Last Words of the Executed by Robert K Elder

For seven years, Robert K Elder, an Illinois journalism academic, has been assembling the last words of the executed from around the US. This is a rich database. Americans are great enthusiasts for death row. There have, Elder says, been 16,000 executions since precolonial times. And they are still at it.

“We are the only industrial country in the world that still retains the death penalty,” observes the late Studs Terkel in his ­foreword. “We are the only industrial country in the world that does not have universal health ­insurance… Can it be that we are a necrophilic people?”

Or maybe Americans are simply a unique combination of religiosity and violence. The dominant themes of the last words in this book are either vision, conversion and remorse or bitter avowals of revenge. “I see it now, it is all bright,” said Hiram Reynolds in 1863. “My death is the Lord’s will and I am now with my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in heaven,” said Aubrey Adams Jr in 1989. Treating such religious proclamations with a degree of scepticism, the Chicago Times ran the headline “Jerked to Jesus” over its story of a woman who proclaimed Christ just before the noose snapped her neck.

Remorse most commonly emerges in the more intimate forms of execution. Elder divides his book according to the five main techniques: noose, firing squad, electric chair, gas chamber and lethal injection. There is also the shift from public (open to anybody) to private (open to select witnesses, notably including the victims’ families). The progress is towards closer contact between the executee and the watchers and, as a result, a more personal style of valedictory.

“There is no way no words can express how sorry I am for taking the lives of my babies,” said ­Christina Riggs before her lethal injection in Arkansas in 2000. She had actively courted judicial death after murdering her two children. “I am sorry for the life I took from you,” said Gerald Mitchell in Texas in 2001, addressing the mother of of a boy he shot.

In contrast, American sentimentality about violence emerges repeatedly as last-minute defiance. Timothy McVeigh recites William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus prior to the lethal injection — “I am the captain of my soul.” Captaincy of his soul in McVeigh’s case entailed killing 168 people with a home-made bomb in Oklahoma in 1995. “I hate your guts,” said Robert Battalino to the warden, having spat at a priest. “Kiss my ass,” said serial killer John Wayne Gacy to the prison guard leading him to death.

Gary Graham in the vistor's room of the Terrell Unit, where Texas' death row is located (Andrew Lichtenstein)

This is, in short bursts, a fascinating book. But, having read it almost in one go, I must warn you that it is also depressing. The mechanisms of judicial death crush you with the burden of human futility and the long parade of executees struggling to make sense of their last moments darkens your day. So take it easy.

What is it all about? Last words, Elder points out, cannot be taken back. “We expect last words to be poignant, a résumé or summation of life experience…We expect them to reveal secrets. But they very seldom do.”

Marion died saying he had no confession to make, reasonably enough as his victim, it transpired, was alive and well

He says his book is neither for nor against capital punishment. He is, however, pretty obviously against. He provides a note to each quotation and, in many cases, he signals his belief that some of the avowals of innocence to the last may be justified. For example, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Bianca Jagger were all sure that Gary Graham, executed by lethal injection in Texas in 2000, was innocent of murder. Then governor George W Bush disagreed. And among Vincent Cooks’s last words were, “I don’t weigh 180lb and 5ft 7in.” That was the description given by witnesses to the murder for which he was about to die. Cooks was 6ft 3in and weighed 300lb.

Pointedly, Elder tells us that only one of those 16,000 executees has been posthumously pardoned. That was William Jackson Marion in the 1880s. He was hanged for the murder of a friend, John Cameron. Marion died saying he had no confession to make, reasonably enough as Cameron, it transpired, was alive and well. For the remaining 15,000-plus — well, death cannot be undone so, on the whole, the judiciary prefers not to try. Elder does not, however, make the obvious point: the death penalty does not work. Murder rates in America are much higher than in any comparable countries.

But the real drama of the book is not rational, it is visceral. One cannot help trying to identify with the executee. What would I say? If innocent, then doubtless I would be tempted to proclaim injustice to the last, as so many seem to do. But then maybe it is preferable to accept execution as not a judgment but simply one more expression of the strange turns of destiny. “I’m ready,” said Louise Peete in the gas chamber. “I’ve been ready for a long time.” Or maybe one should just evade all solemnity or significance. “Please tell the media I did not get my ­SpaghettiOs,” said Thomas Grasso, complaining about his last meal.

Somehow, it is the last words of 38 Dakota Indians, hanged in 1862, that seem to make the most sense. Each called out his own name and then the name of a friend. The friend called back: “I’m here! I’m here!” These are not just last words, they are the ultimate plea for recognition.