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TITLE: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
ARTICLE
TITLE:
Reflections on death in gas chamber
DATE: January 13, 2008
AUTHOR: Grant Woods
AUTHOR
INFORMATION:
Grant Woods served as attorney general of Arizona from 1991 until 1999.
A Republican. Woods is a supporter of John McCain in his race for the
Republican U.S. Senate nomination against J.D. Hayworth in 2010. Woods was
McCain's chief of staff when he was a congressman.
URL: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/0113vip-woods0113.html?nclick_check=1
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Grant Woods
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Reflections on death in gas
chamber
Jan. 13,
2008 12:00 AM
As the
U.S. Supreme Court prepares to rule on whether execution by lethal injection
constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, people across the country are taking
another look at the death penalty.
In the course of one week, I read in the New York Times and in Newsweek that in 1992, while I was serving as Arizona attorney general, that I was so repulsed by witnessing an execution by gas that I became physically ill and threw up. This is very dramatic stuff and a vivid picture for those who oppose the death penalty - but it is completely made up.
It never
happened, and yet there it was, in black and white, reported as fact in two of
the nation's most respected media outlets.
When I ran for attorney general in 1990, I promised to re- instate the death penalty in our state. I revamped our criminal-appeals process and argued cases myself in the appellate courts. I filed writs of mandamus on judges who refused to rule for years on end and we filed anticipatory briefs in all the courts even before the defendants had filed their own appeals. By 1992, Arizona was set for its first execution in 29 years.
Donald Eugene Harding had killed before he came to Arizona, but he had avoided the death penalty that time. He broke into a motel room in Tucson and killed two businessmen, strangling one with the lamp cord. He then found one of the victims' addresses in a wallet and drove a hundred miles to Mesa to kill this stranger's family, but the family dog scared him away. Almost two decades had passed since these murders, but his time for punishment was finally here.
I arrived at the prison around 10 p.m., greeted by television cameras and an army of reporters. Since it had been almost 30 years since the previous execution, the case had received enormous publicity. The night before, a group of priests and clergy, including my own, held a candlelight vigil outside my office. There were protesters and supporters at the entry of the prison. I told the press that there were appeals pending in the 9th Circuit, but we expected the execution to take place at midnight.
When midnight struck, the warden announced that, since there was no stay in place, the execution would proceed. I called him aside and told him that we would wait to hear from the U.S. Supreme Court, since we knew it was considering the case. A short while later, I answered the phone and was told that the high court had turned down Harding's final appeal.
The desert air was chilly that night as we walked across the prison yard toward the death chamber. Since all the television stations were going live with the story, the prisoners knew exactly what was happening. When the 20 or so witnesses and officials emerged into the moonlight, the prisoners began to yell and scream in what became a roar of obscenities and insults. We walked single file across the yard and into the small building that held the gas chamber.
I walked in last, planning to stand in the back inconspicuously, but the warden had other plans. There was a glass booth in the middle of the room with curtains drawn around, and the witnesses took their places behind it. He took me to the side of the chamber and then pushed a button pulling back the curtains. There sat Donald Harding, strapped to the chair and his hands manacled to the seat.
Harding tried to look behind him at the witnesses but couldn't move his neck far enough. Then, he looked to the side and saw me standing there. He was well aware of who I was and began to scream F-bombs at me. There was a whirring noise as the crystals of sodium cyanide came down the tube into the pail of sulfuric acid below the chair.
Harding began to flip me the bird with his shackled hand and then the white hydrogen cyanide gas became visible, and he waved it up toward his face and breathed deeply several times. The veins on his neck protruded and he jerked violently for over a minute. He passed out, but his body continued to writhe and turned colors from white to purple and back to white. Finally, his body slumped in the chair and the warden called out the time.
When we walked back across the prison yard, it was eerily silent this time.
I believe that prisoners got a serious message that night. For once, they hadn't beaten the system. The victims won that night, and the prisoners knew it. I don't think they ever thought it would happen and they were stunned.
I decided not to meet the press afterward. I felt I had done my job, but there was no reason to celebrate. This was a sad and serious business.
A few days later, something happened that solidified my belief that we had done the right thing. The daughter of Harding's victim from Mesa visited me. The daughter, a grown woman now with a husband, had witnessed the execution.
She had been in the sixth grade that day when she was called out of her class and told that her father had been murdered. She said she missed her dad every day but especially on prom night in high school and again on graduation and once again when her mom walked her down the aisle on her wedding day.
Several days had passed since the execution, and I wanted to know: Did it make any difference? I was surprised when the couple emphatically said that, yes, it did. The daughter explained how they felt like a black cloud was over them for the previous 20 years. They would forget for a while what happened but then remember that Harding was still out there, still fighting his case, still reminding them of the horrible thing that happened.
It had plagued their life, but now the black cloud was gone. For the first time since she was a child, she said, she was free to move on.
Soon afterward, Arizona changed to lethal injection as a more humane method of execution. I witnessed a couple of these, and it was like watching someone go to sleep.
I don't see how this can be viewed as inhumane unless the death penalty itself is inhumane, and this is a subject that I think we should continue to debate.
I can barely remember the names of the men we executed by lethal injection, and I really can't place their faces. But I remember Harding, writhing and screaming at me as the gas rose around him.
It has been more than 15 years since that cold Arizona night. I didn't get sick that night, but an impression was made. I remember Harding's face clearly. As I should.
Grant Woods was Arizona attorney general from 1991 to 1999.
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