There's an uncomfortably tight knot in my stomach as the doors to the death chamber
whisk open.
I've done this a dozen times by now over my twenty year career, but I still feel the same
nervousness, the same gnawing sense of sick deep down in my gut.
In fact, it's only gotten stronger over time, when I expected it would get weaker.
When I first took the job and became an official executioner, I thought I was doing the world
a service.
It costs the state ridiculous amounts of money to keep some of the worst of the worst human
beings alive, in a cell, for decades on end.
These scumbags don't deserve a cent of it, better to just give them their well-earned
death sentence and save the taxpayer millions.
And they are scumbags of course, the absolutely most villainous scum of society, getting their
just rewards for the unspeakable, horrific crimes they've committed.
I've been there at execution after execution, saw the tears on the faces of the family members
of the victims, or heard the enraged screams, threats, and wishes that the condemned “burn
in hell for eternity!”.
Who couldn't agree with the bereaved parents of a young child kidnapped from his room,
then murdered in a most grisly manner.
But death is a heavy thing to carry, and most of the murderers who I sent to meet their
maker only had to commit the deed once to land themselves in my care.
Me...
I kill over and over and over again.
The condemned is escorted in by three officers, all part of the execution detail.
This one is cooperative, which is a relief.
It doesn't matter how evil the condemned is, nothing gnaws at your sanity quite like watching
a human being fight or plead for his life.
I guess it's just normal empathy, I guess it's nice to know I'm still not a monster
inside.
Today the execution is by lethal injection, though I often find myself wishing for the
old days of the electric chair or even a firing squad.
Public outcry demanded a better, cleaner solution to the death row problem, especially after
an inmate's head burst into flames in 1990 after the wrong sponge was used in his electric
chair execution.
I was present for that ghastly mess, and it turned my stomach for months.
I still order my steaks rare, the sight of charred meat makes me lose my appetite.
Lethal injection was the clean, 'medical' alternative to the barbarity of hanging, the
electric chair, or death by firing squad- or at least it seems so on paper.
Put into actual practice, well, sometimes I can still hear the screams of inmates who's
lethal cocktails were improperly delivered.
It all looks so simple when it goes right, but the reality is far from it.
First of all, it's very much a medical procedure, but the thing is none of us involved in the
execution are actually doctors.
There's almost no doctor or nurse in America that will assist in performing an execution
as it goes against the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, so it's up to us high school graduates
and GED certificate holders to carry out the procedure instead.
Sure, you can find some doctors that will assist, but these are the most unscrupulous
of the bunch.
One doctor lost his license when it was revealed just how gross his incompetence was, mixing
up the chemicals required to humanely put an inmate to sleep first and then stop his
heart.
Don't worry, a few years later he was assisting executions in a different state.
Yeah, like I said, no doctor or nurse worth a damn is willing to do this terrible business.
The inmate is strapped down onto a gurney, once more I'm grateful that he doesn't resist
the officers and is completely cooperative.
He, like many, are resigned to their fate.
A few protest, or even try to fight, and nothing's harder than watching a human being beg for
their life.
It haunts you, no matter how evil the perpetrator, especially when you've done the job for as
long as I have.
Two IVs are inserted into the prisoner, one on each arm.
This is a tricky job, it requires us to find a suitable vein and insert the needle directly
inside of it.
Let me remind you that we are not medical professionals, with only a few weeks worth
of training to do this job.
It's all too common for the guards to not find a vein at all, or to pierce the vein
through completely.
This... well it's bad, it can get really ugly in that chamber if one or more of the drugs
miss a vein or are slow to spread through the circulatory system.
As Jay Chapman, the man who created the American version of lethal injection once said, “It
never occurred to me when we set this up that we'd have complete idiots administering the
drugs.”
Maybe not idiots, but certainly not trained medical professionals.
We're just prison guards after all, there's nothing special or unique about us.
You don't go to school to become an executioner, it just requires that you be a prisons correction
officer or law enforcement officer, have a high school diploma or GED, and take a nine-week
course.
That's it, suddenly you're qualified to administer medical grade drugs and ensure the humane
termination of human life.
It's insanity at its finest.
The IV lines are run to an adjacent room where the lethal cocktail of chemicals is stored,
and a saline drip is started on both arms.
This might seem silly, after all the condemned is only minutes from death at this point,
but it's important so that we know that the IV lines themselves aren't blocked and the
drugs can be administered successfully.
Only one of the IV lines will be used ultimately, but both are tested just in case of problems
with one line later during the actual execution.
Next, the inmate has a heart monitor attached to their chest.
The drugs will work by stopping the heart and respiration, so it's important to monitor
the inmate's vitals to know the drugs are doing their job.
In the adjacent room where the IV lines are run to, needles are inserted into each IV
line.
A second officer prepares the drugs for injection, and ensures that they are in the proper order.
This is critical, and has been botched more times than I can remember.
