Deathwatch

Past Practices

When executions used to be conducted in public places, such as at England's Tyburn Fair, the need for the condemned to be alive for the open journey from the prison to the scaffold was paramount. The deathwatch of this period was minimal and sought only to ensure that the person did not take his or her own life. Consequently, some prison officials provided condemned inmates with laudanum (an early opium-based narcotic) or strong liquor to ensure compliance with prison rules and lower his or her resistance during the execution process.

Gradually, in response to a series of different factors, including public outrage when an execution was not carried out justly or efficiently, capital punishment was removed from the public arena. The transfer of executions behind prison walls changed the nature of the death penalty within the penal process. Penal practices no longer engendered significant public debate, and the mechanics of death became highly routinized and sterile.

Current Practices

One might wonder, since the condemned inmate is going to die anyway, what purpose is served by a deathwatch in a modern, state-sanctioned execution? The reasons for having the deathwatch are threefold: (1) to ensure the safety of the condemned and correctional personnel prior to the execution, (2) to ensure that the execution proceeds without difficulty, and (3) to avoid litigation against both the individuals involved and the state that sanctioned the execution.

Time spent on death row is more rigidly structured than in other areas of a prison. While some argue that the routine provides stability to a particularly stressful experience, no amount of predictability can mitigate the manner in which inmate reactions are polarized by violent outbursts on one end and despondency at the other end. The reactions of the condemned on death row are more unpredictable than usual since some people may believe they have nothing to lose since the state is planning to kill them. Actions that were ignored one day as trivial might be akin to a spark touching gasoline on the next day. Some inmates may despair, or withdraw into themselves, while others find new focus in religious prayer and meditation. Very few condemned men or women, at least in the last part of the 20th century, become “gallows-thieves” by attempting to cheat the executioner by taking his or her own life.

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