***
out of ****
Carroll Pickett seems like a pretty incredible human being. As a
pastor in Huntsville, Texas he built a ministry through the 60s and
early 70s that he gave up to try to save his marriage. To that end
he took the position of pastor at the Huntsville prison where he
ministered to the inmates and clearly changed many lives. "At
the Death House Door" chronicles his ministry there, with
particular focus on his participation in 95 executions.
Torn about being part of the lethal injections, he explains how it
was his job to spend the last 18 hours with each condemned inmate,
provide support to them, but more importantly keep them calm so they
could be killed with minimal incident. Pickett would perform his
tasks and then, so as not to burden his wife or children with the
pain it caused him, he would record his feelings into his tape
recorder. The recordings become a key element in the film. And he
was so stoic about it, during the film they tell his (now adult)
children about these tapes, and they weren't even aware of their
existence.
Now an anti-death-penalty advocate, Pickett discusses at length
the case of Carlos Deluna. By the time he saw Carlos to the death
chamber, Pickett was convinced that Deluna could not be guilty of the
crime he was about to die for. And throughout the film we see much
compelling evidence that he was executed for a crime he didn't
commit. It is a painful truth for the viewer, and clearly it haunts
Pickett to this day.
“At the Death House Door” isn't a film that is trying to
accomplish anything. It just tells a story, and it does it well.
Carroll Pickett is in many ways a man to admire, and in many other
ways a man nobody should aspire to be like. But he is always
interesting, and you walk away hoping that he finds some peace and
makes some sense out of the work he did at Huntsville prison.
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