Arizona executed a prisoner today. Texas is set to execute another this evening. Meanwhile, Missouri, Alabama and Oklahoma plan to execute more people before the end of the year.Though hundreds of workers will carry these executions out, few know who they are or what their jobs require. There are laws that forbid many of their names from being revealed.
CATARINO ESCOBAR: The team that was in charge of bringing the inmate handcuffed me, and I’m just playing along. EISNER: That was Jeanne Woodford, a warden from California; Allison Miller, a Florida public defender; Corrections Superintendent Frank Thompson from Oregon; and Bill Breeden, a religious minister. Breeden volunteered to be inside the chamber. But for most of the others NPR spoke with, execution work was a required and sometimes unexpected part of their jobs. There were a few who said their execution tasks didn’t bother them much then and still don’t bother them now.
EISNER: That veterans suffer from mental health issues like PTSD is well known. Since the September 11 attacks, more servicemen have died from suicide than combat. But although execution workers are also tasked with killing, there’s a key difference between the two. Veterans receive lifelong free health care through Veterans Affairs. Execution workers have no comparable support system. Craig Baxley understands the consequences of that.
EISNER: With no medical training and no counseling beforehand, Baxley started executing people, most by lethal injection. EISNER: I met Baxley last year when I first started reporting on executions, and I thought I wouldn’t find anyone as marked by the work as him. What I expected was that the more people’s jobs removed them from handling the plungers, the physical tools of executions, the better off they’d be. But that’s not what the workers told me. I spoke with wardens, religious ministers, journalists, public defenders and the family of a nurse who also witnessed executions.
EISNER: Johnson was then injected with a drug that was supposed to kill him. But minutes later, Breeden heard the prisoner speak up from the gurney. He was still alive.EISNER: For months afterwards, Breeden became claustrophobic and would start sobbing in the middle of conversations. He still can’t escape the execution, even in his sleep.
EISNER: Only once has a jury sentenced a client of hers to be executed. That was a man named Markeith Lloyd. Miller still can’t forget how her toddler wished her luck when she left for work that day.