Muddy waters and descent into a whirlpool. 

That’s the dangerous image that Joesph Patri Brown uses to describe his experience in the Mississippi justice system. The 57-year-old inmate, who has been on death row for over 30 years, said most people don’t know how to stay calm and resist being pulled deeper, but it’s something he’s come to learn. 

“I had to hold my breath and hope I survived,” Brown said from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman through video conference for the release of his memoir.  

Brown has used writing as a way to provide a glimpse into his life and those of 34 others on death row as he asserts his innocence and appeals his conviction. 

Short stories, poetry and think pieces he’s written while incarcerated have been collected in a book called “The Image They Had Painted,” which was released in January through Publication Studio Guelph in collaboration with The GOAT PoL. 

Through his writing, Brown critiques the system that imprisoned him and sentenced him to die, calling it a form of murder rather than justice. In recorded interviews before publication, Brown said he considers the book many things: resistance, resilience, a testimonial and an educational tool. 

A person falling into a whirlpool is on the book’s cover, and its back cover shows a person climbing out of the swirling waters. The book can be read from front to back or back to front. 

Brown, identified in court records as Joseph Patrick Brown, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1992 shooting death of a Natchez convenience store clerk, Martha Day.

“Where is Someone,” a piece from the book, travels back to March 12, 1994, when Brown was sentenced to death. He wrote that it was a blur as he looked back at his crying family members in the courtroom. When he was in the Adams County jail awaiting transport to prison, thoughts raced through his head and he considered taking his own life. 

“I’m all alone. I don’t have anyone. No one is coming. I’m sinking deeper into a much darker place when an idea comes to me,” he wrote. 

“ … You never know what you might do when you reach a certain level of despair.”

Failed appeals and hopes for reprieve

Born and raised in Natchez, Brown served time in youth detention and did previous stints at Parchman. He began using drugs when he was young, and he shared that addiction with Rachel Walker, his then-girlfriend. Court records say drug addiction led to the hold-up of the Charter Food Store and Day’s death. Walker testified that she saw him go inside and heard gun shots before he returned with a cash register and a gun. She said Brown told her to keep quiet.

He has maintained his innocence. State and federal appeals that have been rejected raised issues with ineffective assistance of counsel during trial and post-conviction. Among the issues his attorneys raised was what they considered thin evidence linking him to the crime and dependence on witnesses –  Walker and a jailhouse detainee named Larry Bernard, according to court records – whom his attorneys argued were not credible. 

Brown has been waiting several years for a federal judge to rule on his habeas petition. Every time an officer hands out legal mail inside the unit, he hopes to receive news about the ruling, but it hasn’t come. 

“Depending on how this ruling goes when they get back to me, I’ll be alive and free or I’ll be dead,” he wrote in an April 2025 piece. 

Mississippi Today was unable to locate Day’s family for comment. 

As he waits for the court to rule, Brown has continued to write and work on publishing his book. 

He appeared at a Jan. 22 virtual book launch through video, appearing from the chest up and with a blurred background. Another death row prisoner squeezed Brown’s shoulders, causing him to smile. Occasionally, others passed behind him and a television flickered. 

Brown’s video calls lasted for 30 minutes, so he called back several times to continue answering questions or reading passages from the book. 

Brown said he included “had” in the book’s title because it highlights the image the state has imposed on death row inmates – that they are violent, can’t be trusted, need to be confined up to 24 hours a day in a cell and locked down seven days a week year-round.  

His writing puts a different face to the state’s portrayal. 

“I have shown that I can live inside of this world and keep my humanity,” he said.

Brown said he is around men who are thoughtful and talented. Some are also writers and artists. They may offer a hug and they look out for him. 

From his piece “There Are More,” Brown remembers his first day on death row and how he thought he was the only one because the others had been executed. The guards put him in a cell without sheets or toilet paper, and they didn’t give them to him when he asked for them. Then came the booming voice of a man in a nearby cell who “started raising hell” to get the items to Brown. 

Later, when he met the man during yard time, Brown thanked him. 

Some things have changed on death row, including more time for the men to spend out of their cells and the ability for them to have video visits. Brown gives credit to the current prison administration for the improvements. 

Brown read a few of his poems including “Americanism,” which incorporates the history of the Transatlantic slave trade and the Trail of Tears and connects it to the country’s use of the death penalty. The poem ends with the lines: 

You strap me to a death table, laying me out the way Rome did Christ,

forcing into me this history of Americanism, you take my life.

My final words, will forever be: F— you, you funky motherf—ers

Even decades in a cage, I lived free.

In addition to writing, Brown talked about the editing and design process. 

‘We produced what was inside of my mind’

Alison Turner, who previously lived in Mississippi, has worked with incarcerated writers and served as Brown’s book editor. She said other prison writers sometimes see revisions as an attack or a critique of who they are, but Brown leaned into feedback. 

Brown considers Turner a mentor. He said from edits, he saw his voice and purpose of writing evolve, going beyond writing for himself to writing for everyone who was around him and writing in a way that humanized the experiences and living conditions of death row. Turner is now an assistant professor and oral history curator at the University of South Dakota. 

At times, Brown said he was stubborn about what he wanted for the book, but he said his collaborators helped bring to life what he was trying to convey in his writing. 

“We produced what was inside of my mind in a way I wanted it done,” he said. 

Brown’s other published work can be found in several places, including a monthly column called Chronicles of Parchman through Rooted Magazine. He has published writing with The GOAT PoL, an online platform that houses writing from around the world. 

Brown continues to speak out about the death penalty and works with organizations including HumanS Remain, a nonprofit that supports Mississippi death row inmates through education and advocacy. The organization’s website publishes journal entries for several death row men and Lisa Jo Chamberlin, the only woman sentenced to death in Mississippi. 

At the book launch, Brown’s nephew asked him how he finds balance between love and hate for the state of Missisisppi. He also wanted to know what his uncle looks forward to. 

“I hate what this state does to me … I just want to go home,” Brown said. “I want to be home, I want to be around my loved ones. I want to do all these things.”

“The Image They Had Painted” is available for purchase at https://publicationstudio.biz/books/the-image-they-had-painted