Dennis O’Neill had been an assis­tant war­den at Florida State Prison for two years and war­den at Union Correctional Institution for 7 years, both death row pris­ons. He even­tu­al­ly left the cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem and became an Episcopal priest. He was assigned back to the town of Starke, Florida, where death row inmates reside. As a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer, he had been involved in more than a dozen exe­cu­tions over 14 years, but now O’Neill oppos­es the death penal­ty.

​“For years, I told myself it was the law of the land, and went along with it,” he says. ​“But sev­er­al things real­ly got to me: the arbi­trary nature of who was exe­cut­ed. The fact that the per­son strapped in the chair or gur­ney often showed gen­uine, heart­felt change and was rarely the same per­son who com­mit­ted the crime. And, my real­iza­tion that anti­sep­tic killing is as bad as raw and naked killing. “

​“I did­n’t want to be a part of it any­more,” he says. ​“I real­ized I want­ed to be part of a heal­ing, mer­ci­ful world, not a pun­ish­ing one.” His con­gre­ga­tion has also been moved by his new mes­sage.
(St. Petersburg Times, Nov. 23, 2006). See New Voices.

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