A host of countries around the world still impose the ultimate punishment on the most serious criminals, death. Whats it like to be in command of the machinery of state sanctioned execution . Navalny. Today as part of the bbcs special freedom season, im going to get a rare insight from allen ault, who spent years running the Correction Facility in the southern us State Of Georgia. He organised the killing of criminals until he could stand it no more. Now hes an opponent of the Death Penalty. Why . Allen ault, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. Its back in the 1990s that you were the commissioner of corrections in the us State Of Georgia, and you were responsible for running the machinery of capital punishment. Is that experience still with you today . It is still here. I still have nightmares, not every night, but on occasion i still have nightmares about it. Its a very hard pill to swallow. It stays in your psyche forever. Its the most Premeditated Murder possible. The manual is about that thick, and the preparation you go through to execute someone. I can tell from your words already that this is seared into your soul, this whole experience. Lets start from the beginning and how on earth you got involved in this element of the corrections business. As i understand it, you were a trained psychologist and you entered the world of corrections, the present system, believing that you were there to help and to rehabilitate. How on earth did you end up running death row and Execution Chambers . In the 70s, id never been into prison orjail, in georgia they had a brand new maximum security prison, called the georgia diagnostic classification centre. The only problem was they didnt have a programme. They hired me to develop a diagnostic Classification System as a psychologist. They made me superintendent and warden of the institution. That was ultimately the institution and the facility that became the chamber of death. Yes. Many years later. Listen, how did you get sucked into a system to the point where, having been a psychologist, having entered the system as somebody committed to rehabilitation, you ended up as the chief who was signing off on and running a system of death . In the early 70s, when i started in corrections, the Death Penalty was unconstitutional and then it was later, 1711, that georgia wrote a new law that was determined to be constitutional by the us supreme court. But the actual executions didnt take place until many years later because of appeals. The first two that i executed had been on death row 17 years. In fact they were 17 when they came in and they were 3a when they were executed. Actually they were different individuals. Lets talk about the case because i think it is important to get very specific here. The 17 year old that you mentioned, i believe he was called Christopher Burger, he was of limited iq. I think he scored Something Like 80 or so on the test, suggesting he was close to being mentally impaired. He also had been abused as a child. He ended up being involved in the kidnap, rape and murder of a young man. As you say, he was on death row for 17 years, you got to know him. Yes. I visited when i was commissioner, i visited death row on several occasions, i got to know him. This was the first warrant i had to execute someone. I went down to jackson, about a0 miles from atlanta, where central headquarters are, so i talked to him and other people on death row. So it wasntjust a matter of executing somebody that was. That you didnt know. You said i think that you saw the change in him, from a very disturbed young man to a man who, by the time he was approaching his end, you describe as being thoughtful and actually contrite. Yes, very contrite. You know, to put it in psychological terms, when he committed the act he didnt have a fully developed Frontal Lobes which allowed you to make decent decisions. He was a juvenile. He was. And the other criminal involved in the crime was also juvenile. They were now adults, they had been on death row for 17 years. They had educated themselves while on death row. They had received a lot of counselling and other services while they were on death row, so they were different human beings actually. Christopher burgers last words to you just before you gave the order for the switch to be pressed, were, please forgive me. Yes. As i executed others, many of which i found out went on to filibuster. You had to cut them off. I would have done that too. His was very simple, please forgive me. How did you feel at that moment . It was your responsibility to give the order. Yes. I was standing behind in another room with a glass, looking at the back of the electric chair. I was there with the Attorney General for the State Of Georgia and we had phones hooked up to the us supreme court, the governors office, the Georgia Pardons and parole office, and so then, when he checked with each of those entities which might grant a stay or parole or commute the sentence, but when he checked with each entity and there was no stay, he indicated that to me. There was an individual standing behind me who had been my electrician when i was a warden at this institution. I knew him very well. When the Attorney General indicated that there was no stay, then i asked the individual if hed like to give his last words. He said, please forgive me. Then i turned to brad and said, brad, its now time. Brad flipped a switch and we could see thatjolt of Electricity Running through this individuals body and it snapped his head back. And then there was just total silence. And i knew i had killed another human being. At the very beginning of this interview, you used the word murder. Yes. Do you believe in your heart that you murdered or were involved. Complicit in the murder of Christopher Burger . Although it is state sanctioned, it is by every definition Premeditated Murder, probably the most premeditated of any murder. In most states, executions in the coroners report are listed as a homicide. Yes, i feel like i was very much involved in premeditating that mans killing and giving the order for him to be murdered. How much damage has that done to you . We provided psychological help for everyone involved, the officers and warden involved, but then i realised the Attorney General