Former executioners share their misgivings about death penalty

Ron McAndrew, a former prison warden, said he began to have doubts about the death penalty after seeing flames dance from the head of an inmate strapped into Florida's electric chair.

"There was no way I could stop the execution," said McAndrew, who was in charge of the electrocution that night in 1997. Smoke and a putrid odor filled the death chamber as the witnesses outside watched, agape. "I had to let it go on for 11 minutes."

McAndrew, 74, was one of two former executioners who came to California this week to tell tales from the death chamber during a four-day tour of some of the state's most conservative communities: Riverside, Bakersfield and Fresno.

The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty sponsored the tour of churches and college campuses as Californians prepare to vote on Proposition 34, next month's ballot measure to replace the death penalty with life in prison without parole.

McAndrew, speaking in an interview Friday before an appearance at Cal State Fresno, said being an executioner caused him psychological problems. He said he finally sought help after seeing the dead men he executed sitting on the side of his bed at night.

Peter DeMarco, a strategist for the opposition, said the executioners' tour demonstrated that out-of-state forces were working to abolish California's death penalty. "We don't use the electric chair, and to bring that up is offensive," DeMarco said. He also noted that the targeted communities strongly support the death penalty.

Supporters of the death penalty have launched a $100,000, 10-day radio advertisement campaign to remind voters of the victims of California's 725 death row inmates. The ads say Proposition 34 would "protect the killers" and guarantee Richard Allen Davis, killer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas; Scott Peterson, convicted of murdering his pregnant wife; and Night Stalker Richard Ramirez "a lifetime of free housing and healthcare."

As the ads began airing in Southern California, Abraham J. Bonowitz, a staff member of the Washington-based anti-death-penalty coalition, traveled through the state's interior with the executioners. He said a California affiliate of the coalition requested the tour and chose communities that some believe the Proposition 34 campaign has neglected.

The executioners addressed audiences of 20 to 160 people. The coalition paid their expenses and gave each a $550 stipend for the tour, which ended Friday.

Jerry Givens, 59, who worked on Virginia's execution team, told audiences he presided over 62 executions — 25 electrocutions and 37 lethal injections — out of duty and a strong belief in the death penalty.

He said his misgivings about execution began when former Virginia death row inmate Earl Washington Jr. was exonerated. Givens had come within two weeks of executing Washington. "It would have been with me for the rest of my life," he said.

Givens said in an interview that he preferred the electric chair to lethal injection because electrocution, even with the occasional smoke and sparks, was simpler and quicker. Givens described witnessing a lethal injection in Texas, where he had gone for training: The inmate strapped to the gurney sang "Amazing Grace" and "almost completed the hymn before the chemicals kicked in and killed him."

McAndrew, who presided over three executions in Florida and shadowed five lethal injections in Texas for training purposes, insisted that the executions did not provide closure for victims.

He recalled arranging for a woman to watch the Florida execution of a man who had murdered her twin sister. She was "seething with hate" when she arrived and still seething when she left, he said.

During the appearance at Cal State Fresno, which was streamed live on the Web, the executioners expressed bitterness toward elected officials who support the death penalty but don't have to carry it out.

McAndrew, now a correctional consultant, said he believes his execution work has left him "damaged goods" and argued that other executioners also have suffered psychologically from their assignments.

"It is not right," he said, "for a government official to say ... 'I want you to go into that dirty little room and kill this guy for me so I get some votes.'"

Givens' corrections career ended when he was convicted of money laundering and lying to a grand jury for allowing an old friend, who was selling drugs, to buy cars under his name, according to published reports. Givens, now a truck driver, denied having committed any crimes. He said his own conviction caused him to worry he might have executed an innocent person.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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