Witnessing Execution a Matter of Duty, Choice

[rodeodance]

not my cup of tea that is for SURE!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/09/AR2006120900923_pf.html

Witnessing Execution a Matter of Duty, Choice

By Candace Rondeaux
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 10, 2006; A01

They couldn't take their eyes off the electric chair. They took it in piece by piece as they filed into the witness room: The leather restraints on the giant oak armrests. A long electrical cord coiling from the bottom across the slate gray death chamber floor.

The candle shop owner grabbed one of the white plastic lawn chairs in front of the plate glass window that would soon separate the living from the dead. Next to her, the social worker nervously smoothed her hair as she took a seat with a direct view of the chair. The investigator climbed the wood risers and took a seat behind them.

The clock's second hand swept over the 12. It was 9 p.m. -- time for the execution to begin.

Later, they would remember how the air in the room seemed to compress at that moment. How the electric chair seemed to dwarf everything else. How the condemned man, one of the rare few to choose electrocution, looked right through them before he died. But at that moment, all they could think was that they were about to watch a man die.

It's been 70 years since executions in the United States were open to the public. But in Virginia, there is always someone watching, turning what is for most people a distinctly private moment into a very public end. One of more than a dozen death penalty states that require ordinary citizens to witness executions, Virginia has enlisted hundreds of volunteers for the task............

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Dupe... posted below... great story though n/t