Tuesday, 2-17-98---

IOWA:

DES MOINES - Walter "Kip" Kautzky doesn't talk politics.

In the tidy, all-business office where he runs Iowa's prisons, there

isn't a single public opinion poll on file or lofty speech in

preparation. The man in the simple gray suit and no-frills red tie

works by the book, no matter how the politicians write it.

And the director of the Iowa Department of Corrections said that won't

change if Iowa lawmakers ever add death to the state's list of criminal

sanctions.

To a man who has served last meals, trained executioners and watched

murderers die, the death penalty is a state-ordered duty - a complex,

difficult task that remains for people like him long after the

politicians have turned to the next hot issue of the moment.

It doesn't matter what he thinks. It only matters that he can get the

job done if the state says it must be done.

As the director of prisons in Washington state, Kautzky saw to it that

execution squads were properly trained as the state transitioned from

hangings to lethal injections - which could someday be Iowa's tool of

choice. In North Carolina, Kautzky, as the deputy secretary of

corrections, took part in preparations for two executions in 16 years.

When the governor phoned to give the go-ahead, Kautzky took the call.

His no-nonsense recollections reveal the ironies and complexities of

carrying out capital punishment - a job in which the state and its

staff take on a heavy list of new and sometimes painful responsibilities.

"The serious difference that many (corrections officers) have told me,

at least from my own experience in the military, is that this is not

like defending yourself. This offender, you've known, you've helped

solve their problems, you've worked with them, brought their food to

them for 10 years. And then you reach a point where their life is

going to end and you may be a participant," Kautzky said.

Those who actually administer the lethal, heart-stopping dose must be

protected from the intense pressure of their duty, Kautzky said.

Regardless of how just supporters believe capital punishment is, it

is excruciatingly difficult to take a human life.

2 carefully selected teams of 3 people are formed. The first 3

send an initial chemical through an IV tube to the inmate's arm,

although none of them knows which button is releasing a drug and which

isn't. A 2nd team pushes the 3 plungers again, but only 1 releases a

potent muscle relaxant into a 2nd IV tube.

The careful method's goal is that no one truly knows who put the

offender to death.

"The bottom line is afterwards, those that decide they really regret

that they ever participated can be reassured that there is no guarantee

they actually did participate," Kautzky said.

The state must have mental health teams on hand to counsel anyone

involved who needs help. A doctor has to be found to monitor vital

signs and declare a time of death. Someone needs to determine what is

done with the offender's body after the state's will is carried out.

Guards must watch the rest of the prison population carefully. Often,

executions draw an emotional, aggressive reaction from other inmates.

The actual execution is only one step in the prison system's many

responsibilities. Kautzky says he worked with families, both of the

condemned and of the crime victim. It was his job, for instance, to

convince a mother who had long turned her back on a condemned son that

she should reconcile before it was too late.

"There are so many instances where the (crime) victim's family feels so

strongly about something but then when they actually see it happen and

they realize somebody has just been put to death in front of their eyes,

they can't deal with it. The process of sorting that out becomes the

responsibility of the institution."

As difficult as the death penalty is to administer, Kautzky said he

understands why Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, his boss, supports it.

"The governor's concern is more than legitimate, the issue of preventing

loss of life on the part of victims and certainly to reduce the

potential victimization of correctional staff," Kautzky said.

Incredibly, few of the issues Kautzky has faced ever come up amid the

high-minded flourishes of a death penalty debate. After all, who cares

about details when politics is at stake?

(source: Sioux City Journal)

Rick Halperin

AI-Texas