Dr. Allen Ault was the war­den at the max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison in Georgia where exe­cu­tions were car­ried out. He also served as Commissioner of Corrections dur­ing a life­time career in the field. He is cur­rent­ly the Dean of the College of Justice & Safety at Eastern Kentucky University. In the video accom­pa­ny­ing this note, Dean Ault dis­cuss­es the tremen­dous drain that car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions had, and con­tin­ues to have, on his life. He added, ​“I know I’m not the only one who has admin­is­tered exe­cu­tions that felt the way I do. They all have shed a lot of tears.” He ques­tions the val­ue of the death penal­ty, and rec­og­nizes the dif­fi­cul­ty that many politi­cians have in chal­leng­ing this pun­ish­ment, despite its obvi­ous flaws. With respect to deter­rence, he said, ​“I have a hard time believ­ing that using pre-med­i­tat­ed mur­der and vio­lence (exe­cu­tions), is a way to mod­el behav­ior that would deter some­body else from doing it.” The video was made at the end of a six-week course on the death penal­ty at EKU and con­tains answers to ques­tions that the stu­dents raised. To view the video (21 min­utes), click here.

(Posted Aug. 19, 2009; Eastern Kentucky University (2009)). See New Voices and Multi-media.

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