Death Penalty USA - The Remorse

A host of countries around the world still impose the ultimate punishment on the most serious criminals - death. What is it like to be in command of the machinery of state-sanctioned execution? HARDtalk gets a rare insight from Allen Ault, who spent years running the corrections system in the southern US state of Georgia. He organised the killing of criminals until he could stand it no more. Now he is an opponent of the death penalty. Why?

This is a really fascinating interview by Allen Ault who was in charge of administering the death penalty to prisoners over many years. Gets quite emotional.

From BBC Player

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03v13qd

I really would not want to stand in the shoes of someone responsible for putting people to death who comes to the realisation that what he did was wrong. How would you live with that?

Will watch it later.

As witnessed by this man it's a terrible burden to have carry around with you for the rest of your life.

Sure I read somewhere a while back that one of the executioners in this country took his own life.

You're right, found this, made me heave:

John Ellis (4 October 1874 – 20 September 1932) was a British executioner for 23 years, from 1901 to 1924. His other occupations were as a Rochdale hairdresser and newsagent.

Born in the Balderstone district of Rochdale on 4 October 1874, he first worked in a series of jobs as a casual labourer in and around Manchester before gaining a job at a spinning mill in Bury. After another stint in a factory he decided to follow his father's trade by becoming a barber and hairdresser in Rochdale, where he subsequently also opened a newsagent's shop, which he ran with his wife and children.

At the age of 22 he applied to the Home Office to become an executioner and was invited to attend training at Newgate Prison. He first participated in an execution in Newcastle in December 1901, as assistant to William Billington.

Ellis served as Chief Executioner from 1907 and was involved in a total of 203 executions. Among the executions he performed were those of Hawley Harvey Crippen (known as Dr. Crippen) in 1910, Frederick Seddon in 1912, Sir Roger Casement in 1916, Herbert Rowse Armstrong (known as Dr. Armstrong) in 1922, and of Edith Thompson in 1923. He took the responsibility of his position very seriously and hoped to "despatch" the condemned person with as little fuss and pain to the individual concerned as possible.

The ordeal of executing Edith Thompson in 1923 had a profound effect on Ellis. Thompson had collapsed in terror at the prospect of her hanging and, unconscious, had to be supported on the gallows by four prison warders.[1] Various accounts report, "that guards had to tie her to a small wooden chair before drawing the noose around her neck", and that "she was hanged in a bosun's chair".[2]

When the gallows trapdoor opened and Thompson fell, the sudden impact of the noose caused her to suffer a massive vaginal haemorrhage. The large amount of blood spilled, combined with the fact that Thompson had gained weight during her imprisonment even while resisting food, led to conjecture that she might have been pregnant, although no post-mortem examination was made. All women hanged in Britain after Thompson were required to wear a special garment made of canvas as a precaution against the problems encountered with Thompson.[3]

Traumatised by the Thompson execution, Ellis took to drinking heavily, and attempted suicide the following year by shooting himself in the jaw. Suicide was at that time a criminal offence, and Ellis was charged and bound over for 12 months at Rochdale Magistrates Court. Eight years later, in September 1932, after another bout of heavy drinking, Ellis succeeded in his suicide attempt, cutting his throat with a razor.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ellis_%28executioner%29

Words fail me after reading that.

Here's a fun fact -- if you look at the murder rate in the U.S., every year since 1995, the murder rate in death penalty states is annually 25 to 50 percent higher than the murder rate in non-death penalty states.

Of course, correlation isn't causation and it's not that the presence of the death penalty is making people murder more. However, you can clearly see it's not deterring anything.

Ben_Reilly wrote:Here's a fun fact -- if you look at the murder rate in the U.S., every year since 1995, the murder rate in death penalty states is annually 25 to 50 percent higher than the murder rate in non-death penalty states.

Of course, correlation isn't causation and it's not that the presence of the death penalty is making people murder more. However, you can clearly see it's not deterring anything.

It may also be that the culture in death penalty states spuriously determines both the mentality that embraces the death penalty, and the mentality necessary to commit murder. Lets face it, backward states like Alabama and Oklahoma are not at the same level of education and intellectual sophistication as California, New York or Massachusetts.