The Little Green Room

The Little Green Room.

San Quentin Prison, California, 10am, November 8 1957.

‘The Little Green Room’, that’s what the inmates there call the gas chamber. They also call it ‘The Big Sleep’, ‘The Time Machine’ and, with grim and dark humour, ‘The Coughing Box.’ The reason for them calling it that is simple. It’s an airtight, octagonal metal room painted apple green, and inmates cough like hell when the gas hits their lungs.

It was supposed to be a routine story for me. Another visit to San Q, another inmate would pay his dues and meet his Maker. It was nothing new at the Q. Executions there, if not weekly or even monthly, were certainly a regular feature in those days and, just as regularly, I’d make the trip up from Frisco to cover them. California State law requires that the ‘gentlemen of the Press’ (‘gentlemen’, now there’s a joke) have to witness and report executions and until then I’d had no problem with doing that. I hadn’t really been exposed to anything especially traumatic, at least I didn’t think I had at the time, it was simply another story for me when I arrived at the prison. Reporters may write the news, but we seldom get to choose our stories, at least not at my level anyway. The news editor called me into his office, told me that Raymond Riley was going for the big ride the next morning and I was going to be there. I’d covered the executions of Barbara Graham, known as ‘Bloody Babs’ and the ‘Tiger Woman’ and her two pals easily enough, so why should I expect anything different today?

When the news editor, one Harry Franks, called me into his office the day before, he’d said more or less the same things. ‘I hear you’ve done this kind of story before.’ ‘Well, Riley goes tomorrow at 10am. There’s nothing unusual or exceptional about his crime, just another stickup artist who panicked and shot some bystander during a robbery. About the only interesting thing about him is his size. He’s a tiny little thing, weighs about eighty pounds and no more than five feet tall, so I don’t think they’ll have too much trouble with this one. Seeing as you’ve got the experience and I don’t have anyone else available, you’ve got the story. Don’t mess it up.’

By ‘experience’ Harry didn’t just mean that I’d done this before. What he really meant was that I’d be able to stand in the witness room without passing out and/or throwing up and leaving him fielding angry calls from the big Kahuna up at San Q, Warden Dickson. I’d met Dickson a few times for various reasons and we weren’t exactly bosom buddies. I knew he viewed me as just another grubby little newspaperman, while I viewed him as a dour, humourless automaton, possibly with even less life in him than an executed inmate. But he had his job to do and I had mine, so we were going to have to be at least professional with each other. It was just routine, that’s all.

Events would prove to us all that we were wrong. And prove just how wrong we could be.

On the drive over to the prison I switched on the radio. The local station was playing some bebop crap when the announcer broke in with a special announcement. ‘The US Supreme Court has just denied a last-minute stay of execution for Raymond Riley, the Sacramento ‘Stickup Artist.’ With no further stays forthcoming, Riley will die in the gas chamber at San Quentin at 10am this morning. And now, back to our regular programming...’

The bebop came back on and I lit a smoke as I arrived in the prison parking lot. As you’d expect for a prison on execution day, everything was locked down as tight as a duck’s ass and nobody was doing anything without the firm approval of the Warden or his guards. The first thing I noticed, aside from the fact that inmates were, to a man, locked in their cells instead of going to work or having exercise time in the yard, was the near-absolute quiet in this, perhaps the toughest prison in California, housing some of the state’s most hardened felons. As I walked over to the entry gate I commented to the guard who checked my press card ‘Pretty quiet today, huh?’

The guard checked my card and then replied ‘Yep. The whole prison’s on lockdown until after Riley gets his, and even if they weren’t locked down then they wouldn’t be exactly chatty this morning. They all know what’s coming just as sure as Riley does. The rest of the witnesses are already over at Death Row being checked in. You’d better head on over if you’re looking to get a good spot by the chamber.’

I hastened across the prison to the Row’s entrance and flashed my press card at the screw guarding the door. He quickly confirmed that I was who I said I was, gave me a thorough frisking for any contraband (most items in jail are contraband, but especially anything like a camera or a tape machine, they like us to write about executions, not film, record or photograph them) and unlocked the door, standing aside so I could walk through into Death Row proper. I immediately hastened over to the anteroom where the witnesses wait until showtime, when we’re herded into the Observation Room. We don’t get to see the inmate’s face as the twin steel chairs inside the chamber face away from the Observation Room, which spares any especially sensitive witness from seeing their faces as the gas takes effect. But we get to see enough and to hear his (or her) final words.

