To spend even a day on the Journey of Hope - a two-week tour of Tennessee in the company of

To spend even a day on the "Journey of Hope" - a two-week tour of Tennessee in the company of relatives of murder victims or Death Row inmates - was, for me, to be convinced beyond doubt that brutality followed by barbarism can never result in healing.Lois Robison, for example, was refused help for her schizophrenic son because he hadn't shown signs of violence When he did, he killed five people and is now on Death Row. There are no yuppies on Death Row; 90 per cent of those sentenced to die in the US are literally the poorest of the poor; too destitute to afford expensive legal representation. But for Earle, the fight for an end to the death penalty is not about guilt or innocence, but about those who have no voice. He had stabbed two young women to death in their beds and was, in Earle's words, "an escalating serial killer who just happened to get caught first time". Five minutes later, he was pronounced dead."Nobles never pretended to be innocent. "It looked like an invisible cinder block had been dropped on his chest, his head hit his chest so violently that his glasses, a pair of heavy, plastic prison issue glasses, flew off.

He agreed, if reluctantly, and on the appointed day found himself watching Jon begin to sing "Silent Night"; the executioner's signal to start the lethal injection."When he reached the line `mother and child', all the air went out of his lungs and he gave a shout: `Huh!'" Earle says. He received the letter from Nobles asking if he would witness his execution on 7 October 1998. "They have to compartmentalise it," says Earle, "because the human spirit cannot cope with sole responsible for the taking of human life."Earle had been a death penalty activist during the Eighties, before drugs took over his life, and that was when he first started writing to Nobles But after Dead Man Walking he became committed to the cause. "Ellis Unit One" was inspired by a scene where a guard says that his role in the death chamber is strapping down the left leg. More than two decades of drug addiction had resulted in a 1994 spell in a Tennessee prison, but when film director Tim Robbins sent him a tape of Dead Man Walking, the man responsible for the classic albums, Guitar Town and Copperhead Road, was shaken to the marrow. When he plays Cheltenham Town Hall with the Del McCoury Band tonight, "Jonathan's Song" will not be on the set list; the cold cruelty of what Nobles' death certificate described as "Homicide" still overwhelms him.Earle had been to hell and back before he realised that there were other, worse places to end up in the richest nation on earth. "Steve Earle," he said to the singer/songwriter he had invited to his execution, "I can't believe I had to go through all this just to see you in a suit." Six months after he watched the man with whom he had corresponded for 12 years die, the Earle is still scarred by the experience.

Shortly before Jonathan Wayne Nobles gave the signal that would send lethal poison racing through his veins, he was able to twist his head and see the one person in Texas who didn't hate him. If Vaas had not been long-handled for 17 by Eddo Brandes and Henry Olonga in the final over, Sri Lanka's task would have been even less demanding.Scoreboard, page 10. Ranatunga was also back to his wily best at the helm, repeatedly rotating his bowlers in the closing stages so that the batsmen never settled.He also held a juggling catch at slip to dismiss Whittall, who several balls earlier had nudged a four through what was a vacant area before Ranatunga moved there. Wickremasinghe, coming on for the 11th over, applied the stranglehold with 3 for 26 in an eight-over spell, having also taken the catch that removed Johnson. It was not a case of dissent, simply disbelief, but in an innings of fits and starts it was another major setback.In contrast to their first two games, the Sri Lankans kept a tigerish grip on their opponents' batting, bowling a tight line throughout and fielding keenly. the umpire David Shepherd had no doubt there was a touch and had already raised his finger once before Campbell looked round to see it being raised again.