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Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur. | :00:00. | :00:08. | |
A host of countries around the world still impose the ultimate punishment | :00:09. | :00:12. | |
on the most serious criminals, death. | :00:13. | :00:16. | |
What's it like to be in command of the machinery | :00:17. | :00:19. | |
Today I'm going to get a rare insight from Allen Ault, | :00:20. | :00:27. | |
who spent years running the correction facility | :00:28. | :00:29. | |
He organised the killing of criminals until he could stand | :00:30. | :00:41. | |
Now he's an opponent of the death penalty. | :00:42. | :00:50. | |
Allen Ault, welcome to HARDtalk. | :00:51. | :01:11. | |
It's back in the 1990s that you were the Commissioner | :01:12. | :01:23. | |
of Corrections in the US state of Georgia, | :01:24. | :01:27. | |
and you were responsible for running the machinery of capital punishment. | :01:28. | :01:30. | |
Is that experience still with you today? | :01:31. | :01:32. | |
I still have nightmares, not every night, but on occasion | :01:33. | :01:36. | |
It's the most premeditated murder possible. | :01:37. | :01:58. | |
The manual is about that thick, and the preparation you go | :01:59. | :02:01. | |
I can tell from your words already that this is seared into your soul, | :02:02. | :02:10. | |
Let's start with how you got involved in this element | :02:11. | :02:14. | |
As I understand it, you were a trained psychologist | :02:15. | :02:17. | |
and you entered the world of corrections, the present system, | :02:18. | :02:27. | |
believing that you were there to help and to rehabilitate. | :02:28. | :02:30. | |
How on earth did you end up running death row and execution chambers? | :02:31. | :02:37. | |
In the '70s, I'd never been into prison or jail, | :02:38. | :02:40. | |
in Georgia they had a brand-new maximum security prison, | :02:41. | :02:43. | |
called the Georgia Diagnostic Classification Center. | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
The only problem was they didn't have a programme. | :02:48. | :02:53. | |
They hired me to develop a diagnostic classification system | :02:54. | :02:56. | |
They made me superintendent and warden of the institution. | :02:57. | :02:59. | |
That was ultimately the institution and the facility that became | :03:00. | :03:02. | |
Yes. Many years later. | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
Listen, how did you get sucked into a system to the point where, | :03:09. | :03:12. | |
having been a psychologist, having entered the system | :03:13. | :03:14. | |
as somebody committed to rehabilitation, you ended up | :03:15. | :03:20. | |
as the chief who was signing off on and running a system of death? | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
In the early '70s, when I started in corrections, the death penalty | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
was unconstitutional and then it was later, | :03:31. | :03:34. | |
in '74, that Georgia wrote a new law that was determined to be | :03:35. | :03:37. | |
constitutional by the US Supreme Court. | :03:38. | :03:44. | |
But the actual executions didn't take place until many years | :03:45. | :03:47. | |
later because of appeals. | :03:48. | :03:49. | |
The first two that I executed had been on death row for 17 years. | :03:50. | :03:58. | |
In fact they were 17 when they came in and they were 34 | :03:59. | :04:01. | |
Actually they were different individuals. | :04:02. | :04:06. | |
Let's talk about the case because I think it is important | :04:07. | :04:10. | |
The 17-year-old that you mentioned, I believe he was called | :04:11. | :04:15. | |
Christopher Burger, he was of limited IQ. | :04:16. | :04:18. | |
I think he scored something like 80 or so on the test, | :04:19. | :04:21. | |
suggesting he was close to being mentally impaired. | :04:22. | :04:23. | |
He ended up being involved in the kidnap, rape and murder | :04:24. | :04:29. | |
As you say, he was on death row for 17 years, you got to know him. | :04:30. | :04:35. | |
I visited when I was Commissioner, I visited death row on several | :04:36. | :04:51. | |
occasions, I got to know him. | :04:52. | :04:53. | |
This was the first warrant I had to execute someone. | :04:54. | :04:56. | |
I went down to Jackson, about 40 miles from Atlanta, | :04:57. | :04:58. | |
where central headquarters are, so I talked to him and other people | :04:59. | :05:02. | |
So it wasn't just a matter of executing somebody that was... | :05:03. | :05:06. | |
You said I think that you saw the change in him, | :05:07. | :05:15. | |
to a man who, by the time he was approaching his end, | :05:16. | :05:23. | |
you describe as being thoughtful and actually contrite. | :05:24. | :05:25. | |
You know, to put it in psychological terms, when he committed the act | :05:26. | :05:36. | |
