David Dawson

DEER LODGE - The last thing inmate David Dawson will see before he's put to death next month will be the white tiled ceiling in an aging 12-foot-by-48-foot, metal-sided house trailer.

The structure is formally known as “the death chamber.” It's been used only twice since the state bought it in 1981 and converted the singlewide trailer into the site of Montana's executions. Before, it had been outfitted as a home.

Carl Nelson, the prison's maintenance manager, said he doesn't know how old the trailer is or if anyone lived in it before the state bought it.

A metal placard on the side of the structure - which has since been painted light beige and installed two steps from the back door of the prison's maximum security building - said the electrical work in the trailer met the safety standards in effect in 1963.

The chamber was the somber highlight of a press tour led by prison officials here Tuesday, in preparation of Dawson's scheduled Aug. 11 execution.

A group of churches, the Montana American Civil Liberties Union and lawmakers have asked the state's high court to postpone Dawson's execution until an investigation can determine if the three drugs Montana uses in killing the condemned are really as humane as first thought.

Still, said Montana State Prison Warden Mike Mahoney, the prison is proceeding as though the execution is on.

Mahoney has already chosen the individual who will act as the official executioner. To protect the person's privacy, Mahoney would not say anything that might identify the person, including the person's gender and whether they live in Montana.

Dawson kidnapped four members of a Billings family in 1986 at a hotel in the Billings Heights. He eventually killed three members of the family by strangling them. Only the family's daughter was unharmed. Police found her in the hotel room bathtub.

Two years ago, Dawson asked for all of his appeals to end and said he would no longer fight his capital punishment.

Montana doesn't have a “death row,” per se, Mahoney said. Instead, all four men currently awaiting the death sentence are housed in the prison's maximum security unit, known as “Max.”

The building is set apart from the rest of the prison. It is a sturdy concrete structure with narrow windows and cell blocks fanning at regular angles away from a fortified central control chamber.

Dawson lives on D Block, a two-story selection of individual cells. Like all the blocks in Max, the cells are cinder-block painted a shiny white. The cells face a common “day room,” which consists of a punching bag and two metal tables screwed to the concrete floor.

Dawson has lived in Max since 1987, when he was first sent to prison. Inmates in Max spend most of their lives alone in their cells. They eat in their cells and are allowed out of their cells for only a few hours each week.

Max inmates may go to the outside “yard” for five hours a week, said Dan Chaludek, the manager of Max. The yard is an outdoor enclosed cage, surrounded by concrete walls. The only outside view is straight up into the sky. Max inmates are also allowed an hour-and-a-half each day in the day room, where they can exercise by running up and down the stairs or hitting the punching bag.

Dawson often exercised, Chaludek said.

Dawson has not been allowed to interact with other inmates since his execution order came down in May.

He was an ordinary inmate, Mahoney said, and the impending death sentence has not changed Dawson's demeanor.

“I don't anticipate him having a change of heart,” he said.

Dawson's entire execution will cost the state about $38,000.

A lot of that is extra staff at the prison to quell any jitters the other inmates may have, extra staff at the execution chamber, and mental-health professionals to talk to any prison employee or inmate upset about the execution. The money also buys Dawson's last meal and the drugs administered to kill him.

Dawson is scheduled to die early in the morning on Aug. 11, Mahoney said.

At some point a day or two before the execution, Dawson will be moved into a special holding cell. The warden will speak with Dawson and “walk him through the protocols and answer any questions he has,” Mahoney said.

The night before the execution, Dawson will have his final meal. He will be shackled and walked into the trailer, where he will be latched to a gurney and people with medical training will install two intravenous needles and tubes into both his arms.

Plastic tubes leading away from the needles will be threaded through a special hole in the wall behind Dawson and into the room where the executioner stands.

That room has special red lights so the 12 official witnesses to the execution cannot discern the executioner's identity through the two-way mirror through which the executioner watches the death.

After Dawson is ready, the witnesses are brought in. They will sit in the same room as Dawson, only feet from his gurney, separated by a low, wooden divider.

The three drugs will be pre-measured into syringes, which the executioner will push into the IV line. After several minutes, Dawson will be dead.

The moments before the death are very quiet.

“You can hear people breathing,” Mahoney said.

The prison is still working through the details with Dawson's family about what will happen to Dawson's body. The prison has its own graveyard where Dawson can be buried if the family does not want the body, Mahoney said.

Part of Mahoney's job is to sit next to Dawson during the execution. Asked about his personal reaction to each death, Mahoney said, “It's a long couple of days. It's tough.

