For death row inmate’s lawyer, one last call, one long wait

Florida Death Chamber

Seven weeks after the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate, who twisted in pain and lived for 43 minutes after being injected with lethal drugs, four men in four states had been scheduled to die in one 24-hour period. One of the four, a rapist and murderer, had been executed the evening before in Georgia. In Missouri, a man who had committed a double homicide had been executed at midnight. In Pennsylvania, a man who killed a police officer had received a stay.

And here in Florida, the execution of murderer John Henry had come down to the final grind of the modern death penalty: a convicted killer who was sentenced to die, a state trying to carry out that sentence and a defense attorney trying to keep his client alive.

Harrison looked around for a clock. “Damn, what time is it?” he asked his wife, Barbara.

It was almost 11 a.m. The execution was scheduled for 6 p.m., the dinner hour Baya and Barbara usually observed. He was tired. He was 72 and out of blood pressure medication. He’d been on this case for 14 years, assigned by a judge who knew he wouldn’t say no (...).

John Henry was guilty. He’d confessed to killing his wife and her child. He had two separate trials, long before Harrison even met him. The paperwork from his motions and appeals after his convictions filled 15 crates. He had been on death row for 27 years and was now 63 years old.

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Source: The Washington Post, Monica Hesse, June 19, 2014