New Podcast: Discussion with Ron McAndrew, Former Florida Warden Who Presided Over Executions

In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, inter­views Ron McAndrew (pic­tured), a for­mer Florida Prison Warden who wit­nessed exe­cu­tions using elec­tro­cu­tion and lethal injec­tion in Florida and Texas. He offers reflec­tions on the neg­a­tive impact that exe­cu­tions have on the fam­i­lies of both the vic­tim and the con­demned, the cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers, and on himself.

Mr. McAndrew dis­cuss­es his respon­si­bil­i­ties as a war­den and his involve­ment in car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions. In par­tic­u­lar, he shares the trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ence of over­see­ing two of Florida’s botched elec­tro­cu­tions. In the inter­view, McAndrew states, ​“On the sec­ond exe­cu­tion [of John L. Bush], the blood start­ed run­ning out of the mask and that was before we applied the elec­tric­i­ty. That was very uncom­fort­able for every­one.” Regarding the drain­ing effects on his col­leagues who were car­ry­ing out the exe­cu­tions, he says, ​“I found out that they also suf­fered very much as I was suffering.”

After Florida tran­si­tioned to lethal injec­tion, Mr. McAndrew trav­eled to Texas to observe the process of car­ry­ing out such exe­cu­tions. The change of meth­ods did lit­tle to lessen the emo­tion­al toll he was expe­ri­enc­ing with the death penal­ty. He request­ed to be trans­ferred from the Florida State Prison. He states, ​“I was begin­ning to ques­tion why we were killing peo­ple that we already had in cap­tiv­i­ty. I was feel­ing uncom­fort­able about tak­ing the lives of peo­ple that were cap­tured and were no longer a threat to any­one. And it was begin­ning to both­er me psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly [and] morally.”

You can lis­ten to the pod­cast here.