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Japan | Hakamada found religion, but then felt under attack by ‘the devil’

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Editor's note: This is the last in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. About a decade after cursing God, Iwao Hakamada was baptized Catholic at the Tokyo Detention House on Dec. 24, 1984. “Since I have been given the Christian name Paul, I am keenly feeling that I should be aware of the greatness of Paul.” (June 1985)

Georgia: Ex-Death Row Guard Describes The Chilling Hours Before An Execution

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Seventy-two hours before death row inmates are executed, they are placed under constant surveillance by prison guards. 

For nearly a decade, it was Bobby Allen's job to monitor these condemned men as they awaited their fate in the execution chamber. 

In 1981, Allen was only 22 years old when he started working on death row watch for the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Butts County.

Two years later, a man named John Eldon Smith was the first person in Georgia sentenced to execution by electric chair since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. Smith was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife's ex-husband and his new wife in Macon, Georgia.

"Most of the staff was young ... in our 20s and early 30s ... and we really didn't know what to do," Allen tells us. "I mean, we had received execution orders before, but hadn't carried them out until now."

For the next few years, Allen tried not to let his personal feelings get involved as he interacted with death row inmates. He never tried to think about their innocence or guilt, but he says those years were extremely confusing and he eventually developed internal "emotional issues" as well as a heavy drinking problem.

"I tried to be professional, but some officers didn't do that or didn't care," he says. "When we executed John Eldon Smith, I remember one of the officers singing Annie's 'Tomorrow' song, but changing the lyrics to 'We're going to burn John Smith tomorrow.'"

Allen also remembers some officers proposing an "electric couch" instead of "electric chair" so that "we can do more than one at a time."

"The coldness stuck with me throughout the years. The state had a psychologist talk to the inmates, but the staff didn't have anyone to talk to. They didn't think it was an issue and I still hold a grudge against them for that."

Although Allen tried to remain detached from inmates awaiting the end of their lives, he says it was hard not to feel the uneasy emotions that come with that kind of duty.


Source: Business Insider, Feb. 13, 2013

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