The atmosphere hit me as soon as I walked through the door to Death Row. Not the smells of disinfectant, greasy food or of too many men crammed into too small a place as those are in every prison, but a sense of utter hopelessness, of men warehoused for death with little hope of release other than via the ‘little green room.’ And that kind of parole was one that almost nobody was looking forward to. There’d been a few who had wanted to die and many more who had simply accepted that they were going to, but I’d heard that Riley wasn’t one of them and had promised to go hard, fighting to the last. They often do that, promise it anyway, but more often than not they end up going quietly and quickly, if not willingly. Riley would be no different, I was sure of that. A stunted little creep like him, what kind of trouble could he cause an entire execution team?

Just then I heard a phone ringing in the Execution Room and the sound of muffled voices. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I doubted it was a stay and it wasn’t long before I was proved right. The Associate Warden came through the door from the Execution Room via the Observation Room and called for silence. It’s not often that a pack of reporters can keep quiet for long, but he had our undivided attention as he held up his hand for silence.

‘Gentlemen, Inmate Riley’s death warrant has been confirmed and there are no stays or further legal arguments before the courts. In a moment I’ll be leading you into the Observation Room and things will happen fairly quickly after that happens, so be ready to move shortly.’

‘You’ve all been searched for cameras and recording devices, so that isn’t an issue, and you’re all expected to keep as quiet as possible and make no comment on what you are about to witness. I see some familiar faces here, so I know you’ll all behave responsibly. Also, smoking is strictly forbidden in the Observation Room, so you’ll have to wait until we’re done before you can have a smoke outside. In the event of any of you becoming ill, feeling faint or feeling sick then notify one of the guards and you’ll be escorted out into the yard. Now, if you’ll all come with me and take your places, we can begin.’

It was 9:55am when I took the short walk through the apple green door into the Observation Room. I saw the chamber first. Octagonal, apple green, with windows so we witnesses could have a clear view as the star of the show was brought in, although we’d only see his back once he was strapped into one of the two steel chairs inside. The heavy iron rail that ran around our side of the chamber, separated as its two halves are by a thick steel wall with only one solid steel door, was to keep anyone from getting too close for comfort and had two guards standing within its perimeter.

It was then that things started to go wrong. Badly wrong. I heard a series of piercing shrieks come through the wall separating our half of the chamber from that of the execution team and I knew at once that this wasn’t going to be pretty. Not that seeing a man choke to death on cyanide fumes is ever pretty, but the times before had at least been pretty orderly and regimented. It seemed as though Riley, the tiny little runt that Harry Franks had thought wouldn’t and indeed couldn’t give the guards any trouble, had been honest when he said he’d go down fighting and in that I was both right and wrong.

Looking through the chamber’s windows, I could see a mass of flailing arms and legs, hear more of those piercing shrieks (like some Irish banshee) and shouted instructions. ‘I don’t want to go like this, oh please, let me go, I’m begging you!’ ‘Grab him! Get him in there fast and get him strapped down!’

The flailing mass suddenly came into view. Riley, twisting, contorting, writhing, shrieking and begging, all five feet and eighty pounds of him, was clearly giving the execution team one hell of a struggle. I could see as they brought him in, not dragging or manhandling him, but physically carrying him with a guard tightly gripping each limb in a series of painful jiu jitsu holds, that he intended to go hard all right, but not as he’d promised with a defiant sneer and ‘You’ll get a real show when they take me in there’ attitude. In its place was a gibbering wreck, reduced by sheer terror to the level of a terrified infant instead of some cocky wannabe tough guy. He went down fighting, nobody who was there can deny that, but he went down as a crazed and cornered animal, not as some fearless and hardened criminal legend.

The guards finally got him into the chamber, still flailing around like a whirling Dervish, and quickly set about the business of strapping him into one of the chairs, Chair ‘A.’ As Riley fought for his life, futile as that struggle undoubtedly was, my attitude towards him began to change slightly. After all, I’m inclined to feel some sympathy for even the worst of people as they meet their Maker, but watching four guards wrestling an 18 year old kid into the chamber wasn’t pretty, especially when that 18 year old kid started puking all over himself out of sheer terror.

The guards finally secured the last of the straps and attached the stethoscope that led from Riley’s shirt outside the chamber, to where the prison doctor could listen to his heart stop and then certify death. Satisfied that he was properly secured, they avoided the traditional advice to Riley to ‘Count to ten, breathe deep and don’t fight the gas’, opted to not to pat him on the shoulder wish him luck and exited the chamber just as quickly as they could. Looking through the chamber windows I could see that Deputy Warden Rigg wanted this over with just as fast as possible. There was no sense in prolonging the agony of either Riley or anyone else. After a quick glance at Riley as he strained to free himself, Rigg raised his hand and was about to give the signal to drop the cyanide eggs into the acid when all hell broke loose.