he didn't have a fully developed frontal lobes | :05:37. | :05:41. | |
which allowed you to make full decisions. | :05:42. | :05:43. | |
And the other criminal involved in the crime was also juvenile. | :05:44. | :05:51. | |
They were now adults, they had been on death row | :05:52. | :05:53. | |
They had educated themselves while on death row. | :05:54. | :05:58. | |
They had received a lot of counselling and other services | :05:59. | :06:01. | |
while they were on death row, so they were different human beings. | :06:02. | :06:12. | |
Christopher Burger's last words to you just before you gave | :06:13. | :06:15. | |
to be pressed, were, "Please forgive me." | :06:16. | :06:22. | |
As I executed others, many of which I found out went | :06:23. | :06:24. | |
His was very simple, please forgive me. | :06:25. | :06:38. | |
It was your responsibility to give the order. | :06:39. | :06:42. | |
I was standing behind in another room with a glass, | :06:43. | :06:46. | |
looking at the back of the electric chair. | :06:47. | :06:48. | |
I was there with the Attorney General for the state of Georgia | :06:49. | :06:55. | |
and we had phones hooked up to the US Supreme Court, | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
the Governor's office, the Georgia Pardons | :07:00. | :07:01. | |
and Parole Office, and so then, when he checked with each of those | :07:02. | :07:18. | |
entities which might grant a stay or parole or commute the sentence, | :07:19. | :07:22. | |
but when he checked with each entity and there was no stay, | :07:23. | :07:25. | |
There was an individual standing behind me who had | :07:26. | :07:32. | |
been my electrician when I was a warden at this institution. | :07:33. | :07:35. | |
When the Attorney General indicated that there was no stay, | :07:36. | :07:45. | |
then I asked the individual if he'd like to give | :07:46. | :07:48. | |
Then I turned to Brad and said, "Brad, it's now time." | :07:49. | :08:02. | |
Brad flipped a switch and we could see that jolt | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
of electricity running through this individual's body and it | :08:08. | :08:09. | |
And I knew I had killed another human being. | :08:10. | :08:34. | |
At the very beginning of this interview, you used the word murder. | :08:35. | :08:38. | |
Do you believe in your heart that you murdered or were complicit | :08:39. | :08:47. | |
Although it is state sanctioned, it is premeditated murder, | :08:48. | :08:56. | |
In most states, executions in the coroner's report are listed | :08:57. | :09:12. | |
Yes, I feel like I was very much involved in premeditated killing | :09:13. | :09:21. | |
and giving the order for him to be murdered. | :09:22. | :09:29. | |
How much damage has that done to you? | :09:30. | :09:37. | |
We provided psychological help for everyone involved, | :09:38. | :09:47. | |
but then I realised the Attorney General | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
and I weren't receiving treatment and it got harder and harder for me. | :09:52. | :09:55. | |
The Attorney General, he handled it by running | :09:56. | :09:58. | |
for governor and talking about being tough on crime. | :09:59. | :10:00. | |
But I don't think he handled it very well. | :10:01. | :10:09. | |
I finally went and asked for treatment and received some | :10:10. | :10:13. | |
At first I tried to rationalise this whole process that, | :10:14. | :10:37. | |
"Well, if I could save one human being by this process, | :10:38. | :10:40. | |
You mean the idea of the deterrent effect? | :10:41. | :10:47. | |
But I already knew, I had already read the research on the deterrent | :10:48. | :10:56. | |
effect and I had talked to so many inmates even before we had the death | :10:57. | :11:00. | |
penalty, and rarely do any of the inmates ever think | :11:01. | :11:03. | |
through to the consequences of their actions. | :11:04. | :11:05. | |
You know, there have been some pieces of research that indicated | :11:06. | :11:14. | |
But I don't think any reputable research would say that it has | :11:15. | :11:18. | |
Even the family of the victim were in the institution. | :11:19. | :11:32. | |
I didn't allow them to go into the room where the witnesses | :11:33. | :11:35. | |
I know, I used to work in the United States, | :11:36. | :11:51. | |
that in many states, in many situations, the family | :11:52. | :11:55. | |
of the victims, those who were murdered, they are invited | :11:56. | :11:57. | |
if they want to witness the death, the execution. | :11:58. | :12:08. | |
We invited them to the execution but we didn't let them witness it. | :12:09. | :12:11. | |
But there are families who want to be there. | :12:12. | :12:15. | |
They say it adds to their sense of justice being done. | :12:16. | :12:18. | |
This word that gets used so often, closure. | :12:19. | :12:25. | |
