Former Oregon Prison Superintendent: ​“Capital Punishment is a Failed Policy”

Semon Frank Thompson (pic­tured), a for­mer super­in­ten­dent at the Oregon State Penitentiary, over­saw both of the exe­cu­tions car­ried out under Oregon’s death penal­ty statute. He now believes that ​“cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is a failed policy.” 

In an opin­ion piece for The New York Times, Thompson — who used to sup­port the death penal­ty — explains how con­duct­ing exe­cu­tions changed his mind. Prior to serv­ing as prison super­in­ten­dent, Thompson had felt that ​“jus­tice had been served” when a defen­dant who had been con­vict­ed of killing one of Thompson’s law enforce­ment col­leagues was exe­cut­ed. Shortly after­wards, when he was respon­si­ble for car­ry­ing out the exe­cu­tions of Douglas Franklin Wright and Harry Charles Moore, ​“the fact that I was now to be per­son­al­ly involved in their exe­cu­tions forced me into a deep­er reck­on­ing with my feel­ings about capital punishment.” 

By the time the exe­cu­tions took place, Thompson says he had come to ​“believe[] that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was a dis­mal fail­ure as a pol­i­cy,” but he par­tic­i­pat­ed because he was expect­ed to do his job. He saw the toll the exe­cu­tions took on staff mem­bers who par­tic­i­pat­ed: ​“After each exe­cu­tion, I had staff mem­bers who decid­ed they did not want to be asked to serve in that capac­i­ty again. Others qui­et­ly sought employ­ment else­where. A few told me they were hav­ing trou­ble sleep­ing, and I wor­ried they would devel­op post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der if they had to go through it anoth­er time.… The effects can lead to all the places you’d expect: drug use, alco­hol abuse, depres­sion and suicide.” 

Thompson now sup­ports Oregon’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions and urges the nation to recon­sid­er cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment alto­geth­er. He has con­clud­ed that ​“America should no longer accept the myth that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment plays any con­struc­tive role in our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. It will be hard to bring an end to the death penal­ty, but we will be a health­i­er soci­ety as a result.”