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NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Committed to ending the death penalty and creating a new vision of justice

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  • Why End the Death Penalty?
    • Column 1
      • Racism
      • Innocence
      • Intellectual Disability & Mental Illness
    • Column 2
      • Public Safety
      • High Cost of Death
      • Waning Support
    • Column 3
      • Lethal Injection
      • Antiquated Sentences
      • Unfair Trials
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Search NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Tawana Choate

Learn more: People Most Proximate

Tawana’s son, Quintel Augustine, has been on death row since 2002. She has boxes full of the letters and cards he’s sent her over the last sixteen years. Mother’s Day cards, letters after his grandmother passed, birthday cards, notes to pass on to his nieces and nephews. Letters of loss and longing and hope. They write to keep each other going forward, putting one foot in front of the other, while living under the threat of death.

You are in here, she tells him often, but you are not a part of this. This is not you. You just have to learn how to adapt until it’s time for you to be set free.

Old photos of Tawana’s son, Quintel Augustine, who is on death row

Nobody has ever seen me cry or break, but my husband, she said. Because I’m trying to hold up for everybody else… I’m the strong person trying to holding up, but when I get by myself I break. You know, I’m up in the middle of the night ’cause I’m crying, I’m missing him. I want to talk to him. I want to hold him. I want to touch him.

So, those are the things we go through with our loved ones being on death row.

It’s heartbreaking. He missed out on a lot of family things. Sometimes we don’t want to do nothing because he wasn’t here. It was times that we had family functions and I said, This is Quintel’s seat. Nobody sit there. When I go to church, I take his picture and I say This seat is taken. He’s sitting right here by me.

Cards from Quintel

Filed Under: People Most Proximate, Stories

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Contact

NCCADP
123 West Main St., Suite 700
Durham, NC 27701
noel@nccadp.org
919-956-9545

The Latest via Twitter

Today, 46 years ago, the Supreme Court held in Woodson v. North Carolina that it is cruel and unusual for a state to require the death penalty as a punishment for a certain class of crimes. law.cornell.edu/wex/…

About 3 hours ago

TODAY 11 AM "Live from Death Row- Voices from North Carolina" Panelists are award-winning authors living on NC's death row George Wilkerson & Lyle May; Nancy Jones, founder of Catholics for Abolition NC; and Noel Nickle, director of NCCADP. bit.ly/Starvin4Justi…

About 4 hours ago

Thinking of everyone on the row in Oklahoma this morning - along with their families, friends and defense teams - as they begin their day after this devastating news broke yesterday. twitter.com/RDunhamD…

About 4 hours ago

YES! Communication should be free for people who are incarcerated and their families on the outside. twitter.com/WorthRis…

Yesterday

We’d like to imagine a different life for Marcus, one where he wasn’t born into a racist society that too often sees Black children’s lives as disposable. One where he was shown kindness and compassion as a child, rather than imprisoned. nccadp.org/rememberi…

Yesterday

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