Commentary : States Using Death Penalty Must Not Look Away

In 1987, I witnessed the execution of Timothy Wesley McCorquodale, a 35-year-old former motorcycle gang member from Georgia’s rural Appling County who had been convicted of the 1974 torture and murder of a runaway girl.

I didn’t have to do it. My editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said he wouldn’t make me cover something that he couldn’t stomach. And I didn’t particularly want to do it. I had never seen a corpse, let alone a killing, and I was sure it would leave me with ugly memories.

But I decided to do it because I thought it was my job. I covered prisons, and if the state of Georgia was going to electrocute inmates, the residents of Georgia ought to know what that meant--and what it looked and sounded like.

As the state of California struggles to resume executions after a 23-year hiatus, I am reminded of that warm September evening when I watched McCorquodale die. Contrary to my expectations, however, my most frightening memory is not the jolt of electricity or the generator’s roar. What was most frightening was how Georgia’s prison officials made killing look so easy.

About 7 p.m. on Sept. 21, 1987, two guards led McCorquodale through a red door and into the small death chamber at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center. Placing both his hands on the armrests, the 6-foot-1-inch, 270-pound inmate hoisted himself into the electric chair that inmates had built out of sturdy Georgia pine.

As usual, there would be no single executioner. To spare any individual the job of killing, the state had divided each electrocution into dozens of tasks, and prison employees were asked to volunteer for just one. On this day, dozens of people would perform the many rituals that, altogether, would lead to McCorquodale’s death.

Earlier that afternoon, one guard had served him his last meal: boiled shrimp, crab legs, tossed salad with thousand island dressing and apple pie a la mode. Another prison official had tape-recorded a private statement that would be stored in the prison archives, and the prison barber had shaved McCorquodale’s head.

Now, six guards surrounded him. In a carefully choreographed procedure, they fastened 10 leather straps around McCorquodale’s body, cinching them tight. The guards exited and a prison electrician attached two electrodes to wet sponges at the top of the inmate’s head and on his right ankle.

McCorquodale sat still, his eyes distant. Thirteen years before, the former Marine had taken part in a killing that the Georgia Supreme Court called the most depraved ever to come before it. Witnesses testified that he and another man had raped, tortured and strangled 17-year-old Donna Marie Dixon before McCorquodale broke her neck with his bare hands.

Now, to punish him for his heinous crime, the state was going to send 2,000 volts surging through his body.

McCorquodale was asked for his last words. He looked through a plate glass window at the witnesses, about a dozen reporters, prison officials and members of his family, and gave the thumbs-up sign.

“I would like to tell my dad and everybody with him I love them very much,” he said, looking toward his father, who watched without flinching, his face motionless. “Stay strong in Christ.”

Guards pulled a chin strap tight, to hold his head steady. Then they tied a leather mask over his face, hiding his blue eyes from view. The prison chaplain said a prayer, gave McCorquodale’s arm a reassuring squeeze, and left him alone in the chamber. As McCorquodale waited for the charge, his breathing stirred the mask.

At 7:15 p.m., three volunteers pushed three buttons, only one of which activated the electrocution device. The charge hit McCorquodale and, despite the leather straps, it threw him back in the chair. His massive chest contracted, his body tightened and his fists began to redden.

After four seconds, the voltage automatically decreased from 2,000 to 1,200 volts, and, after eight more seconds, decreased again to 220 volts. After exactly two minutes, the generator shut off automatically.

Without the whir of the generator, the room was quiet.

Then began a six-minute “cool down period,” during which McCorquodale’s bodily fluids were allowed to settle and return to their normal temperature. Two doctors then entered the chamber, listened for a heartbeat and pronounced the inmate dead.

That story got a lot of negative reaction. Many newspaper readers wrote and called to say that they were sickened by it and found it hard to read. Shielded by the systematized, anonymous execution process, most Georgians had been able to ignore the details. More than a few said they wished we hadn’t printed them.

The more the death penalty becomes familiar, the less attention it commands. But residents of states that employ the ultimate punishment should not be allowed to turn their heads. State-sanctioned executions tell people that killing is all right, in certain circumstances. That is a dangerous message, because the more callous society becomes to the taking of life, the less vigilant it will be in protecting it.

McCorquodale was the 12th man to be electrocuted in Georgia since the state resumed executions in 1983. Since then, two more men have been executed.

As California tries to resume its executions, politicians would do well to look to the South, where the frequent use of the death penalty has made it less remarkable--and ultimately less troublesome--to the very people who sanction it.

Which reminds me of another story. One day, Warden Ralph Kemp, who oversaw Georgia’s death row, invited me into his office. There, on his desk, was a miniature electric chair. He motioned toward it.

“You’d be surprised how heavy it is,” he said with a smile.

On cue, I picked it up. The shock was weak, but painfully surprising. I gasped and dropped the battery-charged electric chair on his desk.

“Gotcha,” he said. And then he laughed.