The False Rehabilitation of Jonathan Wayne Nobles Changing your behavior out the outside doesn’t mean there was rehabilitation on the inside. I’m going to persuade you that Jonathan Wayne Nobles wasn’t rehabilitated by using the authors background and reason for him being biased. The Author was only showing us his point of view about the situation. In the story Nobles was doing good deeds to get better treatment in jail. He was also being used by the church to gain followers and by the prison to make their program look better to the outside word.
Firstly, I’d like to talk about the author of ‘A Death in Texas’. Steve Earle, was described as “a singer-songwriter whose music ranges from rockabilly and bluegrass to hard rock and folk” (Earle …show more content…
When Nobles grew up, he tried joining the army but failed the psychological exam. Nobles also tried joining the police force, but could not succeed (Mark Chapel 1). Nobles wanted some sort of occupation with authority. Nobles joined a neighborhood watch and it ended in him murdering Mitzi Johnson-Nalley, 21, and Kelly Farquhar, 24 (murderpedia). While in jail, Nobles was crazy and picking fights. According to ‘A death in Texas’ “When Jon arrived at Ellis he quickly alienated all of the guards and most of the inmates. He once broke away from guards while returning to his cell from the exercise yard and climbed the exposed pipes and bars in the cell block, kicking down television sets suspended outside on the bottom tier. On another occasion he cut himself with a razor blade, knowing that the guards would have to open his cell to prevent him from bleeding to death. He just wanted to hit one officer before he passed out.” (Earle 76.) Over the years Nobles changed his character slightly. He wasn’t picking fights or harassing guards. People thought that was him being “rehabilitated”, but rehabilitation would mean you’ve changed in your heart. Nobles didn’t seem like he did that. When it came to him realizing that he doesn’t have longer to live, Nobles joined the Dominican Order of Preachers. Nobles started to do very good things for everyone. Earle wrote “Nobles ministered to his fellow inmates, even …show more content…
The Dominican Order of Preachers loved for Nobles to join them because it would give the preachers an opportunity to use Nobles as a figure to get people to join their religion. The church is making Nobles out to be a Saint using him to convert other “broken” people in jail. The church was blaming the drugs for the murder and believed that sobriety helped him connect to his faith. Nobles still chose to do the drugs in the first place but the church community chose to ignore that and profit off of his “salvation”. Some evidence is shown here on this Christian website “In 1986, high on drugs Jonathan, then 25 years of age, stabbed two young women to death and seriously injured Ron Ross; a horrific crime for which he was sentenced to death. He was convicted almost entirely on the strength of his own confession. He never took the stand during his trial. He sat impassively as the guilty verdict was read out and only flinched slightly when the judge sentenced him to death.” (Roche). Earle writes about Nobles, “He and Hathorn were friends once but something happened years ago, something Jon is reluctant to talk about.” Obviously there was something that happened between Nobles and Gene Hathorn, and Nobody seems to know what happened. If Nobles was such a good man like the church was making him to appear, why wouldn’t Nobles forgive or talk to Hathorn. Seeing that