Sometimes, I think it's on purpose, and while anyone might feel a sense of vengeance against
a mass murderer, the end results of a botched lethal injection are something I wish I'd
never seen.
Now it's time for the final statement.
Here some men plead for their life, others ask to be led in prayer by an attending priest
or pastor.
Most offer apologies for their crimes, and well wishes for the families of their victims.
Those are the ones that get to you the most, but considering that a death row inmate could
have waited as much as twenty years for death, they've had a long time to think about- and
grieve- over their crimes.
There's always the hope of a last minute stay of execution from the governor's office, but
it rarely if ever comes.
Today, there's no such stay, and the procedure officially begins after a last prayer from
the attending priest.
First, we inject a dose of Sodium thiopental, a fast-acting anesthetic that can knock the
condemned out in about thirty seconds.
This drug alone can be fatal in the doses that we deliver, eventually depressing respiratory
activity to near zero much the same as in an opioid overdose.
I hear that it's even kind of a nice, warm feeling, and the inmate simply begins to gradually
drift away into relaxed unconsciousness.
This is how lethal injection is supposed to look, the condemned slipping away peacefully
and gradually in a humane, painless matter.
It rarely ever goes that way.
Next is a flushing agent, pushed through the IV line to make sure all of the drug has been
delivered.
Next is the Pancuronium bromide, a powerful muscle relaxer that ensures the muscles involved
in respiration are shut down long enough for the inmate to asphyxiate to death- while of
course completely under the effects of the first drug and peacefully slumbering.
In theory at least.
Once more a flushing agent is pushed through the veins to clear the line and ensure the
delivery of a complete dosage of the drug.
Next, the inmate receives a dose of potassium chloride, a drug that basically oversaturates
the heart and blood with potassium- or salt- and ensures that the heart enters into cardiac
arrest.
Often the heart will beat wildly out of control before ceasing altogether, ensuring death.
That's the way it's supposed to work, three different methods to ensure death, with the
first putting the prisoner to sleep so that they experience no pain or panic.
Yet like I've mentioned before, it doesn't always go that way.
In fact, it's terrifying how often it goes wrong.
The first drug, the sodium thiopental, is very short acting, and if not delivered in
the right dose means that the prisoner will still be conscious by the time the second
drug is delivered.
The muscle relaxant that comes next however will render the prisoner paralyzed, completely
unable to express any panic, pain, or shock that they experience, while presenting a perfectly
peaceful face to everyone in the execution chamber.
And I've heard that taking the pancuronium bromide into your veins is like taking liquid
fire, not unlike the feeling you get from receiving injections of certain painkillers
at the hospital shortly before they take effect.
Only the pain is much, much worse, and there's no narcotic high to numb any of it.
More shockingly, even when it goes right, there's a lot of research out there that the
first drug we administer to put the inmate to sleep, doesn't actually work at all.
Sure, the inmate is briefly put under, but recovers consciousness well before any of
the lethal effects from the other drugs take place.
As soon as the second drug enters the system though, the very much awake and aware prisoner
is now completely paralyzed, and unable to express any of the horrifying agony they are
currently in.
Then, once the third drug is delivered, they basically suffer a heart attack on top of
it all.
I can't imagine a worse fate, to be trapped in your own body, fully awake, as liquid fire
consumes you from inside, and then you begin to suffer a heart attack.
All while everybody looks on as you seem to lay there perfectly peacefully asleep.
It's even more terrifying when you realize that even when the procedure goes right, this
might actually be happening every single time.
Because let's face it, the only way to be sure it isn't is to actually undergo the procedure
yourself, and nobody survives it.
All the pain these people have caused to others though, surely they deserve to go out with
some agony, right?
Well, after two decades at this job I'm not so sure myself anymore.
I think about those condemned who walk into the execution chamber, tears in their eyes.
They aren't crying for their own lives, those were lost decades ago when they were incarcerated
and told they'd never be free again.
They're crying for their victims, and for the surviving family members of the victims.
They're crying for the pain they've caused, and pain that they'll leave behind long after
they themselves have found the peace of death.
Time changes a person, especially hard time spent in a cell for decades on end.
I think about my own life, who I am today versus who I was twenty years ago, and I know
that so much about me has changed that I would barely recognize myself if my two selves met
on the street.
Are you really the same person you were twenty years ago?
Twenty years later, are you really still punishing the same man who committed the original crime?
It's best not to think about these things, I tell the young, new guy on our squad.
Later that day, I take him out for a drink, pushing a bottle of tequila across the table
at him.
Drink up, I tell him, we all do a lot of drinking.
Some, more, turning to the same drugs that got some of those we kill in trouble in the
first place.
But when your job is to take human lives, over and over again for decades on end, you
gotta find a way to numb your doubts.
Want to find out what it’s like to be on death row?
Check out What The Last 24 Hours Of A Prisoner On Death Row Look Like!
Or click this other video instead!