Second paragraph of third chapter:
In mid-November of 1903, notice came from Warden Addison Johnson, of Sing Sing, that I was to report there for a scheduled execution. I informed my wife that I was going, and she raised no objection. She thought, as I did, that my role as Davis’ assistant would be little more than that of an observer.
The autobiography of the state executioner of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Massachusetts, who killed 387 people by judicially mandated electrocution between 1926 and 1939. Before I get into the substance, a bit of local interest: his father, who emigrated to America in 1844, was a devout Methodist from County Cavan, and unsuccessfully encouraged the young Robert to get ordained to the ministry. He died when his son was seven.
Elliott gives details of how he got involved, what the job practically entailed, and public reaction (which he clearly found incomprehensible). The most famous of Elliott’s cases were the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, and Bruno Hauptmann who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh. Elliott makes it pretty clear that he was personally unconvinced by the evidence in those cases, but “I did not permit my views to have any effect on the performance of my duty.” His house was bombed a few months after the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, though he is hesitant to draw a straight line between the two events.
Most notoriously, his execution of a woman in 1928 was surreptitiously photographed by a reporter who had smuggled a hidden camera into the front row. Elliot reflects:
The ethics of taking or printing a photograph of this sort is not for me to discuss. However, I am inclined to believe that if more such pictures were published with the permission of the authorities, the homicide rate might decrease. Public opinion might also be aroused to the extent that capital punishment would be abolished. In either event, I think their publication would be fully justified.
Alas, I think what would happen in today’s media and social media climate would be the growth of execution porn, and indeed even in his own time, Elliott mentions the unhealthy interest of a lot of people in watching or being more closely involved in the process, an “orgy of sensationalism”.
The two strongest chapters are first, a listing of a number of cases where Elliott was very much inclined to think that the person he executed was innocent; and second, the last chapter, in which he sets out his own opposition to the death penalty.
There are several reasons why the ancient law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” should be wiped from the statute books. First, man should not be permitted to destroy the one thing which cannot be restored–life. Furthermore, I believe that capital punishment serves no useful purpose, and is a form of revenge.
A wrong, no matter how serious, is not righted by ending a life. And if, as has happened, the condemned should not be guilty, then the tragedy is complete. These instances, of course, are very rare; but the judgment of juries is not infallible. There is always the possibility that an innocent person will pay the extreme penalty.
That’s certainly my own feeling on the subject too; and I think any of us would have to admit that Elliott, who died very soon after this book was published in 1939, had thought about it a lot more than most people.
You can get Agent of Death here.
