Today the Tennessee Supreme Court set and execution date for Sedley Alley - despite the existence of DNA evidence that has never been tested which could prove his innocence. When is the execution? one might ask. The answer: June 28th.

Now ignoring the fact that the date is very near at hand, that date might sound familiar to you. Why? Because it is the same date that Paul Reid is scheduled to die!

There is much to write, so many things wrong, that it is almost hard to choose, but this is a unique moment to focus on other hidden human costs of the death penalty. The psychic strain that executions put on prison employees.

Now, whether or not you believe in the death penalty, taking a healthy man from his cell in the middle of the night, strapping him to a gurney, and slowly poisoning him, is not an easy task. Executioners in the middle ages were shrouded, to hide them, separate them, from their unseemly task. Today, corrections officers don't wear shrouds, but are protected by endless protocol. Members of a strap down team all have individual, compartmentalized tasks. One straps down the right arm, another the left leg. A different technician inserts the needles, yet another person pushes the button that begins the flow of deadly chemicals. All of these procedures are meant to separate any one person from the psychic trauma of killing a person. Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence suggests that the strain of participating in an execution can be serious. In his book, Death at Midnight: Confessions of an Executioner, former Mississippi warden Don Cabana relates his own experiences with two executions after which he had to leave his job. Here in Tennessee, guards from unit 2 (death row) are not assigned to strap-down teams; participating in the execution of a person they have been personally guarding is deemed too hard.

Now imagine all that strain. All the tension in the prison. All the press and media. All the energy draining experiences of dealing with the families of the executed and the victim. And now imagine it all doubled because the state of Tennessee has chosen to execute two men in the same night. Imagine slowly leading the sobbing members of the executed inmates family out of their viewing room only to know that another man was saying his last goodbyes and that, a few hours later you would have escort his sobbing loved ones out as well. Imagine having to give the order to proceed, a heart-wrenching order, even if you are just doing your job and believe that it is right, not once, but twice in one evening.

Imagine it all, if you can.

I'm not sure that I can or want to imagine the pain and stress that such a double killing could exact on corrections officers. But I think it once again shows that, in pursuing executions, the state isn't concerned about people, even its own employees. It is interested in revenge. I hope and pray, for all of our sakes, that we can find another way.