I am called to be a spiritual advisor for inmates but haunted by their executions | Opinion

South Carolina is scheduled to resume executions Friday with the lethal injection of 46-year-old Freddie Owens, and the state could execute five more people every five weeks through March.

Since the state’s last execution in 2011, the way an execution chamber functions has radically changed due to several decisions from the United States and South Carolina supreme courts.

Perhaps most significantly, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ramirez v. Collier decision in 2022 mandated that executing states must allow an inmate’s spiritual advisor such as a pastor, minister, priest, imam or rabbi into the chamber during an execution.

Since that decision, spiritual advisors throughout the nation have accompanied the condemned in their final moments.

During this time, I’ve served as a spiritual advisor to seven men in four different states: Scott Eizember, Anthony Sanchez and Michael Smith in Oklahoma; Casey McWhorter and Kenneth Smith in Alabama; Arthur Brown in Texas and David Hosier in Missouri. There is no one else who has seen more executions in more states during this time.

In the coming months, I’m scheduled to accompany another five men to their executions.

It’s a gruesome task filled with trauma and waves of resultant grief.

Spiritual advisors in South Carolina are not ready for what’s about to happen.

Such an assertion has nothing to do with competency or education or anything else. It has to do with the fact that nothing can prepare anyone to see someone killed right in front of their eyes.

While the gaggling and gurgling sounds of a lethal injection are disturbing enough, more visceral or physiologically violent forms of execution seem to offer an added layer of visual trauma and extended grief.

South Carolina could also expose spiritual advisors to seeing someone shot or electrocuted, the two additional methods of execution in the state. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, only Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah also allow execution by firing squad. Only eight other states allow electrocution, some in limited circumstances.

While I’ve never seen either type of execution, I was in the chamber for the world’s first nitrogen hypoxia execution in Alabama in January, that of Kenny Smith, and there are not enough words to describe the horrors that still haunt me.

This is some of what I saw: When nitrogen gas started to flow, Kenny’s face grew more and more intense with every second. Colors started to change. Veins started to flex. Every muscle in his body started to tense. Kenny looked like he was going to explode. Veins spider-webbed in every direction.

Repeatedly, Kenny’s face jerked and heaved toward the front of the mask. Saliva, mucus and other substances shot out of his mouth, back and forth until all life in him stopped.

I was told that it would last seconds. It lasted more than 20 minutes.

I went through all of this to simply live out my calling as a priest.

Spiritual advisors in South Carolina are just as dedicated and courageous. But they shouldn’t have to be.

South Carolinians need to consider what they are about to put their finest religious counselors, teachers and leaders through.

Imagine the priest forced to watch the chest of a dedicated follower of Jesus explode at the crack of a bullet.

Imagine the imam forced to smell the burnt flesh of the faithful Muslim after electricity is shot through his body.

Imagine the rabbi forced to listen to an observant Jew drown after being injected with poison.

One could easily imagine all sorts of iterations of faiths and nightmares.

Such images and sounds and smells never leave you.

Most people are unable to manifest a tremendous amount of empathy for the condemned. I guess that’s why 27 states still have the death penalty, but I do hope that the people of South Carolina will manifest some empathy for those of us who are simply living out our calling to minister to all people, those who seek to make life gentler for us all.

It seems to me that the auxiliary pain that these executions cause is enough of a reason to not execute anyone at all.

This story was originally published September 18, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "I am called to be a spiritual advisor for inmates but haunted by their executions | Opinion."