NEW VOICES: Effects of the Death Penalty on Those Who Carry It Out

Four retired death-row prison offi­cials — two war­dens, a chap­lain, and an exe­cu­tion super­vi­sor — recent­ly described the effect that car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions has had on them. 

Frank Thompson (pic­tured), who served as a war­den in Oregon and Arkansas, said he believed in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment until he thought ​“about those flaws in the back of my mind that I knew exist­ed with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. It’s being admin­is­tered against the poor; it lacks proof that it deters any­thing.” He trained his staff to car­ry out exe­cu­tions, but, ​“I real­ized that I was train­ing decent men and women how to take the life of a human being. In the name of a pub­lic pol­i­cy that after all these years couldn’t be shown to increase the net of public safety.”

Terry Collins spent over 32 years work­ing in cor­rec­tions, includ­ing time as the direc­tor of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. He said see­ing exon­er­a­tions gave him con­cerns about the death penal­ty: “[T]the sys­tem does make mis­takes. I don’t think you can make a mis­take when you’re talk­ing about somebody’s life.” 

Jerry Givens, who over­saw 62 exe­cu­tions in Virginia, raised sim­i­lar con­cerns, ​“I knew the sys­tem was cor­rupt­ed when we exon­er­at­ed Earl Washington Jr. from death row…You have two types of peo­ple on death row. The guilty and the inno­cent. And when when you have the guilty and the inno­cent, you shouldn’t have death row.” 

Rev. Carroll Pickett was a chap­lain on Texas​’s death row for 15 years and dur­ing 95 exe­cu­tions. He com­ment­ed, ​“Standing by the gur­ney almost 100 times, and watch­ing inno­cent men killed, watch­ing repen­tant men killed, and see­ing the pain among fam­i­lies and men and my employ­ee friends, can­not leave my memories.”