Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Death at Midnight by Donald A. Cabana Death at Midnight by Donald A. Cabana. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Cloudflare Ray ID: 658770b659d484c8 • Your IP : 188.246.226.140 • Performance & security by Cloudflare. DEATH AT MIDNIGHT: The Confession of an Executioner. In this folksy narrative, Cabana, a prison official for 25 years, recounts his experiences and his change of heart about the death penalty. Cabana elaborates on his early fascination with corrections systems, which brought him from his native Massachusetts to the Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi. When Cabana arrived at the untraditional Parchman in 1972, inmates planted acres of cotton and vegetables, and slaughtered their own cows and pigs; they were housed in small ""camps"" scattered across the 20,000-acre facility. Cabana left Parchman a year later, returning as warden in 1984 to find Parchman considerably altered--it was ""just another prison,"" lacking crops but containing a new gas chamber. Cabana avoided entering the chamber for years, but he did visit the men on death row and notes that all of these inmates share the same deeply disadvantaged background. He is closest to Connie Ray Evans, a relatively mild soul who had killed a convenience-store clerk. Cabana describes with real affection--and a twinge of guilt--how their relationship developed, despite their differences. Evans, remorseful and philosophical, actually provides comfort to Cabana about the nature of their friendship. In 1987, faced with a rising tide of anti-crime fervor, the state of Mississippi randomly chose inmates to execute, and Evans was the second. In one horrifying scene, Cabana met with Evans's mother, who pled in vain for her son's life. A few days later, Cabana oversaw Evans's execution, and within the year he left prison corrections forever. Cabana argues ardently and rationally against the death penalty, not because of his sympathy for Evans, but because it's clear to Cabana that executing criminals does nothing to eliminate the roots of criminal behavior. A gentle and affecting addition to the Dead Man Walking canon. Death At Midnight The Confession of an Executioner. Donald A. Cabana, "Death At Midnight: The Confession of an Executioner" English | 1998 | ISBN: 1555533566, 1555532640 | 216 pages | PDF | 7.4 MB While an increasingly outspoken American public is quick to endorse the death penalty, the voices of those who experience the chilling reality of executing another human being are seldom heard. Donald A. Cabana chronicles a personal journey through the nation's prison system that culminated in giving the order to execute two death row inmates. Cabana's compelling account brings the reader inside the "secretive, mysterious world of the execution chamber" to witness the process of an execution and to experience the emotions of the executioner and the man strapped in the chair known as "black death." ISBN 13: 9781555533564. Death At Midnight: The Confession of an Executioner. Cabana, Donald A. This specific ISBN edition is currently not available. While an increasingly outspoken American public is quick to endorse the death penalty, the voices of those who experience the chilling reality of executing another human being are seldom heard. Donald A. Cabana chronicles a personal journey through the nation's prison system that culminated in giving the order to execute two death row inmates. Cabana's compelling account brings the reader inside the "secretive, mysterious world of the execution chamber" to witness the process of an execution and to experience the emotions of the executioner and the man strapped in the chair known as "black death." "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Death at Midnight is the provocative tale of prison warden Donald Cabana's moral awakening to the evils associated with the death penalty, and of the special relationship forged between a young black prisoner condemned to die and Cabana, the middle-aged white warden condemned to execute him. Cabana recounts his twenty-five-year career in corrections from his early beginnings as a naive but well-meaning prison guard to his tenures as warden at several prisons. He provides insight into prison life and illuminates significant changes and reforms that have occurred over the last two decades. Cabana frames his story with a riveting account of the execution of Connie Ray Evans, a prisoner with whom he developed a close bond during his many visits as warden to death row. He describes in vivid, compassionate detail the last two weeks in the life of Evans, and the same two weeks in the lives of the prison staff preparing to kill him. Cabana takes readers inside the "secretive, mysterious world of the execution chamber", allowing them to witness the execution process and to experience the myriad emotions of both the executioner and the condemned man strapped in a chair called "black death". In the end Cabana reveals that, although he spent most of his career convinced of the need for capital punishment, the eventuality of one day carrying out the death penalty was a disturbing and continual presence in his life and work. Giving the order to execute someone he believed was a reformed man finally led him to adopt an abolitionist stance. About the Author : Donald A. Cabana teaches criminal justice at Southern