The state can handle multiple executions, according to TDOC spokeswoman Dorinda Carter, because Death Watch has four cells. I mean, really, why stop at two?

Yesterday, sadly, both Paul Dennis Reid and Sedley Alley were moved to the death watch cells, only steps away from Tennessee's execution chamber. The chamber has gone unused since 2000, but, as things stand today, it will receive two inmates late tomorrow night. On death watch, the inmates are stripped of all their possessions, their books, bibles, pictures they may have of loved ones, keepsakes. Everything. And they are left in a tiny cell where they are under constant observation to ensure that, as they face their deaths, they don't commit suicide and take the honor away from the state. So they face death under the stares of guards recording their activities every fifteen minutes, without any of their personal effects, in a cold clinical cell, not even their own.

Sedley Alley and Paul Reid will sit in these cells until 1:00 Wednesday morning, when they will be executed. Well, one of them will be, the other may have to wait a few more hours for the prison staff to clear away the first body, and move the old witnesses out and the new ones in. Cold and methodical? You bet. Is the cause of death still homicide? Absolutely.

But the people of Tennessee are not standing silently by. In Memphis, a vigil and fast has already begun at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception which will go on until the executions or stays occur. Across the state in Cookeville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and of course here in Nashville, there will be vigils and prayer services to oppose this double homicide. For a full listing of Tennessee events, click here.

Tennessee has executed only one person in over 16,000 days. Tomorrow we will attempt to execute two in one night. But if such a gross injustice is to occur, we will not be silent in the face of murder. Even Paul Reid and Sedley Alley, isolated on death watch, will hear us.