I Passed Out At My First Execution
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It was a warm February evening, and Gustavo Julián Garcia lay strapped to a gurney in Texas’ death chamber. I stood a few feet away, staring at him through a barred window in one of two cramped viewing rooms.
The 43-year-old had close-cut salt and pepper hair. He wore prison whites and thick, black-rimmed glasses. An IV dangled from the crook of his right arm, partially covering a black-ink tattoo.
In the mint-green room, under fluorescent lights, a single microphone hung over Garcia’s head. He stared — somehow calmly — at the ceiling, while a prison chaplain with a small bible rested a hand on Garcia’s shin.
My own hands were shaking.
I’d started the day like any other: I woke up in my Austin apartment, walked my dog and got ready for work. That day, “work” involved driving three hours to the wooded prison town of Huntsville to watch the state execute a man.
Garcia was sentenced to death at 19, when he was convicted in the 1990 shooting death of a liquor store clerk during a robbery. He was caught a month later after a second fatal shooting and robbery, and confessed to both murders.
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