Letter to Lawyers Helping Him Challenge His Initial Trial Verdict

I must explain my personal feelings about the death penalty as opposed to life imprisonment.

To me, physical freedom is absolutely essential for a worthwhile existence. The history of my life bears this out. Without freedom only despair remains for me. Even if I were able to do so, I wouldn't want to adjust to a life without freedom. In fact, I refuse to adjust to it as a matter of principle. Such an adjusgment would entail the loss of what I most value in myself. I dread the changes that long imprisonment is likely to make in me.

My solitary life in the mountains gave me ample opportunity for intraspection and I know myself well enough to be certain that my preference for death over life imprisonment will not change.

In our society it is customary to oppose life to death. Life is good-death is bad. But in reality life and death are inextricably linked; they are two sides of the same coin. All organisms die eventually and in doing so they give space and nourishment to new organisms. Thus I see no point in prolonging life indefinitely when there is no longer any particular reason to live.