favors execution, and there's no getting around it, but I'll go back and jump on somebody I know personally, Ted Bundy.

DAVID: Sure, yes.

DON: Ted Bundy, did terrible, terrible, terrible things, and he deserved to die, but if I were a gambler, like I used to be, I would gamble everything I know that I'm going to sit under the tree of life with Ted Bundy, because his conversion in prison was legitimate. Tex Watson, part of the Charles Manson gang, is not a legitimate paper ordained minister, but a legitimate ordained minister doing a powerful job for the Lord. He's never going to get out of prison; I'm sure he'd like too, but he doesn't care, because he's serving the Lord. So the death penalty, which by the way is not a deterrent to crime. In fact when there's an execution death penalty crimes go up, because of the sensationalism of it. Timothy Mcvay, killed a lot of people, there's no doubt he did it. He hasn't asked for anything, in fact he asked to be killed. Does he deserve it? Probably. Would I do something to stop it? If he asked. But would I go to him? Now if I was in that prison, which happens to be in Indiana, by the way I have been asked to go and visit him. Now if I visit him, I'll give you guy's a report on what the visit was like, but he's not asking.

DAVID: Now you have gone to death row. You have sat in the cell with some of these people…

DON: I've watched three executions. We had a Christmas party on death row in Kentucky.

DAVID: I've got to hear about that.

DON: We asked the warden, one of double trouble's ideas. Lets have a Christmas party on death row, and Yvonne said, "Why don't we get their families?" And the Chaplain said, "No, the wardens never going to go for that."

DAVID: She's always coming up with bright ideas isn't she?

DON: So she goes to the warden and says, "We want to throw a Christmas party." He says, "That's fine." "We'd like to have the inmates families, as many as we can get there." "No!" She says, "Well we work for God, and you don't want me to tell my boss on you", and he said, "Yes", and it's an experience that I will never forget. Men in their death row garb, because Yvonne really hates it when they move a death row man around prison, they yell out dead man walking, and that's true…

DAVID: Do they really do that, or…

DON: Yeah, they really do that, and its cruel and whatever, and again I‘m not for or against the death penalty. I believe if a man changes, and his changes are bonifide, and if the only one that knows for sure is Jesus, that's all that counts. There are going to be people in heaven that we don't expect, and there is going to be a lot of people, we do expect, who aren't going to be there.

DAVID: Don, do you feel that a lot of these death row inmates, first of all have conversion experiences?

DON: Oh yes.

DAVID: And are they real?

DON: I…again I'll tell you, and I'll even say his name, I love him. His name is Don Hawkins, he's on death row, you know he just got his death sentence overturned. He should have gone to be executed, but this man changed. He changed so much, that he helped an entire prison change. Jesus Christ presented right. Now keep in mind folks, if you get involved financially, and by the way, Someone Cares can use a check too…

DAVID: That's right.

DON: …Because we're, infact, my bookkeeper, I'm elated, just told us that we have gone seventeen straight years in the black.

DAVID: And I don't know how you do that?

DON: I don't either!

DAVID: People send you a few bucks at a time.

DON: Well, it's the widows money.

DAVID: Yes

DON: The dollar here, the dollar there, and the Lord blessed us. To get back to death row. California, they're going to be moving death row to Corecran. They're closing San Quentin, because that's prime real estate property. Men, who are coming to Corecran to die, should have a chance to go to heaven. I don't care what they did, and neither does Jesus.

DAVID: The amazing thing Don, I appreciate you so much being here. Somehow Jesus looks at these people, and the world hates them, the world loathes them and what they have done. Jesus looks at them, and he sees a treasure. That's an unbelievable thing.

DON: Take a look at the not guilty. Jesus wasn't guilty and He was executed. Men who go to prison aren't all guilty. Again, the plea bargain system, which is freighting, a young black kid got picked up in Michigan, arrested and charged with murder that he did not commit. They worked on him for eighteen hours, and they told him these words. "If you confess, we guarantee you that you will serve no more than ten years." It's a crime he didn't do. Illiterate, he happened to be, and he bought it. Went to court after he committed, and they gave him life without parole. Now, sense than, a few good people heard about the story, they proved that he could not have done it, and he's out. But the plea bargain system, the judiciary system… The rich get richer and the poor get prison.

DAVID: And yet the flip sides of that is, even the ones, who did it, even the ones who are rampantly guilty. Christ looks down and He sees the original model, the Eden model that He wanted to have redeemed, and He does…
DON: The most successful prison ministries today are, by ex-cons. Guys who have been there, and done that, and the Lord has taken over their lives, and I'm proud…By the way were the second oldest prison ministry in the nation now.

DAVID: And our listeners, Don, can have a part.

DON: Amen! Jump in.

DAVID: Thank you so much for being with us all week.

DON: Amen!

DAVID: I appreciate it