Pains of execution

Opponents of the death penalty have been able to take an issue both major candidates agree on and make it a campaign problem for Gov. George W. Bush. This is partly due to the fact that Texas executes more people than any other state, and critics blame the governor for a system that sometimes has denied the condemned a fair trial.

A wrenching radio documentary scheduled for tomorrow will draw fresh attention to the question. National Public Radio, in its “All Things Considered” program quotes Texas “death house” workers, a chaplain, and a warden on the pain they feel in helping run a system that has done one-third of the nation’s executions since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977. A press advance on the program provides a preview.

Fred Allen, a 35-year-old captain of corrections until he quit two years ago, tells how he suddenly began to shake and couldn’t stop crying after taking part in 130 executions. He had worked on the five-member “tie-down team,” which strapped a condemned prisoner’s arms and legs and head to the gurney on which he would die. He says he couldn’t bear to go through this gruesome task one more time.

Jim Brazzil, a prison chaplain at Huntsville, where all the state’s executions are carried out, tells how he tries to comfort the condemned prisoners: “I usually put my hand on their leg, right below the knee, you know. And I usually give them a squeeze, let ’em know I’m there. You can feel the trembling, the fear that’s there, the anxiety that’s there.”

Another chaplain, Carroll Picket, who witnessed 95 executions, says it’s hard to watch 35 executions a year. “Lots of guards quit. Even those tough guards you’re talking about, a lot of those quit.”

Warden Jim Willett, who has presided over 75 executions and is retiring next year, says, “You know, there are times when I’m standing there, watching those fluids start to flow, and wonder whether what we’re doing is right. It’s something I will think about for the rest of my life.”

Hard-line positions are easy to take in the abstractions of debate. But the death penalty is not an abstraction for these people; it is something that, for better or worse, has become part of them. The immediacy of their opinions makes them worth considering as this powerful documentary gives all Americans something to think about.