titi penalty. It began as a desire on my part to understand my personal views. It was too easy to agree or disagree from a distance. I wondered what effect it would have up close. Isat as amember of the Utah State Board of Pardons where I handed out, week after week, years and years of sentences to inmates committed to the state prison. In the few months I sat as a member of this board, I calculated that I handed out over 366 years of incarceration. All the while preparing for the ultimate decision that I would eventually face as a member of this board—that of deciding whether to commute the sentence of death row inmates scheduled for execution or to consent to the process taking its course to execution. From this experience I went to interviewing inmates on death row—all killers awaiting execution. We discussed prison, life on death row, ways of coping and other aspects of living under a sentence of death. When I asked what it was like to live on death row they invited me to live with them fora weekend. If I were to do that and multiply it by a thousand I would know what it was like. A few days later | had my chance. There was an empty cell on death row and I was locked in at 3:38 p.m. My notes, kept during this time reflect some of my observations and feelings as I was locked up while knowing I would not be there permanently: “3:38 p.m. They have just locked me this small, five-cell corridor world I hear the voices of the officers calling “Coming closed.” The man in the next cell swears, “Coming closed. That’s all we hear, coming closed, coming open.” “4:17 p.m. They are bringing in the meals. I can hear the doors clanging. One of the officers comes by to look at me. He smiles and says, “Going to eat?” I say, “Sure, got enough?” He smiles again and walks away. “4:19 p.m. The meal is served on a plastic tray. Wheat roll, sliced carrots (1518 of them), two halves of pears, square of white cake with frosting, fried potatoes and a piece of fish. Milk and Sprite to drink. “4:43 p.m. They are gathering up the dishes. Conversation is subsiding. The setting sun is reflecting in from somewhere, I can see it on my 283 cinder blocks—kind of orange and dim. It seems brighter in here now than it did when I came in. If a person had no watch this would be one way of telling time, the seasons and the weather—the passing of a day. I imagine such small things come to have great significance over the years. “5:02 p.m. I’ve been on death row for an hour and 14 minutes. It’s not as bad on me as I expected, but it’s only been 74 minutes. Seventy-four hours would be over three days, and 74 months would be over six years. In my cell I see a place on the top of the bars where someone has marked the time by putting a toothpaste dot for each day—35 days. Time takes I watched as his chest ceased to rise and fall. There was no outcry, no struggle against death. He went to sleep and slowly his body relaxed, then stopped. He was there and then he wasn't. on death row. Section C cell 5. The other inmates on death row are teasing me. They think I ought to at least stay all night. They tell me, "See, the police don’t even give you a mattress.” One of them tells me if I spend the weekend I will really know what it is like. “3:53 p.m. It’s way too hot in here. How do they stand it? “3:56 p.m. What do they do for hours— days? Months? Years? My world is now condensed to 10 feet long, six feet wide and 10 feet high—very small, particularly for my claustrophobia. Nothing to see. Through my 16 bars (I counted them) I see 283 cinder blocks on the wall across from me (I counted them, too). The colors around me are bluish turquoise and white. “The sounds around me are muted, yet they echo. I hear pages turning somewhere near. Quiet laughter and conversation. Someone turns over and mutters something in the cell next to me. Outside on new meaning in a place like this, it is measured in toothpaste, string, scratches on the wall, and such marks represent years, not minutes. “5:38 p.m. I left death row. I'm outside now. The air is cool, a slight breeze is blowing. Dark storm clouds are forming over the Wasatch mountains. The Oquirrhs are still snow capped. I can hear the traffic on the freeway and as I walk between the security fences a rooster pheasant crows, then continues eating seeds. It is an interesting contrast, the freedom of the wild pheasant eating between the double security fences of maximum security while inside, men, killers, die minute by minute.” My notes from this experience can certainly not be called objective. It was not possible to ignore the fact that I would be leaving death row. The men I left behind did not know if, when or how they would be leaving, and that uncertainty was something I could not experience and probably not understand. What must it do to a human being to live under such conditions of uncertainty? One of the inmates I met on death row asked me to be one of the witnesses at