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Take a look inside— deep inside—Death Row for a glimpse of

how inmates make amazing projects with only a handful of hand tools.

Oe of the greatest pleasures in woodworking is getting to use the piece of furniture that you built. Not so for Charles Justice, a wandering broom maker from Ohio. While incarcerated in 189 7 for burglary and larceny, J ustice built Ohio's electric chair. After serving the rest of his sentence, Justice was released, only to return later to the penitentiary for slaying John Shoupe, a Greene County farmer.

Justice was electrocuted for his crime in the chair he built on Oct. 27, 1911, according to Joe Andrews, the communications chief for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. And though Justice is long gone, the chair he built is still in use today by Ohio's correctional system.

Justice wasn't the only woodworker on Death Row. Though it might seem unlikely, a good number of the more than 3,300 residents of Death Row in this country somehow manage to build everything from simple wooden crosses and cases for cigarette lighters to inlaid humidors and detailed replicas of wooden sailing ships. Their tools are limited, usually a safety razor and rubber bands. But what they lack in machinery they make up for in ingenuity and the one thing every home woodworker wants: lots and lots of free time.

by Christopher Schwarz Popular Woodworking April 2000

This replica of Kentucky's electric chair was built by a death row inmate and now is on display in the

warden's office at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.

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