What the guards thought was a tight set of straps wasn’t, given Riley’s tiny stature, nearly tight enough. The chairs and the straps had been designed for prisoners of normal height and build and Riley was neither. He immediately slipped his hands out of the wrist-straps and, and before anyone could open the airtight door in time to stop him, he managed to unbuckle the rest of them as well. Then the real party started. Riley began running around inside the chamber, banging his hands against the windows and pressing his stricken, sweat-soaked face, with its wild, unseeing eyes and bared teeth, up against the thick, bulletproof glass that separated him from us witnesses. The feral shrieks began to get louder and louder, building up to a crescendo of incomprehensible ravings as the guards, finally managing to unseal the chamber door, grabbed him and physically hurled him back into the chair. While Riley struggled, ranted, raved and did all he could to free himself, one guard actually had to sit on him as the other reapplied the thick canvas straps that would keep him still long enough to throw the lever and start the gas. After a mighty struggle, they finally got him down long enough to get all the straps done up, even tighter than before, and they staggered out of the chamber and resealed the airtight steel door. Now, finally, we could get this over with and he could be put out of his terrible misery.

Deputy Warden Rigg raised his hand again as though about to give the signal to the executioner. As soon as he dropped his hand the executioner would pull the lever that mixes the cyanide eggs with the acid and fill the chamber with lethal fumes. His hand rose, then wavered, then he said ‘Jesus Christ, not again!’

Riley had managed to slip the arm straps again. He managed to get himself free of the chair and this time, rather than run around hammering on the windows, he subsided to the chamber floor as though utterly spent by his physical exertions and mental strain. It was clear to everyone that he had completely snapped and totally lost any idea of what was going on. Riley rolled around inside the airtight box, muttering, moaning and wailing to the guards to spare his life, as though that would make any difference now. With a long-drawn out squeak, the chamber door was unsealed and the same two guards, both pale as ghosts and obviously wanting to be anywhere else in the world at that particular moment, re-entered the chamber and, instead of having to throw Riley down and sit on him, found it much easier to restrain and re-strap him. All the fight, and sanity, so it seemed, had bled out of him. Elvis had definitely left the building and, whatever else happened, at least things couldn’t get any worse than they already were.

Wrong again.

Deputy Warden Rigg raised and dropped his hand just as soon as the chamber door had been sealed shut. One of the guards then pulled the lever that mixes the cyanide eggs with the acid and, with a muffled ‘clunk’ followed by a mixture of bubbling and hissing from the pot beneath the chair, the cyanide fumes began to fill the chamber. It was then that an obviously insane Riley opted for a more passive, but no less horrifying, means to make things just as awful as they could be.

As the fumes rose up around him from the pot beneath the chair, Riley simply sat there, apparently having recovered his self control. Then he played his trump card, almost as though he’d meant to do it all along. The whitish fumes weren’t thick like smoke, so we all had a clear view of Riley as he sat in the chamber. Then he raised his head as the fumes billowed around him, looked around with wild, staring eyes and a massive grin on his face, and started to laugh and cackle like some medieval witch.

‘Hahahahaha...’ ‘Ah-ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaa...’

The end was mercifully brief. With every cackle Riley drew breath and with every breath more of the choking fumes filled his lungs. It was inevitable that he’d succumb and he soon began panting like a dog, writhed around in the chair for a few minutes then slowly, achingly slowly, his manic giggling ceased and he slid into unconsciousness. A few minutes later I could see the prison doctor remove the stethoscope from his ears and give a very relieved nod to Rigg, the Deputy Warden. The execution of Raymond Riley was finally over and, supposedly, justice had been served.

Rigg came through the heavy steel door that separated his half of the chamber from ours and, with a trembling voice that suggested he was about to lose his own set of marbles, spoke to the assembled reporters.

‘Gentlemen of the Press, the execution of Inmate Rodney Riley, inmate number 371958-7642, has been carried out according to the laws of the State of California. The inmate was certified dead at approximately 10:37am. I’ll ask you all to leave the Observation Room now and leave the prison in a dignified and orderly manner. This has been a terrible ordeal for us all and the other inmates must not be made aware of what happened here this morning. That’s all, gentlemen, please leave.’

As I stumbled towards the Observation Room door and out into the bright California sunshine I experienced a definite epiphany. I’d never seen anything that hideous in all my days and certainly hope never to see its like again. As I sat in my car in the prison parking lot, I resolved that never again should anything like this occur, and that my previous indifference to the execution of California’s condemned did, in fact, say just as much about me as it did about them.