VOA标准英语2013--退休牧师反对死刑

Retired 1 Chaplain Campaigns Against Death Penalty 退休牧师反对死刑

HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS — A number of U.S. states have taken steps to limit  the death penalty over fears that innocent people may have already been  executed. But not Texas, which has put to death more than 500 people  since capital punishment was reinstated there in 1982. The former  chaplain of the Huntsville state prison, the busiest execution chamber 2  in the country, has some strong thoughts on the situation.

“Okay, nobody’s been in here before, but this is part of the tapes,”  said Reverend Carroll Pickett.

There are ghosts in Pickett’s closet. Ninety-five to be exact.

That’s the number of inmates 5 put to death while he was chaplain at the  Texas state execution chamber in Huntsville.

“I made the tapes the next day, or the next night, to get it all out, ” he said. “He admitted he was nervous, and it showed in many ways  that he was scared.”

Change of heart

Pickett keeps a scrapbook of the 1974 prison siege that killed two  employees who belonged to his church. He was a Presbyterian minister  and was already a prison chaplain when Texas reinstated executions in  1982. He favored the death penalty until execution number 33, Carlos  DeLuna.

“He had big eyes. Big brown eyes. He was innocent. I knew he was  innocent. I knew by talking to him and listening to him,” said  Pickett.

DeLuna was convicted for the fatal stabbing of a gas station attendant.

But Pickett believes it was a case of mistaken identity. And while he  promised DeLuna his death would be painless, it was far from that.  

“It was horrible. I couldn’t sleep for days and days,” he said.

Pickett came out against the death penalty after retiring in 1995. He  is now a powerful voice in the movement to abolish it.

Protesters, like Gloria Rubac and relatives of a convict being put to  death here, wait outside the Huntsville death house where Pickett  worked.

The clock shows the wrong time, but inside, the execution is being  carried out like clockwork.

This video provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows  the execution chamber where a condemned 6 inmate 4 is strapped 7 down. At 6  p.m., if there's no last-minute injunction, a lethal 8 injection is  administered.

Petitioning for change

There were massive protests right here in front of the death house,  back when Pickett attended his first execution. Now the death of number  505 Arturo Diaz draws only a committed core of anti-death penalty  activists, including a group from a local Catholic church.

“When we execute, we take away the possibility of redemption," said  Kelly Epstein, a Catholic protester.

The Rev 3. Fred Valone of St. Thomas Catholic Church believes change is  coming.

“Well you know I think, state by state, people are realizing that the  death penalty is against our moral fiber,” he said.

But not Texas Governor Rick Perry. He supports the death penalty and  says Texas has never executed an innocent person.

Pickett disagrees. “I was a witness to a murder in the name of the  state.”

“The family has just come out of the death house and Texas has another  notch on their belt,” said one woman, talking on her mobile phone.

After it’s over, everyone goes home. This is a town, however, that's  defined by what just happened.

A local restaurant sells what it calls a Killer 9 Burger.

And across town, at the prison museum, the implements 10 of death are on  display.  

Huntsville resident Richie Harris said he’s familiar with the moral  arguments against capital punishment.

“I agree that ‘who are we to judge’ and I understand that. But it’s  also important to understand that if you kill a man, and it’s proven  that you have killed him, he deserves the death sentence in the state  of Texas,” said Harris.

Harris and his family are a few blocks from the death house. They came  to see a high school parade.

It has only been about an hour since the execution, and this could be  virtually any town in America - if it weren’t its death penalty  capital.