The Sentence by Christina Dalcher

Author:Christina Dalcher [Dalcher, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2023-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

The second execution Ian and I attended was a lethal injection, a method touted as painless and humane when it was first introduced. We were both ten years older than when we had witnessed the first killing. We were also happily married, if unhappily up to our ears in work and house debt. We drove down from Richmond, handed over our identification at the State Police Headquarters, and boarded a prison van to Jarratt. I wondered at the time if it was the same van.

Once again, twelve of us were on board. Eight reporters and two other volunteers besides Ian and myself. Once again, Jeffries was our chaperone for the evening. He filled us in as to what we would see while we sat in hard folding chairs. As before, he was pleasant in a serious kind of way. He reminded me of an undertaker, all smiles masking a gruesome job.

‘This will be quick, folks,’ Jeffries said. ‘To be completely honest, there won’t be much for you to see.’ He looked at the reporters as if apologizing for the lack of exciting visuals. ‘But that is the point. Lethal injection is the most sensible option, and I’m quite confident it will render all other forms of execution obsolete.’ He went on to describe the process.

‘The condemned will enter the death chamber already secured to a gurney,’ Jeffries said. ‘Once the condemned is in place, two intravenous tubes are inserted, one into each arm, and a saline drip begins.’

One of the reporters, the only other woman in our group, raised her hand.

‘I’ll take all your questions afterward,’ Jeffries told her. ‘Let’s get through this and see if some of them are answered, okay?’

The reporter nodded.

‘Three drugs will be introduced when the warden signals the execution may be carried out.’ He looked at each of us in turn as he spoke. ‘Now, this is important. Some of you may have come here thinking that it’s just one shot and one chemical. It isn’t. The lethal drug without a previously administered anesthetic and muscle relaxant would be anything but humane. And, despite certain views to the contrary, we are not barbarians here. We are carrying out justice according to the law.’

Some law, I wanted to say, but kept my mouth shut. At least this evening’s death would be gentler than the one I watched a year ago.

‘States vary in their protocols.’ Jeffries slid the cover off of a whiteboard on the wall we were facing and began to write. ‘We’re in Virginia, so I’ll only talk about Virginia. And—’ he looked at the female reporter in the front row ‘—I’ll only answer questions about Virginia. Here, we use a three-drug protocol.’

He began to write, starting with the number one, which he circled. ‘Sodium thiopental,’ he wrote next to the number. ‘A common barbiturate often used during surgery, although in this type of situation a much stronger dose is utilized. There are a few states using midazolam, which Virginia ceased utilizing after unforeseen reactions occurred in other states.

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