his execution. Each inmate facing execution is allowed to name five witnesses to be present at his execution. He had stopped the appeals process feeling that his execution could possibly bring a catharsis to the families of his victims. He did not want to live on death row any longer and felt it best to let the law take its course—he would appeal his case to a higher judge. I was familiar with the process of execution and all the contingencies that had to be accounted for. I had participated in a previous execution, but not as a requested witness for the man being executed. I was not sure in my own mind how I would react. The date of the execution drew closer. Twenty-four hours before the execution was scheduled the inmate was taken from death row and placed in the death cell. I went with him as he was placed under constant supervision for this last day of his life. We talked—about the weather, his family, what was happening outside. Each minute brought this man closer to death. I was watching a dead man. He met with his attorney and his religious advisor. He read. He prayed. He cleaned his small cell and showered and shaved, He seemed to await another day that would never come. As I watched I wondered how I would face death. Would I want to know the moment of my death as this condemned inmate did or would I want it to be a surprise? Dostoyevsky wrote in The Idiot: “*. . The chief and worst pain may not be in bodily suffering but in one’s knowing for certain that in an hour, then in 10 minutes, and then in half a minute, and then now, at the very moment, the soul will leave the body.” The time arrived, seven men in double file. A knock on the door, the command to back up to the door and put his hands by the opening to be cuffed. Cuffed, undressed, dressed, shackled, a man on each side holding his arms, the double phalanx and me falling in behind. We marched into the execution room, the bright floodlights, the gurney looking like across with its two appendages slightly less than perpendicular awaiting its victim. I stood by as he was strapped down— seven different straps including legs, thighs, waist, chest and arms. I left with the squad who had strapped him down. His upper legs were shaking uncontrollably. Until now he had maintained a quiet reserve. Still he said nothing but his body betrayed his emotions. I watched as his chest ceased to rise and fall. There was no outcry, no struggle against death. He wentto sleep and slowly his body relaxed, then stopped. He was there and then he wasn’t. Beside me I heard the sobs of one of the other witnesses. In the next room I heard the media representatives attempting to fix the exact time of death for their morning editions and newscasts. In the room with the executed killer a physician was sticking needles into the base of the thumb to certify that the man was dead. And me? I stood there. I wrote observations in my notebook. I left without doing much introspection, perhaps not trusting my emotions without giving them time to be sorted out. In the days that followed some people told me I appeared more somber and quiet. I flared up more quickly at my wife and the children, but this was perhaps from a lack of sleep during the execution process itself. At the time of the execution I noticed my hands got sweatier the last couple of hours. I still have not reviewed my notes, nor have I taken the time to review in detail the happenings of that night. My mind has distanced itself from the event, and it will take some time for me to go back. Perhaps the innocence and naivete of my young son’s comment upon my return home the morning of the execution embodies my ambivalence: “Daddy, did you have fun at the execution?” To him, having lived with my involvement with crime and executions over several months, an execution was just another one of those things that Daddies do. My odyssey is not over. There will be more experiences with death—many more personal, many vicarious. The ultimate will be my own. I have learned to be less critical of human behavior and less quick to wish or infer the death of another. This I know: neither science, medicine, nor law can define for me what life is or what constitutes death. These are decisions I must make for myself. In other times the journey across the River Styx was facilitated by placing coins on the eyes of the dead to pay the fare for Charon to ferry them across, thus ensuring they reached the other side. Whether the river is the River Styx, the River Jordan or the River of No Return, perhaps we should each chart its course, become familiar with its rapids and still waters, and take along our own fare as well as a little extra should we meet a stranger. The line between life and death grows finer with each new technological development. Who knows river we will be on and, which side is which. stated, “Perhaps death death.” which side of the as things progress, As Aristophanies is life and life is