Goodbye, Joey Ernst
December, 1976
Death row gets frighteningly quiet the night of an execution. Most of the men lie on their beds, reading or listening to the radio on their headphones, respecting the right of the condemned man to be left alone in peace and quiet. But it was neither peaceful nor quiet on the row the night Joey Ernst burned.Joey Ernst was the second-to-last man executed in the state of New Jersey--on July 31, 1962. I was in the cell next to Joey's that night, and by the time I was released nine years later, I had...