and i werent receiving treatment and it got harder and harder for me. The Attorney General, he handled it by running for governor and talking about being tough on crime. But i dont think he handled it very well. I finally went and asked for treatment and received some treatment to help me through it. Help you through what . Did you feel a sense of guilt . A large sense of guilt. At first i tried to rationalise this whole process that, well, if i could save one human being by this process, then it will be worth it. You mean the idea of the Deterrent Effect . Yes, the Deterrent Effect. But i already knew, i had already read the research on the Deterrent Effect and i had talked to so many inmates even before we had the Death Penalty, and rarely do any of the inmates ever think through to the consequences of their actions. So to say that it deters and. You know, there have been some pieces of research that indicated it was a deterrent. But i dont think any Reputable Research would say that it has been a deterrent. Even the family of the victim were in the institution. I didnt allow them to go into the room where the witnesses were at the execution. Why didnt you allow them . I know, i used to work in the United States, ive covered executions myself and i know that in many states, in many situations, the family of the victims, those who were murdered, its almost always a murder, they are invited if they want to witness the death, the execution. We invited them to the execution but we didnt let them witness it. We invited them to the instituation but we didnt let them witness it. But there are families who want to be there. They say it adds to their Sense Ofjustice being done. This word that gets used so often, closure. Ive talked to many of them and they did not receive the closure that they thought they would. I didnt want an execution to be revenge. Or seen as revenge. But thats truly what. Retribution is what its all about. And was it for you to decide . It was for me to decide. I was responsible so i decided that the victims would not attend the execution. And we had other witnesses, but not the victims family. Here is what i find most perhaps puzzling about the real honesty with which you describe your feelings in this first execution. You say you didnt actually even then the really believe in the Deterrent Effect and you clearly had grave doubts about what you were doing here, but you went on to supervise the killing of more prisoners. Four after that. How could he do that, how could you live with your conscience . I didnt do it well. It was a small part of thatjob. I had 15,000 employees, a 1 billion budget. You were a top official in the Prison System in the United States, but with all due respect it was not a small part of yourjob, because it was the moment in which you, in a certain sense, were playing god. You were playing with peoples lives, and thats no small matter. It certainly is not and i spent a lifetime since then regretting every moment and every killing. Five, in total. It is perhaps too easy for me to sit here with you and go through cases and ask you difficult questions, but there is one other case that i really must ask you about. Thats the black man who was convicted of murdering three women. Right. Thats right. He was sentenced to die. Yes. It became plain, in that period between conviction and death that first of all there had been a significant racial element within thejury. One juror described an atmosphere of intimidation, where the n word was repeatedly used for that minority ofjurors who were black, who were ultimately to decide his fate. There was also evidence that this man was mentally impaired, to the point where frankly many experts didnt believe he was competent. To make a plea. You still, despite all of that, had him killed. Yes. I was, without trying to excuse myself at all, i was the vehicle for the execution and i have no defence for that. Why didnt you walk away . I did, but not them. It was too late. Yes. For him it was too late. It was too late, yes. When you are doing the executions, you dont get all the history of what went on in the jury, looking back over all that information came out but you certainly didnt have that type of information. But when you look at the research, black people who kill whites are about three times more likely to receive the Death Penalty than the other way around. Certainly its a racial thing. I found that in talking to many, many citizens, they usually have a stereotype in the back of their minds that they are frightened of. In the south, that might be a large black rapist, but theres always a racial stereotype involved. Usually. And so when you are talking about an execution they are killing that stereotype, not the human being that actually is there. And i have many compatriots who were directors who have gone through this execution. I dont know any of them that havent shed a lot of tears over it. You talk about shedding tears. Is that as far as it goes for you . Or have you taken from your experience a determination to do something about it . Theres a Group Of Five of us, three who were former directors, The Other Two former wardens. One of them was the director in california one a director in ohio, and we have an organisation that we work, were trying to stop executions. I appeared before several legislative groups, trying to abolish the Death Penalty in several states. So its been an ongoing type of thing. Weve worked on individual cases. Most of them not too successful, but i did have success last year with one case, of getting it stayed and then commuted the next day. And those are very personal experiences. This individual was a black man who was six foot nine. He had a good record until he was around 19 and somebody said, i wonder what daniel would do if he took this blue pill . They gave him the blue pill and he just went absolutely berserk for about four hours, stabbed and killed his best friend and stabbed one other individual who survived. And then the prosecutor went all out to try him and he went to death row and he was there 19 years. He, as big as he was, he could have been a bully of death row, but he spent the whole 19 years trying to help other people. So i was asked to try and intervene in this case and i did talk with the parole