With his execution looming last Thursday, the 57-year-old Texas death row inmate watched as his attorneys’ legal arguments were rejected in the courts and his pleas for clemency disregarded, as the state parole board declined to recommend he receive a lesser sentence or reprieve.

After helping lead the fight to free her younger brother from nearly a half-century on death row, Hideko Hakamada feels she and her brother are beginning a new chapter of their lives.