South Carolina Execution-Team Members Talk of Debilitating Emotional Toll of Capital Punishment, Former Warden Calls Death Penalty ​‘Inequitable’

South Carolina cor­rec­tion­al staff who par­tic­i­pat­ed in exe­cu­tions suf­fered life-alter­ing trau­ma that was wors­ened by an inflex­i­ble prison admin­is­tra­tion that pro­vid­ed lit­tle sup­port to address the psy­cho­log­i­cal injuries they sus­tained. Two senior staff mem­bers are now on dis­abil­i­ty, unable to work, and are suf­fer­ing from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression. A third mem­ber of the exe­cu­tion team end­ed his own life by suicide. 

These rev­e­la­tions are just part of an emo­tion­al report in the South Carolina news­pa­per, The State, based on inter­views with cor­rec­tion­al staff who par­tic­i­pat­ed in exe­cu­tions. The men told reporter Chiara Eisner of the toll of killing pris­on­ers, say­ing that their involve­ment in exe­cu­tions caused last­ing men­tal and phys­i­cal health prob­lems, dif­fi­cul­ty sleep­ing, per­son­al­i­ty changes, and thoughts of sui­cide. They described an insti­tu­tion­al cul­ture that made it dif­fi­cult to share their expe­ri­ences or seek help. The State’s inves­ti­ga­tion also con­firmed that a for­mer South Carolina exe­cu­tion­er had died by suicide.

Jim Harvey, a war­den who over­saw 13 exe­cu­tions at the Broad River Correctional Institution (pic­tured), was respon­si­ble for lead­ing the exe­cu­tion team and cre­at­ing many of the state’s pro­to­cols. Though he worked on exe­cu­tions for a decade, he said, ​“None of us ever enjoyed doing it. None of us want­ed to do it.” His work result­ed in extreme stress for him and his fam­i­ly. Harvey ​“would be con­sumed by stress for weeks before each exe­cu­tion,” Eisner report­ed. During that time, he eas­i­ly lost his tem­per with his fam­i­ly. Harvey’s wife, Charlotte, an ICU nurse, said it took him weeks to recov­er from each exe­cu­tion, but in an effort to spare her the anx­i­ety he nev­er spoke about his feel­ings to her. ​“She saved lives, I took lives,” Harvey said. 

Charlotte ​“resent­ed the fact that this was tak­ing so much out of Jim,” she told Eisner. “[I]t just cre­at­ed a crevice” in their mar­riage, she said. Charlotte suf­fered depres­sive episodes for which she was treat­ed with anti-depressants.

The expe­ri­ence changed Harvey’s views on the death penal­ty. ​“There’s so much inequity in who gets the death penal­ty and who doesn’t,” he said. About 1,000 peo­ple are serv­ing life sen­tences for mur­der in South Carolina, Harvey said, but there is “[v]ery, very lit­tle dif­fer­ence between them and the guys sit­ting on death row for the same offense.”

Harvey described the care he took in select­ing mem­bers of the exe­cu­tion team, say­ing that he inter­viewed the most respon­si­ble prison staff mem­bers. ​“Most peo­ple think that you pick vol­un­teers for that. That’s the last thing I want­ed to do,” Harvey said. ​“Anybody who would vol­un­teer to kill some­body is not some­body I want­ed work­ing for me.” 

‘I won­der whether God will ever for­give me now.’

By con­trast, two men who worked on exe­cu­tions in the ear­ly 2000s, after Harvey retired, said they were pres­sured into par­tic­i­pat­ing and told it was the only way to get pro­mot­ed. Craig Baxley and Terry Bracey have both been diag­nosed with depres­sion and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder since leav­ing their jobs as prison staff. After quit­ting, both men sued war­den Robert Ward and Department of Corrections direc­tor Jon Ozmint for vio­lat­ing their rights and inten­tion­al­ly inflict­ing emo­tion­al dis­tress. Baxley called the cul­ture around exe­cu­tions ​“total­ly, total­ly cal­lous.” They said they were nev­er thor­ough­ly trained before, or giv­en an oppor­tu­ni­ty to debrief after, exe­cu­tions. When they real­ized how much the exe­cu­tions were affect­ing them, they asked for a break, and said Ward threat­ened to demote them. Their law­suits were dis­missed, but they both received dis­abil­i­ty retire­ment ben­e­fits from the state.

The images and expe­ri­ences of par­tic­i­pat­ing in exe­cu­tions still haunt the two men. “[T]he def­i­n­i­tion of ser­i­al killer is Bracey and myself,” Baxter told The State. In a depo­si­tion, Bracey described one elec­tric chair exe­cu­tion: ​“I recall the look on his face. I recall the smell of his body. I recall me being a part of cook­ing [him] to death.” In a sep­a­rate depo­si­tion, Baxley said of exe­cu­tions, ​“It’s all just unbe­liev­able and just one of the worst things you ever want to see in your life.” Speaking of the effect of the exe­cu­tions on his life, Bracey said, ​“I’m 6’3, and I feel reduced now to being a cow­ard in a cor­ner. I won­der whether God will ever for­give me now.”

Baxley, a for­mer Marine and devout Southern Baptist, knelt in prayer after each exe­cu­tion to ask God’s for­give­ness. “​I have sev­er­al times con­sid­ered killing myself based on the fact that I feel like that I’m con­demned by God,” he told The State. He com­pared his expe­ri­ence as an exe­cu­tion­er to his time in the armed forces, say­ing, ​“I was in the Marine Corps, but what I’m say­ing, it doesn’t mat­ter how tough you think you are. I was the car­ri­er out of the state-assist­ed homi­cide. I always feel like I walk around with this.”

Though Baxley says he is not opposed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, he believes exe­cu­tions must be accom­pa­nied by greater pre­cau­tions. Executioners should be screened by a psy­chol­o­gist, receive care­ful train­ing, and be man­dat­ed to see a coun­selor after exe­cu­tions, he said.

Ozmint, the for­mer Department of Corrections direc­tor named in Bracey and Baxley’s law­suits, said he did not strug­gle with his role in exe­cu­tions, and said those who did were ​“in the wrong pro­fes­sion.” ​“Does the troop­er feel ter­ri­ble when he writes a tick­et because he knows a per­son can’t afford to pay it?” he asked. ​“I don’t feel guilty about your sin, do I?” 

In response, Bracey said, ​“Unless you’re the one push­ing the but­ton, then that’s a whole dif­fer­ent sto­ry. I’m real­ly envi­ous of them, because I don’t have that same priv­i­lege to not to feel that way.”