board and we gathered affidavits from many of the staff who told how good he was, how great he was on death row. At the very last moment, about two hours before he was to be executed, they stayed the execution. In that sense, in that particular campaign, for that particular individual, did that seem like some sort of, i dont know, some sort of giving back, some sort of payback, for what you had done yourself in the past . I look at all the things i do now, i try to alleviate the sense of guilt. Ive made two movies, one for discovery channel, which was produced and directed by a british firm, because they wanted to do a nonpolitical film. Well, im sorry, but the Death Penalty is totally political. I wanted to talk briefly about politics. You said this of politicians that youve had experience of as a director of corrections in the United States. In the field of corrections, you say, politicians played to the base instincts of the electorate. Theres an awful lot of grandstanding. Yes. You sound very cynical about politicians on this issue. Yes, one north georgia Chicken Farmer told me about politics. He said, allen, ill do whatever you want me to do. You want some more money in your budget or you want to change the law, unless it becomes between me and one of my constituents, and he said the Name Of The Game is re election. And certainly thats our us congress and most legislature. So many of them will tell me, weve got to just be tough on crime to our constituents. But that in a way is the point. In this extraordinary Change Of Heart youve had, and the journey youve made, youre missing out one element, are you not . That is the United States is very proud of its democracy and every poll in the us to this day, even though the numbers have changed somewhat, shows that a majority, a clear majority of americans, believe in the Death Penalty as the ultimate deterrent. And as long as that is true, dont politicians have a duty to reflect that . Well, i dont know. They also have a duty to inform their voters, the constituents, an example. Connecticut, they had a research that was done over four decades by donohue, from stanford university, a law professor. They had every little case judged by independentjudges. Because people thought the most egregious cases were on death row. It turned out somewhere around 47 or 49 of the most egregious cases, where theyd cause pain or rape or whatever, only one of those cases was actually on death row. When that and some other things, the expense of it, is tremendous, the Connecticut Legislature last year did away with the Death Penalty. To end, lets bring it back to you. You wrote not so long ago some very powerful words. You said, no one has the right to ask a Public Servant to take on a lifelong sentence of nagging doubt, shame and guilt. Yes. Is that what you have been sentenced to . Absolutely. Every time i think its behind me, then something happens and it all comes back with a rush. I was out at the lexington airport, i had a 6 05am flight and the 6am flight left. By all rights id always been on delta airlines. This morning, i was going someplace else and was another another airline. I checked in with all these people. The plane crashed and killed everyone of them. I had to go again, all those feelings came back. All those faces came back. All those nightmares came back. Just had to keep re dealing with it, re dealing with it. Well, allen ault, i thank you for sharing your experience with us. Thanks for being on hardtalk. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hello there. After a gloriously sunny weekend and start to this week, things are set to turn more unsettled. Low pressure in the atlantic, bringing cloud and increasing wind. High pressure remains a live across the continent. This feature, bringing some showers into the South West Corner of the country. Generally, a cloudy night for most. Central and northern areas, some mist down the east coast. Not quite as cool by the time we reach tuesday morning. The odd pocket of frost across north west scotland. Skies remaining clear here. Showers from the word go across the south west. Sunshine through the midlands and the south east. More in the way of cloud across the north. Showers moving north and east as the afternoon wears on. Some could be quite heavy. A cloudy day for much of scotland, especially through the afternoon. The best of the sunshine across the sheltered highlands corner. A cooler feel to things. Rain getting in across galloway. Northern ireland, some sunshine and scattered showers, possibly thunder. That is the same case for Northern England and the midlands. Some good sunny spells through the midlands, boosting temperatures up to possibly 20 degrees. The breeze a feature across the south west. Seeing Weather Front moving in. That will herald more persistent rain, Spilling North and eastwards during the course of tuesday night and into wednesday. Wednesday is looking pretty cloudy, quite damp and outbreaks of rain across the north and west of the country. The Odd Heavy Burst mixed in. Cooler as well, making 15 16 across the south east given some brightness. A more unsettled regime mid week. Tighter packed isoba rs, more of a breeze and rain. Mostly across northern and western areas, closer to this low pressure. This warmth moving north, letting us tap into some warmth across the near continent on thursday. East anglia and the south east with some sunshine could have a warm day, possibly the warmest day of the year so far. 18 20, could get up to 21 degrees. Further north and west, cool and breezy with some outbreaks of rain. Friday, that Weather Front spreading north, behind it a regime of sunshine and showers. That cooler theme continues into the weekend. Hello, everyone. Im rico hizon in singapore. Our top stories Cyclone Debbie sweeps towards North Eastern australia. Parts of queensland are in lockdown. The family of one of those killed in the westminster attack speaks about feeling the love of so many people for the first time. Iraqi forces fight their way deep into the city of mosul amid more concerns about civilian casualties. That is an inaccurate weapon. It may be good for the tempo of the military operation, but it is not necessarily good or preserving
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