CHAPTER NINE: DID HE REALLY EXECUTE ANYBODY?

 

 

            Of course not. Rich people don’t execute poor people; rich people pay poor people to execute poor people. American voters like their politicians to be tough on crime and support the death penalty, but they prefer their politicians to do so from the pristine purity of their Statehouses and Governor’s Mansions. It would be unseemly for political leaders to dirty themselves by actually killing the human beings whose death warrants they sign. That is to be left to the guards in state and federal prisons.

            During George W. Bush’s tenure as Governor of Texas there were 152 executions, or approximately one every other week. The executions became so commonplace that they began to attract very little media attention. The effect of execution upon the executed is very well known: death. The effect of execution upon the family of the executed is also quite well known: grief. The effect of execution upon the executioners is poorly known and little understood, yet cause for concern.

            Reservations about prison officials executing inmates is not new, even in Texas. On January 1, 1924 Captain R.F. Coleman, warden of Huntsville prison in Texas, tendered a letter of resignation. The state had recently decided to abandon its tradition of scattered hangings throughout the state and had decided instead to execute all prisoners in the Huntsville unit’s sparkling new electric chair. The first execution was scheduled in two weeks. Capt. Coleman told reporters, “A warden can’t be a warden and a killer, too. The penitentiary is a place to reform a man, not to kill him.”[1]

            Reservations about capital punishment are still shared by wardens, even those who have participated in it. Jim Willett was the warden of the Huntsville Unit where all Texas executions took place under Gov. Bush. He said in 2000, “We’ve carried out a lot of executions here lately, and with all the debate about the death penalty I thought this might be a good time to let you hear exactly how we do these things. Sometime I wonder whether people really understand what goes on down here and the effect it has on us.”[2]

            In the audio documentary Witness to an Execution several participants in the Texas execution process reflected on what it’s like to systematically kill human beings as an employee of the state. Kenneth Dean, the Major at the Huntsville Unit in 2000, commented, “It’s kind of hard to explain what you actually feel, you know, when you talk to a man and you kind of get to know that person, and the you walk him out of a cell and you take him in there to the chamber and tie him down. And then a few minutes later he’s . . . gone.”

            Rev. Jim Brazzil, chaplain to Texas death row inmates, adds, “I’ve had several of them where [I’m] watching their last breath go from their bodies and their eyes never unfix from mine. I mean actually lock together. And I can close my eyes now and see those eyes. My feeling and my emotions are extremely intense at that time. I’ve never . . . I’ve never really been able to describe it. And I guess in a way I’m kind of afraid to describe it. I’ve never really delved into that part of my feelings yet.”

            Rev. Carroll Pickett, who also worked with death row prisoners, reflected on the final moments in an inmate’s life: “After they’re strapped down and the needles are flowing and you’ve got probably 45 seconds where you and he are together for the last time, and nobody – nobody – can hear what goes on there. And the conversations that took place in there were, well, basically indescribable. It was always something different. A guy would say ‘I want you to pray this prayer.’ One of ‘em would say ‘I just want to tell you thank you.’ One of them would say ‘Don’t forget to mail my letters.’ Another one would say ‘Just tell me again, is it gonna hurt?’ One of them would say ‘What do I say when I see God?’ You’ve got 45 seconds and you’re trying to tell the guy what to say to God?”

            Those who work on death row not only see the death of the inmate, but the grief of their families as well. Michael Graczyk, an Associated Press reporter who has seen 170 Texas executions, recalled, “I had a mother collapse right in front of me. We were standing virtually shoulder to shoulder. She collapsed, hit the floor, went into hyperventilation, almost convulsions.” Leighanne Gideon, a former reporter for the Huntsville Item, added, “I’ve seen family members collapse in there. I’ve seen them scream and wail. I’ve seen them beat the glass . . .You’ll never hear another sound like a mother wailing whenever she is watching her son be executed. There’s no other sound like it. It is just this horrendous wail. You can’t get away from it. It’s definitely something you won’t ever forget.”

            Although the screams of the mothers never reach the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, they, and the entire execution process in Texas, are disturbing to many involved. Huntsville Warden Willett notes the effects of an execution on the participants: “Some get quiet and reflective after, others less so, but I have no doubt that it’s disturbing for all of us. It always bothers you. It does me.”

            Fred Allen was part of the tie-down team in Huntsville; he participated in 130 executions before the stress broke him down psychologically. Mr. Allen remembered, “I was just working in the shop and all of a sudden something just triggered in me and I started shaking. And then I walked back into the house and my wife asked ‘What’s the matter?’ and I said ‘I don’t feel good.’ And tears – uncontrollable tears – was coming out of my eyes. And she said ‘What’s the matter?’ And I said ‘I just thought about that execution that I did two days ago, and everybody else’s that I was involved with.’ And what it was, was something triggered within and it just – everybody – all of these execution all of a sudden sprung forward . . . just like taking slides in a film projector and having a button and just pushing a button and just watching, over and over: him, him, him. I don’t know if it’s a mental breakdown, I don’t know if . . . probably would be classified more as traumatic stress, similar to what individuals in war had. You know, they’d come back from war, it might be three months, it might be two years, it might be five years, all of a sudden they relive it again, and all that has to come out. You see I can barely even talk because I’m thinking more and more of it. You know, there was just so many of ‘em.” Mr. Allen now works as a carpenter.

            Hearing Mr. Allen’s statement, Rev. Pickett added, “I’ve had guards – lots of guards quit. Even those tough guards that you talk about. A lot of those quit. Some of them couldn’t take it. Some of them couldn’t take it.”