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If
everything goes as planned, an execution will take less
than 15 minutes, according to prison warden Burl Cain
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ABC
NEWS
Inside
the 'Death House'Warden Who Presides Over Executions Recounts the
Process
May
4 - In the six years that Burl Cain has run the massive prison
farm at Angola, La., he has watched five inmates be put to death.
The warden controls every aspect of life for more than 5,000
inmates. And it is he who presides over the execution when a
condemned prisoner's court appeals have run out. Cain says he
faces the responsibility with the help of his Christian faith, and
a Bible verse is never far from his lips. "It says we're to
obey the law of the land � and so we read that when we get
toward execution, and that gives us the peace to go ahead and do
this," he says. 'We're Not the Enemy' The final countdown to
an execution begins at dawn, when the condemned inmate is moved to
a holding cell in what is known as the "death house."
There, the prisoner has several hours with his family to say
goodbye. Cain normally joins inmates for their last meals. He says
grace and tries to keep the mood as "upbeat" as possible.
In spite of the grim circumstance, he says the prisoners are
generally not angry with the warden. "He'll laugh and
� see we're not the enemy," says Cain. If everything goes
as planned, the execution will take less than 15 minutes. To make
sure it goes smoothly, Cain and his team actually rehearse the
procedure beforehand, using a guard as a stand-in for the
condemned man. Different guards are assigned to secure each strap
on the table.
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Angola
guards practice strapping a condemned prisoner to the
table. (ABCNEWS.com) |
The
team has to be ready for anything an inmate might do when he
realizes his life is about to end. 'Just Do It' With the inmate
strapped down, the curtains on the window to the witness room are
closed while paramedics place a heart monitor and two intravenous
lines into the prisoner's veins. This can be the longest and
toughest part of the entire process. On one occasion it took more
than 30 minutes to find usable veins on the prisoner's arms. The
technicians had to unstrap the inmate's arms and ask him to make
fists. "We're sorry it keeps sticking you," Cain
remembers the technicians saying. "It's OK, just do it,"
the prisoner responded. Drugs Straight From the Prison Pharmacy In
a tiny room next to the execution chamber, drugs commonly used to
save lives have been loaded in lethal doses into three large
syringes. The first one is sodium pentathol, which puts the
prisoner to sleep. The second syringe contains pancuronium bromide,
a skeletal muscle relaxant, which paralyzes the prisoner's lungs.
The third injection, potassium chloride, causes cardiac arrest.
"Then it's over," says Cain. It takes about four minutes
before the prisoner is pronounced dead. The warden stays in the
chamber with the prisoner throughout the process. Cain says most
of the men executed under his administration have asked him to
hold their hands during their last minutes. "They want me to
hold their hand, because they want to be connected to this world,
while they go to the next," he says.
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