Bearing Witness to Executions: Last Breaths and Lasting Impressions - The New York Times - 1 views
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The death penalty holds a crucial, conflicted place in a nation deeply divided over crime and punishment, and whether the state should ever take a life. But for such a long, very public legal process, only a small number of people see what unfolds inside the country’s death houses.
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There is no uniformity when they look back on the emotions that surround the minutes when they watched someone die.
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They had a chance to offer last statements, and I was disgusted because they were so self-serving, narcissistic statements for these people who had caused so much pain and suffering.
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A prosecutor has to have no doubt: not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but no doubt that a person committed those crimes. As long as you have no doubt, I don’t think there’s any valid argument against the death penalty.
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They caught him right there where he shot my son. I just don’t understand: 20 years before they killed him.
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I cannot even tell you how unbelievable it was to see people deliberately get ready to kill your client.
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When they pronounced him dead, I think I felt happy that he was no longer being hurt as part of the process.
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It is probably the shortest yet longest 11 minutes of my life. No matter what anyone says, there’s really nothing to prepare you for what you are about to see.
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The victim’s family is hurt, and the family of the individual. You’re not just killing a person. You’re killing his whole family. There’s a lot of people involved in this, not just the poor kid lying on a gurney.
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People don’t realize that you never get over it, unless you’re just cold and calculated. I’ll never forget it. Not a day goes by. Not a day goes by. And I don’t expect it to. If it does, then I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, as a Christian and as a chaplain and as a human being.
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Death penalty has long been a very controversial topic. Do people have the right to take away another person's life as the punishment of their wrong-doing? Those five witnesses offer their own opinion and feelings towards death penalty. Some of them think it is deserving because their wrong-doing caused too much damage to others. Some think it is painful because as a person is killed, their families and relatives are also "killed" in a way. Life is not a calculation. One life never equals to another life. --Sissi (4/23/2017)