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| Jim Willett |
Jim Willett, the warden of the prison here, awakened a little before 5 a.m. on Tuesday in his home, which his wife, Janice, had decorated for Christmas. He had not been looking forward to the day.
''My first thought was, 'Today's an execution,' '' he recalled later that morning. '' 'I wonder what he'll be like.' ''
Mr. Willett said he was hoping that the man who was to be put to death shortly after 6 p.m. would not resist and that the execution would proceed smoothly. His job requires him to stand at the head of the person strapped on the gurney and to signal the anonymous executioner in the next room to inject the sedative and two lethal chemicals through a syringe. In his two and a half years as warden, Mr. Willett has given the signal -- raising his glasses -- that has killed 84 people.
''Just from a Christian standpoint, you can't see one of these and not consider that maybe it's not right,'' said Mr. Willett, 51, talking in his office, with the blownup photographs of his children, Jacob, 19, and Jordan, 14, on the wall.
It is the worst part of his job, he said, but it is his job just the same.
Now, the prison here, known as the Huntsville unit, was about to execute three men in three days. While that is not an unusual week for Huntsville, the nation's busiest death chamber, it would bring the year's total to 40, the most people legally killed by any state in one year in American history, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research group in Washington.
Source: The New York Times, December 17, 2000
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