They did not receive the closure that they thought they would. | :12:26. | :12:29. | |
I didn't want an execution to be revenge. | :12:30. | :12:54. | |
this is what I find most puzzling about this first execution. You say | :12:55. | :13:21. | |
you didn't actually even then believe in the deterrent effect and | :13:22. | :13:25. | |
you clearly had grave doubts about what you were doing. But you went on | :13:26. | :13:29. | |
to supervise the killing of more prisoners. Four after that. How | :13:30. | :13:37. | |
could he do that, how could you live with your conscience? I didn't do it | :13:38. | :13:44. | |
well. It was a small part of that job. | :13:45. | :13:46. | |
I have 15,000 employees, a $1 billion budget. | :13:47. | :13:48. | |
You were a top official in the prison system | :13:49. | :13:51. | |
in the United States, but with all due respect it was not | :13:52. | :13:54. | |
a small part of your job, because it was the moment | :13:55. | :13:57. | |
in which you, in a certain sense, were playing God. | :13:58. | :14:00. | |
You were playing with people's lives, and that's no small matter. | :14:01. | :14:03. | |
It certainly is not and I spent a lifetime since then regretting | :14:04. | :14:06. | |
It is perhaps too easy for me to sit here with you and go through cases | :14:07. | :14:28. | |
and ask you difficult questions, but there is one other case that | :14:29. | :14:31. | |
That's the black man who was convicted of murdering three women. | :14:32. | :14:37. | |
It became plain, in that period between conviction and death that | :14:38. | :14:51. | |
first of all there had been a significant racial element | :14:52. | :14:53. | |
One juror described an atmosphere of intimidation, where the N word | :14:54. | :15:04. | |
was repeatedly used for that minority of jurors who were black, | :15:05. | :15:07. | |
who were ultimately to decide his fate. | :15:08. | :15:11. | |
There was also evidence that this man was mentally impaired, | :15:12. | :15:14. | |
to the point where frankly many experts didn't believe | :15:15. | :15:16. | |
You still, despite all of that, had him killed. | :15:17. | :15:26. | |
I was, without trying to excuse myself at all, | :15:27. | :15:35. | |
I was the vehicle for the execution and I have no defence for that. | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
When you are doing the executions, you don't get all the history | :15:41. | :16:01. | |
of what went on in the jury, looking back over all that | :16:02. | :16:07. | |
information came out but you certainly didn't have that | :16:08. | :16:13. | |
But when you look at the research, black people who kill whites | :16:14. | :16:24. | |
are about three times more likely to receive the death penalty | :16:25. | :16:32. | |
I found that in talking to many, many citizens, they usually | :16:33. | :16:43. | |
have a stereotype in the back of their minds | :16:44. | :16:46. | |
In the south, that might be a large black rapist, | :16:47. | :16:54. | |
but there's always a racial stereotype involved. | :16:55. | :16:56. | |
And so when you are talking about an execution they are killing | :16:57. | :17:09. | |
that stereotype, not the human being that actually is there. | :17:10. | :17:20. | |
And I have many compatriots who were directors who have gone | :17:21. | :17:23. | |
I don't know any of them that haven't shed a lot of tears over it. | :17:24. | :17:28. | |
Or have you taken from your experience a determination to do | :17:29. | :17:35. | |
There's a group of five of us, three who were former directors, | :17:36. | :17:45. | |
One of them was the director in California one a director | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
in Ohio, and we have an organisation that we work, we're trying | :17:51. | :17:53. | |
I appeared before several legislative groups, trying | :17:54. | :18:00. | |
to abolish the death penalty in several states. | :18:01. | :18:08. | |
So it's been an ongoing type of thing. | :18:09. | :18:12. | |
Most of them not too successful, but I did have success last year | :18:13. | :18:18. | |
with one case, of getting it stayed and then commuted the next day. | :18:19. | :18:26. | |
And those are very personal experiences. | :18:27. | :18:31. | |
This individual was a black man who was six foot nine. | :18:32. | :18:34. | |
He had a good record until he was around 19 and somebody | :18:35. | :18:38. | |
said, I wonder what Daniel would do if he took this blue pill? | :18:39. | :18:41. | |
They gave him the blue pill and he just went absolutely berserk | :18:42. | :18:48. | |
for about four hours, stabbed and killed his best friend | :18:49. | :18:55. | |
and stabbed one other individual who survived. | :18:56. | :19:01. | |
And then the prosecutor went all out to try him and he went to death row | :19:02. | :19:06. | |
He, as big as he was, he could have been a bully of death | :19:07. | :19:14. | |
