Fifteen years in the past, Burl Cain, then-Warden on the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, agreed to permit my movie crew to talk to death-row prisoner Gerald Bordelon, who was scheduled to die the next day, on January 7, 2010. 

Bordelon’s title has discovered its method into current headlines as a result of he was the final condemned individual to be killed right here in Louisiana. His dying, by deadly injection, unwittingly sparked a shocking 15-year pause in executions within the state. 

That’s over now. Final month, Gov. Jeff Landry, who had pledged to renew executions, signed his first dying warrants, for 2 males on the state’s Loss of life Row, Christopher Sepulvado and Jessie Hoffman, successfully resetting the Row’s ticking clock.

As Bordelon’s time was working out, I used to be already at Angola, making a documentary for Oprah’s Doc Membership with Forest Whitaker, who narrated the ensuing movie, “Serving Life,” in regards to the jail’s world-renowned hospice program. Our staff was within the visible dichotomy of a state-sanctioned execution on the identical grounds as their hospice.

Inside the halls of that hospice, we witnessed a gaggle of prisoners – drug sellers, armed robbers and murderers, some who had as soon as been Loss of life Row prisoners themselves  – who discovered redemption by way of work as hospice volunteers, skilled to take care of fellow prisoners who had been close to dying. They emptied bedpans and altered sheets, sat at bedsides, ensuring the dying males had been as snug as doable.

Once we visited Bordelon within the jail’s “dying home,” he was soft-spoken however clear. Earlier within the week, he’d been moved from the Row. The rusty stool he sat on in his death-house cell was solely steps away from the gurney to which he can be strapped the next day. 

We arrived carrying two white Styrofoam containers, one with a roast rooster meal and one with chocolate chip cookies ready by Warden Cain’s ranch home workers. Bordelon ignored the trays. 

I do not forget that it felt chilly on the tier, it had snowed that week in Louisiana. I don’t know what I anticipated, however there was nothing remotely intimidating about this man in an orange jumpsuit, white thermal shirt and flimsy blue canvas sneakers. I wasn’t certain if he was shivering as a result of he was chilly, or as a result of he was afraid. 

Earlier that week, our crew had been allowed to witness considered one of a number of death-house rehearsals with the seven safety officers who had been assigned to, or volunteered for the execution staff. In the course of the rehearsals, these seven males choreographed each transfer they’d make when it got here time to kill Gerald Bordelon. Within the rehearsals, the function of Bordelon was performed by one of many officers, a guard who was derisive to me about our largely feminine movie crew – three ladies, one man – and our entry to this story. 

Filming throughout the slender confines of the dying home was a problem. I knew that director Tim Robbins had filmed a lot of Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir, Useless Man Strolling, at Angola. We struggled to adequately mild this somber group strolling their colleague to the gurney with a stiff navy precision that felt unsettlingly reverential, much like what I had seen at formal ceremonies at Arlington Nationwide Cemetery. I puzzled whether or not Tim Robbins had constructed a set for this second in his movie, or in the event that they’d match all that gear into the slender halls of this constructing. 

I stayed out of our digicam’s view by inserting myself in a small room adjoining to the one the place the guards had been strapping their fellow officer to the gurney. There was dialogue of how a lot exercise can be seen to the spectators, and their superiors defined that, earlier than the spectators had been introduced in, there can be time to get the condemned man in place, and for the EMT to place the needle in his arm. The girl who can be accountable for activating the mechanism that might administer the cocktail of medicine to Bordelon would have time to secret herself out of view of the spectators, into the room the place I used to be standing. 

From our room, we might see solely two issues. The machine that might push the poison into his veins in three steps. And the toes of the guard taking part in Bordelon. As I used to be watching, I noticed that he was trembling. I used to be surprised. This safety officer had proven me solely bravado.

I had by no means thought-about that this course of, Gerald Bordelon’s execution, may have an effect on him. I had assumed he was in it for the time beyond regulation.

Our interview with Bordelon was not excessive drama. We knew entering into that he had instructed his lawyer Jill Craft to not enter the authorized battlefield that accompanies most dying sentences. He had waived his appeals in order that his execution wouldn’t be additional delayed.

Warden Cain had known as to ask Bordelon if he would discuss to us. He agreed, to my shock. 

