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2008-05-30

by John Esther

Interview: Carroll Pickett

Summary

in the mercy seat with a death row veteran

Article

When one mixes in with the ignorant aspects of the working class and the discussion of capital punishment arises, typically, one hears callous cries like “I’d have no problem pulling the switch myself,” “Hang ‘em high by the nearest tree” or “Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.”

Not only is this sentiment ironic, since rich people do not receive the lethal concoction administered by the state, the bravado is suspicious since most of us are as far away from the behind-the-bars, non-televised, state-sanctioned executions of American citizens as the Vietnam-dodging, pro-war, chicken hawks dictating foreign policy are from an Iraqi battlefield. As many a man or woman who has seen state executions up close and personal will tell you, administering death, even in the name of so-called justice, is no small deed.

It is an unholy deed as well. Just look at the spiritual and political journey of Rev. Carroll Pickett as captured in Steve James and Peter Gilbert’s outstanding documentary, At the Death House Door.

The former prison chaplain who witnessed 95 executions while serving at Texas state prison in Huntsville, Pickett was once for the death penalty. He had seen those close to him brutally murdered and had no qualms about those vicious killers, seen from a distance, although Pickett had a closer view than most of us, getting their comeuppance in the name of justice, or revenge.

Things changed. Once the machine of death was in motion there was really no way out for Pickett and those he walked to their deaths. Racked with pain, guilt and the overwhelming experience at being unable to cease and desist the violent apparatus, after each execution Pickett recorded a cassette tape about each one he had accompanied to the death chamber

Over the years, as he became closer to his lowly fellow human beings, a transformation gradually occurred. Pickett was now against the death penalty. This was due in large part to witnessing guilty as well as innocent people systematically executed by a society that is supposed to be above those who act against it.

Of the 95 executions Pickett accompanied, the one that perhaps gripped him the most was that of Carlos De Luna, a man executed at the age of 27 for a murder he was convicted of at the legal drinking age of 21. In addition to Pickett’s experiences with someone whom he was convinced was innocent, two reporters for the Chicago Tribute, as well as others, have made an essentially irrefutable argument for De Luna’s innocence.

Now airing on IFC, At the Death House Door puts America in the hot, mercy seat. We are killing innocent people. What are we going to do about it? One American now knows his true calling.

We recently caught up with the documentary's primary subject, Pickett -- the author of Within these Walls: Memoris of a Death House Chaplin -- to get his thoughts behind the scenes.

Los Angeles Journal: How do you feel that there is a documentary about you?
Carroll Pickett: I never expected to do anything like this in my life.

LAJ: How did the directors gain your trust?
CP: I gave them four weeks when they first came down. In my mind -- I didn’t tell them. I wanted to see which way they were going to go because I had so much confidential information. Peter and Steve just showed me they were honest people. I checked them out. And I decided I would go with them.

LAJ: Were you familiar with their previous work?
CP: Yes.

LAJ: Do you watch a lot of documentaries?
CP: Sure. I stay away from the stuff that’s almost TV. These things today, I just stay away from it.

LAJ: How do you think documentaries can change people’s opinion toward the death penalty?
CP: Of course if I didn’t think it wouldn’t have done some good I wouldn’t have done it. We’ve been working on it for over two years. If people watch documentaries and listen and learn something on a subject like this they can listen to facts instead of what’s been told or what they’ve felt all of their life or had been misled by some television stations.

LAJ: How did making the documentary change you?
CP: It changed me 180 degrees. First of all, these things drew things out of me that I had kept repressed for a long time. I had never listened to the tapes before. They did a lot of what I would call psychotherapeutic questioning. Where they were going I didn’t know, John, really. I trusted them but I didn’t know what they were going to do with this subject.

LAJ: Why did you record those tapes?
CP: Emotional necessity. I have a doctorate in Clinical Pastoral Education and a degree in Psychology and I have been counseling all my life, including convicts. I’ve been taught that every life is a bubble, like a glass, and everything goes in it and what you might do when the bubble or the glass is full. This doctor -- we were just friends – said I needed to talk to somebody, but the material I had I just felt like nobody could ever understand. A lot of it was really sensitive. So I just talked to get it out of the way. I knew if I ever needed it I could go back. But I never went back to any of them.

LAJ: Were they allowed to listen to them without your supervision?
CP: Yes. After 4-6 months they began to give me an indication where they were going with their documentary. Not just with Carlos. So we drew up a contract and I don’t have them any more.

LAJ: When you started out you were for the death penalty. As time passed by you became increasingly against it. How have people changed toward you as you changed?
CP: They’ve found I have become a lot more peaceful. When I preach I preach better and I don’t mean that egotistically. A lot of my friends have noticed the change in me and they want to know what it is. It has made me a much more dedicated person. Not only doing God’s will but also serving people and caring about the injustice and the immorality that goes on in our judicial system.

LAJ: I imagine there were some who agreed with you when you were for capital punishment but now you have changed. Has it been hard for you to carry on relationships with those people?
CP: Sure. I just want people to listen. I’m not going to preach. I’m not going to be an activist. I am not going to walk up and down the street and raise the flag and scream and holler. I will talk to people who want to talk about it, but one of my best friends I have known for, gosh, 70 years, he is very much in favor of the death penalty and we are still good friends. He has gone to the movie three times but he still feels very strongly that he is right; not that I am wrong because I have been there and seen.

LAJ: There is a moving part of the documentary where they discuss the lack of outrage that Carlos De Luna, an innocent man, was systematically killed by the state of Texas. Why do you think there is so little outrage when we discover innocent men have been put to death? Certainly Carlos was not the only one.
CP: You’re right. He wasn’t the only one. Out of those 95 I was with I know 15 were innocent. I will always believe that. But Carlos’ was a news story; it’s an old story. We can’t really do anything about Carlos. The only thing we’ve been able to do is get rid of the prosecutor who lied, who called Carlos Hernandez “a phantom.”

LAJ: In such cases as Carlos De Luna, why are police and prosecutors so eager to go with the first person they suspect, or just find?
CP: They want it solved. They want a star on their record. They don’t even look at everything.

LAJ: So it is by ambition?
CP: Sure. The District Attorneys in Harris County (Houston) used to brag how they put more people on death row than any state.

LAJ: In these cases where innocent men are put to death, the powers-that-be hardly ever pay for that. Do you think the powers-that-be will pay for that in the afterlife?
CP: Certainly. Thou shall not kill and these are people who are deliberately killing. An execution is a murder. If they know [the inmate] is innocent, which many times they did, they are going to have to answer for it. But I’m not on the judgment committee [Laughs].

LAJ: Now that the documentary will finally be aired, what are your plans for the future?
CP: I am working with the states. We got many states that are getting close to getting rid of the death penalty. With a few more states putting the pressure on Texas – I know I’m going to have trouble at home. That’s life. I’m going to go wherever I can to tell them the truth.