Recently Florida carried out the execution of Dusty Spencer, a 74-year-old Marine veteran, for the murder of his wife, Karen, in 1992.
It was the ninth Florida execution this year.
For their own sake, I urge Florida’s corrections workers to refuse to carry out another one.
Before you dismiss me as some soft lefty, you should know that I am an Air Force veteran.
I voted for Ron DeSantis for governor twice – and for Donald Trump for president three times.
I supervised executions
But what’s more important is that I have intimate knowledge of what these executions are doing to the people whose job it is to carry them out.
As warden of Florida State Prison, I oversaw three of the last electric chair executions in our state.
As someone who supervised executions in Florida, I am urging prison officials to refuse to participate in any further intentional taking of someone’s life.
The memories of the men whose lives I helped take still haunt me decades later.
I deeply regret my participation in executions.
Lifelong trauma for corrections officers
The pace of executions in Florida has become unrelenting – and that’s why I am deeply concerned about the lifelong trauma we are asking state workers to take on.
Numerous corrections officers in Florida – and in other states – have tried to self-medicate with alcohol or other substances in an attempt to make the nightmares stop.
Some have taken their own lives.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond recognized this not long ago.
Drummond argued that one execution a month was too much for that state’s corrections officers.
At his request, Oklahoma courts slowed the pace to no more than one execution every 90 days.
But even killing one defenseless prisoner is terribly damaging.
Ultimately, what helped me heal was disavowing executions altogether and speaking out against the death penalty.
I am not alone among corrections executives who ended their careers and became advocates against executions.
The last three heads of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction, who between them oversaw 56 executions, all became advocates to end them.
I know of others from Oregon, Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia.
We are looking out for the well-being of those who do this dirty work,.
But we now also understand that the death penalty is unfairly applied.
We can see that clearly in the execution of Dusty Spencer.
Spencer’s jury was not unanimous; it voted 7-5 for the death penalty.
If that trial was held under today’s law, Florida could not execute him.
My message to Florida corrections workers
I hope that Gov. DeSantis can look to the example of Ohio’s Republican pro-life Gov. Mike DeWine.
After nearly 50 years of trying to make capital punishment work, DeWine recently concluded that executions do nothing to keep us any safer than sentencing murderers to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
But until Florida abandons the death penalty, there’s one way I know that corrections workers in Florida’s state prisons can protect their mental health.
My message to them is this:
Do NOT let the state of Florida inflict trauma upon you that will last a lifetime.
Do NOT participate in any more executions.
Ron McAndrew is the former warden of three Florida state prisons, including death row at Florida State Prison. He is a founding advisory committee member of Death Penalty Action, a nonprofit group working to abolish the death penalty in the United States.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: I put prisoners to death in Florida. Here’s why I regret it. | Opinion
Reporting by Ron McAndrew Guest columnist, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ron McAndrew Guest columnist, Sarasota Herald-Tribune | USA TODAY Network