With no animation or emotion in his voice, Bordelon instructed us that he knew he would re-offend if he had been ever free, and that he didn’t wish to reside with the guilt and disgrace of what he had accomplished to his sufferer. He had raped and murdered his 12-year-old step-daughter Courtney LeBlanc. He’d accomplished one thing heinous like that earlier than, and he knew he was not able to controlling his impulses. So he most well-liked to die, he stated.

I keep in mind feeling a flush of anger that the State of Louisiana was giving Bordelon what he wished, reduction from his guilt. My husband had died just a few years earlier than that, leaving me a widow and mom to 2 young children. Loss of life, for me, was not one thing a governor ought to casually enter into with a signature — or that Bordelon might chase, to alleviate his private agony.  

To Bordelon, the governor that signed his dying warrant had given him a present. It appeared like a simple method out. Some crime victims who I’ve interviewed would favor to see their perpetrator spend each second of their pure life in jail, agonizing over the disgrace that plagued him, dwelling the hell he’d made for himself.

Loss of life-penalty supporters usually cite the dying penalty as a deterrent to crime. However this argument has by no means made sense to me, as a result of there was no distinction in crime charges between the state of New York, the place I lived then, which doesn’t impose dying as a punishment, and Louisiana, a death-penalty state the place greater than half of dying sentences have been reversed since 1976, after a four-year hiatus in executions prompted by a 1972 U.S. Supreme Courtroom resolution, Furman v. Georgia. 

The one different argument for killing a prisoner is to offer households some sense of retribution. Burl Cain reported that Bordelon’s final phrases to his victims had been “I’m sorry. I don’t know if that brings any closure or peace. It ought to have by no means occurred, but it surely did, and I’m sorry.” Did that carry Courtney’s household some peace, some finality? 

Actually, it’s not exhausting to think about pondering that Bordelon deserved to die for what he’d accomplished. The identical might be stated about Christopher Sepulvado, whose dying warrant was signed final month. He killed his six-year-old stepson after scalding him within the tub. 

However I do marvel if the state of Louisiana ought to be capable of kill them, given its observe file with Loss of life Row reversals and exonerations, one of many highest charges within the nation. 

After on a regular basis we spent filming within the dying home, we didn’t find yourself utilizing our interview with Bordelon. We felt would upstage our level, which was to look at whether or not it’s doable to search out redemption inside a jail’s partitions. Gerald Bordelon wasn’t taken with serving others for the remainder of his pure life.

Angola’s hospice volunteers do unbelievable, selfless, humbling work. They grant final needs – like a fishing journey someplace on the grounds of the jail. They find estranged relations and, if funds are tight, increase the funds to fly them in for a remaining go to. However the actual work is within the small stuff: bathing, feeding, altering diapers, and soothing bedsores. 

And close to the top they stand vigil, night time by night time, shift by shift, hour by hour – holding fingers, praying, ready collectively for the top. No man, regardless of his crime, dies alone within the Angola hospice. Anybody who visits their hospice can see the dignity that’s shared, and the ripple impact that’s felt past the partitions of the hospice into the overall inhabitants down the stroll. When it’s over, you’ll not be deserted.

On February 21, 15 days after the governor had signed his dying warrant, Sepulvado, 81, affected by a extreme leg an infection, was transferred from Loss of life Row to the identical therapy middle the place we made our movie. He formally entered hospice care and was positioned on vigil, when a dying individual is usually cared for by a hand-selected group of trusted volunteers. 

However this time, the volunteers had been ordered to not enter his room. Phrase “from above,” sources instructed us, was that Christopher Sepulvado should die alone. And he did, the following day. 

Sometimes, Sepulvado would have had somebody wiping his face, altering the dressing on his leg, and swabbing his mouth so it didn’t dry out. However these volunteers had been made to take a seat on the opposite facet of the door like sentries. And whereas they sat there, Sepulvado died on his personal, which was considered as a victory by his authorized staff, which decried the state’s efforts to asphyxiate a frail, 81-year-old man. 

In ensuing days, some have stated that Sepulvado had cheated the executioner. But it surely is also stated that he had skilled the final word punishment – dwelling together with his disgrace and guilt each minute of day by day, till he took his final breath. 

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