row, but he spent the whole 19 years trying to help other people. | :19:15. | :19:18. | |
So I was asked to try and intervene in this case and I did talk | :19:19. | :19:22. | |
with the parole board and we gathered affidavits | :19:23. | :19:24. | |
from many of the staff who told how good he was, | :19:25. | :19:27. | |
At the very last moment, about two hours before he was to be | :19:28. | :19:39. | |
In that sense, in that particular campaign, | :19:40. | :19:44. | |
for that particular individual, did that seem like some sort of, | :19:45. | :19:50. | |
I don't know, some sort of giving back, some sort of payback, | :19:51. | :19:54. | |
for what you had done yourself in the past? | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
I look at all the things I do now, I try to alleviate | :20:00. | :20:02. | |
I've made two movies, one for Discovery Channel, | :20:03. | :20:16. | |
which was produced and directed by a British firm, | :20:17. | :20:19. | |
because they wanted to do a nonpolitical film. | :20:20. | :20:21. | |
Well, I'm sorry, but the death penalty is totally political. | :20:22. | :20:24. | |
I wanted to talk briefly about politics. | :20:25. | :20:26. | |
You said this of politicians that you've had experience | :20:27. | :20:29. | |
of as a director of corrections in the United States. | :20:30. | :20:31. | |
In the field of corrections, you say, politicians played | :20:32. | :20:34. | |
to the base instincts of the electorate. | :20:35. | :20:36. | |
There's an awful lot of grandstanding. | :20:37. | :20:37. | |
You sound very cynical about politicians on this issue. | :20:38. | :20:41. | |
Yes, one North Georgia chicken farmer told me about politics. | :20:42. | :20:45. | |
He said, Allen, I'll do whatever you want me to do. | :20:46. | :20:48. | |
You want some more money in your budget or you want to change | :20:49. | :20:52. | |
the law, unless it becomes between me and one of my | :20:53. | :20:55. | |
constituents, and he said the name of the game is re-election. | :20:56. | :20:58. | |
And certainly that's our US Congress and most legislature. | :20:59. | :21:00. | |
So many of them will tell me, we've got to just be tough on crime | :21:01. | :21:04. | |
In this extraordinary change of heart you've had, | :21:05. | :21:15. | |
and the journey you've made, you're missing out one element, | :21:16. | :21:18. | |
That is the United States is very proud of its democracy and every | :21:19. | :21:27. | |
poll in the US to this day, even though the numbers have changed | :21:28. | :21:31. | |
somewhat, shows that a majority, a clear majority of Americans, | :21:32. | :21:33. | |
believe in the death penalty as the ultimate deterrent. | :21:34. | :21:36. | |
And as long as that is true, don't politicians have a duty | :21:37. | :21:39. | |
They also have a duty to inform their voters, | :21:40. | :21:47. | |
Connecticut, they had a research that was done over four decades | :21:48. | :21:53. | |
by Donohue, from Stanford University, a law professor. | :21:54. | :21:55. | |
They had every little case judged by independent judges. | :21:56. | :21:57. | |
Because people thought the most egregious cases were on death row. | :21:58. | :22:09. | |
It turned out somewhere around 47 or 49 of the most egregious cases, | :22:10. | :22:17. | |
where they'd cause pain or rape or whatever, | :22:18. | :22:30. | |
only one of those cases was actually on death row. | :22:31. | :22:32. | |
When that and some other things, the expense of it, is tremendous, | :22:33. | :22:36. | |
the Connecticut legislature last year did away with | :22:37. | :22:38. | |
You wrote not so long ago some very powerful words. | :22:39. | :22:44. | |
You said, no one has the right to ask a public servant to take | :22:45. | :22:48. | |
on a lifelong sentence of nagging doubt, shame and guilt. | :22:49. | :22:51. | |
Is that what you have been sentenced to? | :22:52. | :22:57. | |
Every time I think it's behind me, then something happens and it | :22:58. | :23:06. | |
I was out at the Lexington airport, I had a 6:05am flight | :23:07. | :23:14. | |
By all rights I'd always been on Delta airlines. | :23:15. | :23:21. | |
This morning, I was going someplace else and was another another | :23:22. | :23:24. | |
The plane crashed and killed everyone of them. | :23:25. | :23:33. | |
I had to go again, all those feelings came back. | :23:34. | :23:39. | |
Just had to keep re-dealing with it, re-dealing with it. | :23:40. | :23:55. | |
Well, Allen Ault, I thank you for sharing your | :23:56. | :23:58. | |
It is not often that we get the best of the weather over the weekend, | :23:59. | :24:38. | |
but that seems to be the case this time round. | :24:39. | :24:41. | |
On Sunday, we had a temperature of 20 degrees in Highland Scotland, | :24:42. | :24:45. | |
But, for many of us on Sunday, the skies were not quite as blue. | :24:46. | :24:50. |