'I'm ready'

The Texas death chambers are the busiest in the US, and correspondingly efficient: 376 prisoners have been executed since 1982. There isn't much time to dwell on rights and wrongs and regrets. Perhaps in order to cauterise doubt in a blaze of clarity, everything is catalogued: the minute the prisoner is injected with lethal medicine, the minute it starts to take effect, the minute they die. Now that there is nothing they can do to change their fate, the prisoners are allowed small freedoms: to choose their last meals, to say a few words. These last words, too, are catalogued, and are publicly available on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's website. The pages are cleanly designed, passionless, almost an artwork - but the minimalism cannot hide the fact that every name and number indicates whole blighted, messy lives, of victims and prisoners alike.

The statements are hard to read. They are at once public and very private. They are domestic. They ask partners to care for soon-to-be fatherless children. There is a lot of love - for friends, supporters, partners, already grieving parents. There is guilt. They are overwhelmingly religious, mostly asking for mercy from a Christian God, though there is the occasional invocation of Allah. The appearance of a foreign language is unusual. In more recent years the recorders have contented themselves with '...(Spanish)...', as if being foreign stripped the prisoner of their last words. Profanity gets the same treatment. State-sanctioned murder is fine. Swearing, it seems, is not.

I went to the website yesterday and, while I admit I felt a little morbid, I read every entry. It's interesting how many of these men found Jesus or Allah on death row - I guess they need something to grasp on to, to believe that their execution is not the end. What I felt after reading these final statements was sadness at so many ruined lives, those of the victims, the perpetrators and their families. I know that these men committed heinous crimes but I have always held strong ethical objections to state sanctioned killings. There are many compelling arguments against the death penalty. It is irreversible and can be inflicted on the innocent. It has never been shown to deter crime more effectively than other punishments. That's all I'll say on that for now because it's all been said before.