NEW VOICES: Former Warden Shares Traumatic Experience of Overseeing Executions

In a recent op-ed pub­lished in the Miami Herald, for­mer Florida war­den Ron McAndrew wrote about his expe­ri­ence with elec­tro­cu­tions and lethal injec­tions in Florida and Texas. He wit­nessed botched exe­cu­tions and observed the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects that car­ry­ing out the death penal­ty has on the cor­rec­tion­al officers involved.

He not­ed, ​“Each time an exe­cu­tion was sched­uled, I worked with my staff to man­age the process in minute-by-minute detail. Despite this metic­u­lous prepa­ra­tion, one exe­cu­tion went hor­ri­bly wrong, and the prisoner’s head caught fire and filled the exe­cu­tion cham­ber with smoke. Another pris­on­er bled pro­fuse­ly from his nose dur­ing the pro­ce­dure, which turned out to be Florida’s last elec­tro­cu­tion.” He also men­tioned that lethal injec­tions were no less impact­ful than elec­tro­cu­tions: ​“Unfortunately, I soon learned that while lethal-injec­tion exe­cu­tions look more peace­ful to the wit­ness­es on the oth­er side of the glass, it is just as trau­ma­tiz­ing for those of us whose job it is to end the prisoner’s life.”

McAndrew — a self-described law-and-order con­ser­v­a­tive — added that even seem­ing­ly rou­tine exe­cu­tions left scars: ​“The real­i­ty is that, even when things go smooth­ly on the sur­face, the process of killing anoth­er human being is trau­mat­ic for those involved. If things go awry, the harm is far worse. I still have night­mares and flash­backs from my par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions.” His expe­ri­ence led him to oppose the death penal­ty: ​“The point­less­ness and the trau­ma­tiz­ing impact of the prac­tice might pro­vide a talk­ing point for a gov­er­nor or pros­e­cu­tor to claim they are tough on crime. But in real­i­ty, there is no good rea­son for our state to resume executions.”