 |
| Cell LL - the isolation cell next to Oklahoma's death chamber |
Is this a room or a tomb?
This is Cell LL - the isolation cell next to Oklahoma's death chamber.
Oklahoma's protocol of execution mandates that the condemned be removed from their companions on death row and brought to this isolation cell 35 days prior to execution.
Everything in Cell LL is cement, including the bed. The door, open for photos, is always kept closed. It's underground, so there is no natural light. Instead, bright lights are kept on all the time. This makes it hard to sleep, even if you pull sheets over your eyes.
Richard Glossip was held here for 60 days total over the past several months - first before his scheduled execution on September 16 (a 2-week stay came at 12:30 pm); then before his scheduled execution on September 30 (a stay came at 4 pm).
At 9 pm on the night before an execution, visits end and phone calls are cut off. Richard was completely alone until he was supposed to be taken out to die.
Richard was not allowed to play music. Officials claim that music "can stir deep emotions." They want a calm, compliant prisoner and an "antiseptic" death. "Guards have to get through the execution, too," officials claim. "It's hard on everyone."
On September 30, Richard was stripped to boxer shorts and very cold. "It was freezing," he said. He paced, trying to warm up.
As 3 pm (the scheduled execution time) came and went, he kept asking, "What's happening?" He got no information. Around 4 pm, a guard told him that he got a stay but provided no details.
This last face off with death on September 30 was Richard's third experience of being brought to the very brink of death. January 29 was the first, when a stay came in the early evening of January 28.
 |
"For where did Dante take the material of his hell but from our actual
world? And yet he made a very proper hell of it."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer, Homo Homini Lupus |
