Retired New York prison super­in­ten­dent Stephen Dalsheim recent­ly cau­tioned leg­is­la­tors about re-instat­ing the death penal­ty, not­ing his con­cerns about inno­cence and the toll exe­cu­tions take on prison employ­ees. ​“You know, as I grow old­er, I real­ize maybe we can get beyond vengeance,” Dalsheim said. ​“The death penal­ty is fraught with the pos­si­bil­i­ty that you could exe­cute an inno­cent man. Who could live with that?” Dalsheim tes­ti­fied before a pan­el of state law­mak­ers con­sid­er­ing whether to try to fix New York’s death penal­ty. The state law was declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 2004.

Dalsheim said his oppo­si­tion was based on his per­son­al expe­ri­ences with those on death row and those who guard and exe­cute them, includ­ing two for­mer exe­cu­tion­ers who com­mit­ted sui­cide after many years of such duty. He stat­ed, ​“There was this big old-line com­mit­ted offi­cer, a well-liked fel­low, and he over­saw the exe­cu­tions. Afterwards, he’d get very, very drunk and not come in for sev­er­al days. It’s ter­ri­ble, ter­ri­ble — I get very emo­tion­al think­ing about it. I cer­tain­ly don’t like ter­ror­ism or mur­der but there has to be a bet­ter way than putting men to death.” (Washington Post, February 12, 2005). See New Voices.

Citation Guide