to move to the next stage to prepare for the execution. One of the state officials walked over to the guard when she left the room and pointed at his watch. Inside the room, Herbert’s wife began to sob. She put her arms around his neck and refused to let him go. After a couple of minutes, her crying turned into groaning, distressed and desperate.
The officials in the lobby were growing more impatient and gestured at the visitation officer, who came back into the room. “I’m sorry,” she said as firmly as she could muster, “but you have to leave now.” She looked at me, and I looked away. Herbert’s wife began sobbing again. Her sister and other family members began to cry, too. Herbert’s wife grabbed him even more tightly. I hadn’t thought about how difficult this moment would be. It was surreal in a way I hadn’t anticipated. In an instant a flood of sadness and tragedy had overtaken everyone, and I began to worry that it would be impossible for this family to leave Herbert.
By now the officials were angry. I looked through the window and saw the warden radio for more officers to come into the area. Someone else gestured for the officer to go back into the room and bring the family members out. I heard them tell her not to come out without the family. The officer looked frantic. Despite her uniform, she’d always seemed a little out of place at the prison, and she looked especially uncomfortable now. She had once volunteered to me that her grandson wanted to be a lawyer and that she was hoping he would. She looked around the room nervously and then came up to me. She had tears in her eyes and looked at me desperately.
“Please, please, help me get these people out of here, please.” I began to worry that things were going to get ugly, but I couldn’t sort out what to do. It seemed impossibly hard for them to expect people to just calmly abandon someone they loved so that he could be executed. I wanted to prevent things from getting out of control but felt powerless to do anything.
By this time, Herbert’s wife had started saying loudly, “I’m not going to leave you.”
Herbert had made a peculiar request the week before the execution. He said that if he was executed as scheduled, he wanted me to get the prison to play a recording of a hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross,” as he walked to the electric chair. I had been slightly embarrassed to raise the request when I spoke with prison officials, but to my utter amazement they had agreed to do it.
I remembered as a child that they always sang this hymn at somber moments during church services, on Communion Sundays, and Good Friday. It was sad like few other hymns I’d heard. I don’t know why exactly, but I started to hum it as I saw more uniformed officers enter the vestibule outside the visitation room. It seemed like something that might help. But help what?
After a few minutes, the family joined me. I went over to Herbert’s wife as she held him tightly, sobbing softly. I whispered to her, “We have to let him go.” Herbert saw the officers lining up outside, and he pulled away from her slowly and told me to take her out of the room.
Herbert’s wife clung to me and sobbed hysterically as I led her out of the visitation room with her family tearfully following. The experience was heartbreaking, and I wanted to cry. But I just kept humming instead.
The prison had made arrangements for me to go back to the death chamber in about an hour to be with Herbert before the execution. Although I had worked on several death penalty cases with clients who had execution dates, I’d never before been present at an execution. In the cases where I had actually been counsel for the condemned while I was in Georgia, we’d always won stays of execution. I grew anxious thinking about witnessing the spectacle of a man being electrocuted, burned to death in front of me. I’d been so focused on obtaining the stay and then on what to say to Herbert when I got to the prison that I hadn’t actually thought about witnessing the execution. I no longer wanted to be there for that, but I didn’t want to abandon Herbert. To leave him in a room alone with