The 2019 movie “Clemency” illustrates the story of a state prison warden who is tasked with planning and attending an execution. She meets with the prisoner to arrange details such as his last meal and burial wishes. She assembles a team of corrections employees to carry out the court’s death sentence. This portrayal accurately depicts the difficult sequence of events in which corrections officials must participate when complying with court-sanctioned methods of execution. The emotional burden on staff before and after executions can be overwhelming, as some officers interact with these inmates for years and come to know them as nonthreatening, and that burden only intensifies if the execution process goes awry for any reason. This stress also raises a variety of issues pertaining to the need for post-execution therapeutic interventions when prison staff participate in or are otherwise affected by the events of these state-sanctioned homicides.
One example of an outlier in the typical execution process is the 2014 Oklahoma case of death row inmate Clayton Lockett. According to accounts, Lockett refused to be restrained, prompting use of a Taser, and the phlebotomist had a difficult time finding a vein to administer the lethal cocktail. Midway through the execution, Lockett regained consciousness and started to speak. A doctor observing the execution remarked that Lockett’s vein had ruptured. The team made several more attempts to find a vein to complete the administration of drugs but was unsuccessful. Lockett died of a heart attack 43 minutes after beginning the execution. Following this debacle, another Oklahoma inmate, Charles Warner, was executed using the wrong drug. These events resulted in a stay of executions in Oklahoma that has lasted for more than four years.
How may corrections’ staff, from wardens to correctional officers, be affected emotionally when facing the reality of killing another human being?
Studies have explored the emotionally damaging effects experienced by correctional officers who establish emotional connections with these prisoners. While officials routinely enlist multiple officers to participate in an attempt to separate ultimate responsibility for the killing, research shows that the aftereffects can be devastating and lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder among all staff involved with the execution.
Such findings suggest that it is incumbent on states to provide mental health counseling and support to corrections employees for potential vicarious trauma they may experience before, during and after executions. Yet most staff are not even allowed to talk about executions in order to maintain confidentiality. As detailed in the Oklahoma protocol, “The identity of all persons who participate in or administer the execution process and persons who supply the drugs, medical supplies or medical equipment for the execution shall be confidential,” and “team members serve on a strictly voluntary basis.”
Moving forward, research should focus on the level of perceived or actual coercion staff may experience for their voluntary participation in executions. Administrators should address specific ways to debrief and provide correctional staff with trauma services. And states need to fully recognize the unacknowledged stress that may accompany participation in these “judicial homicides,” as documents discovered from the 1900s in an old Massachusetts prison describe executions. Finding meaningful solutions will be an important contribution to the mental health of all staff involved in the execution process.
