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Death at Midnight: The Confession of an Executioner
Death at Midnight The Confession of an Executioner Author:Donald A. Cabana While an increasingly outspoken American public is quick to endorse the death penalty, the voices of those who experience the chilling reality of executing another human being are seldom heard. Donald A. Cabana, a former prison warden, gives an insider's view of capital punishment in this courageous tale of his moral awakening to the death pena... more »lty. He chronicles a personal journey through the nation's prison system that culminated in giving the order to execute two death row inmates. Cabana's compelling account brings the reader inside the "secretive, mysterious world of the execution chamber" to witness the process of an execution and to experience the emotions of the executioner and the man strapped in the chair known as "black death." "After politicians have made speeches and passed laws to legalize state executions, they're nowhere around when the Don Cabanas go to work in the middle of the night to kill a man or woman. 'Breathe deep,' Cabana advises an inmate about to be gassed so that he would die quickly. But after two executions Cabana couldn't do it anymore, and in these searing, soul-baring pages he tells us why." --Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., author of Dead Man Walking« less