Mississippi University. He was a prison administrator at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Bridgewater, the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, the Alachua County Department of Corrections in Gainesville, Florida, and the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. He lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. A Tribute to a Prison Warden's Influence on Capital Punishment Abolition. Donald Cabana, a former Mississippi prison warden who presided over executions, was not the usual ally for me and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. But Donald Cabana loathed the death penalty. As I mark his passing and celebrate his life, he died this month at 67, I think about the vantage point from which he formed his opinions about capital punishment. Cabana worked in prisons and corrections for more than 25 years in Massachusetts, Florida, Missouri and Mississippi. He was a seasoned traveler in places that many have opinions about but relatively few have firsthand knowledge of or experience with. He punished, counseled and cared for the people and the families that most people forget or wish never existed. He also supervised, cared for and counseled the people who must work in the most hopeless and saddest of places, our nation's prisons and death chambers. And that was the first point that he often made so eloquently. As a longtime corrections official, he was a man committed to holding people accountable for their actions, but he recognized the human folly of believing that we could ever pay back the harm caused by executing a murderer. Moreover, he believed it is the frailty of human nature that defies our efforts to be absolutely certain that the person we punish with death is not innocent. It is one thing, he would say, to pass a law about the death penalty, which in theory would punish the worst of the worst. It is another thing to actually do it and get it right. He once told lawmakers in Minnesota who were considering the reinstatement of the death penalty there, "Americans do not have the right to ask me, or any prison official, to bloody my hands with an innocent person's blood." I first learned about Donald Cabana when I watched the BBC documentary 14 Days in May. In it, he served as an odd kind of tour guide in the strange world of Mississippi's death row and the last two weeks of the life of condemned prisoner Edward Earl Johnson. I watched Donald Cabana go about his business at one time preparing to exact Mississippi's ultimate punishment with chilling precision while at the same time, comforting and praying with the family and the man he was preparing to execute. Edward Earl Johnson maintained his innocence until the very end. Donald Cabana will be remembered for his evolved opposition to capital punishment. He spoke eloquently about the risk of executing the innocent and the dehumanizing nature of the practice. However, his equally important critique of the death penalty -- the devastating impact it has on the people who work in our prisons -- does not get the attention it deserves. Corrections workers must carry out the unenviable task of leading a man or woman to their death. Without emotion they attend to the last matters of business for the condemned. Perhaps they arrange a last phone call to a mother or escort a son from his last visit with family. They are both guard and caretaker. While some might think Donald Cabana courageous for exposing the flaws in the capital punishment system, I think him most brave for exposing the way in which capital punishment left him broken. In his memoir, Death at Midnight: The Confession of an Executioner , and at many public appearances, Donald Cabana spoke personally of the toll that every execution had on him and his family. He often said, "There is a part of the warden that dies with his prisoner" during an execution. He was an early voice challenging the unfairness of society imposing on literally a nameless and faceless public servants the weight and brunt of a collective desire for this uniquely severe punishment. He spoke candidly of the price that executions exacted on his health and the health of others. His candor, I think encouraged others, to speak about the oppressive nature of having to weigh the need to pay your mortgage and put your kids through school against the terrible job requirement of going to work some evenings to kill another human being. Regardless of the crime for which the condemned were sentenced to die, Donald Cabana would tell us unapologetically it hurt. He and others took on this grave responsibility without benefit of mental health services or public understanding of the psychological impact of their job. Stories of prison workers who turn to substance abuse and even suicide because of this burden persist in the corrections field. Fortunately, there is a growing cadre of wardens and former executioners who speak tirelessly and work diligently for an end to capital punishment. Their testimony is a critical component of the debate. Today, when I think about Donald Cabana and his powerful testimony against the death penalty and his own brokenness as a result, I am reminded of the story of the cracked pot. Donald Cabana's grace in sharing the way in which he was harmed by the death penalty allowed the Light to shine through his cracks. For that we are most grateful and indebted to him.