TRENTON -- The 22 men on death row in Trenton State Prison are the only inmates of the huge penitentiary here who are able to watch the televised Apollo 11 moon landing.
The condemned men, housed in single nine-by-six-foot cells arranged in three tiers, have television sets outside every other cell and have earphones.
Girl Slayer
The most famous of the prison's death row inmates is Edgar H. Smith Jr., who has been there for a dozen years, condemned for the slaying of a 15-year-old girl in 1957.
Awaiting the result of his latest appeal, Smith has written one book, "Brief Against Death" and is writing another. The book was acclaimed by critics, and he received an award by the New Jersey Association of Teachers of English as an "outstanding New Jersey Author."
The other inmates will be able to listen to the reports of the lunar mission's process on their radios but will have to take turns watching televised programs.
Tape Replays
"There have been no special arrangements made for them," Warden Howard Yaeger said. Most, he added, will end up watching the video tape replays on later newscasts.
"General population" inmates will not be able to see the lunar landing, scheduled to take place before dawn Monday, Yaeger said.