“It's without question the most difficult task performed by any administrator in state government.”



Dawson asks that execution proceed

HELENA (AP) - Convicted murderer David Dawson asked the Montana Supreme Court to let him die, saying those trying to suspend executions in the state “totally disregard” his “personal feelings and wishes.”

Dawson is scheduled to be executed Aug. 11. A group led by the ACLU recently asked the Supreme Court to suspend his execution, and any others in Montana, until a court can decide whether lethal injection is humane.

The Supreme Court has decided to make a speedy decision on the request.

Dawson has fought in courts, and against his own attorneys, for years in his quest to be executed. Dawson was convicted in 1987 of killing three members of a family he took captive in a Billings motel and is scheduled to be the first person executed in Montana since 1998.

Dawson wrote and signed his own filing with the Supreme Court, which was dated Sunday and received by the high court Tuesday.

Dawson wrote that he does not have information proving that lethal injection is humane; however, he said the ACLU and others have not provided “any information that there has ever been any problems with lethal injection as carried out by the state of Montana.”

The ACLU and others argue there is mounting evidence that lethal injection is painful and unconstitutional because it basically amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

Dawson disagreed.

“This is not being tied to a bumper of a car and drug until dead, this is go to sleep, don't wake up,” he wrote in a typed brief to the court, referring to himself as the movant in the case. “Movant is therefore unconcerned with the method of execution and shouldn't be forced to linger until an ‘appropriate' method, one more suitable to the public taste can be found.”

Dawson asked the Supreme Court to recognize his right to withdraw from the appeals process and to let his execution go forward without further delay.

The attorney general is scheduled to submit a legal argument defending the state's execution method no later than July 24. Attorney General Mike McGrath has said that the group suing to block the executions has no standing in the case.

Dawson said the group led by the ACLU - which also includes the Montana Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, some lawmakers, the Montana Catholic Conference and others - is not working in his interest.

“Movant does not criticize either group for their efforts, but while purporting to stand up for the rights of all, they totally disregard the personal feelings and wishes of movant, seeking instead to force their ideals upon him,” Dawson wrote.

Helena attorney Ron Waterman, representing the groups who asked the Supreme Court to intervene, says their filing is based on a larger issue than just Dawson because it would suspend any executions in the state until lethal injection is reviewed. Dawson's execution, though, is the only one currently scheduled.

Convicted murderer executed

By BECKY SHAY and GREG TUTTLE of the Billings Gazette

DEER LODGE - As a windstorm rattled the execution trailer, condemned murderer David Dawson was put to death by lethal injection at 12:06 a.m. Friday.

Dawson continued the silence he has maintained since the 1986 killings of a Billings couple and their 11-year-old son, refusing the warden's offer of a final statement. Moments thereafter, he was dead.

Witness Eric Taber of KPAX-TV in Missoula said Dawson made a loud snore through his nose, then sighed and died. The only noise in the execution chamber, Taber said, was the wind rattling the windows and breathing from the assembled witnesses - journalists, family members of the victims, a friend of the condemned man and law enforcement officers.

Montana State Prison Warden Mike Mahoney said Dawson's execution was similar to others he has witnessed. “I think individuals who are subject to capital punishment become pretty reflective,” he said. “This individual was similar in that same regard.”

Dawson did not, however, express sorrow or regret - or take his final moments to offer an explanation - for the crimes he had commited, Mahoney said.

Dawson, 48, was sentenced to death for the 1986 kidnapping and killing of a family at a Billings motel. David and Monica Rodstein and their 11-year-old son Andrew were drugged and then strangled with a telephone cord.

Amy Rodstein, the couple's 15-year-old daughter, survived. Billings police found her in the motel room where her family had been slain two days earlier. Dawson was arrested at the scene.

After years of appeals in state and federal courts, Dawson two years ago asked to end the appeals and dismiss his attorneys. Supported by reports from two psychiatrists who said Dawson was competent and understood the consequence of his decision, state and federal judges granted his request.

But in recent weeks, Dawson's case became the focus of a legal effort by death penalty opponents. A group led by the ACLU of Montana filed several petitions in state and federal courts attempting to block Dawson's execution.

On Thursday, a District Court judge in Helena refused to grant an injunction against Dawson's execution. Hours later, an appeal to the Montana Supreme Court also was denied. The groups' attorney, Ron Waterman of Helena, said he would not file any more appeals, effectively ending all legal challenges to Dawson's execution.

The ACLU group argued that the lethal injections used to carry out a death sentence could cause pain and therefore are constitutionally impermissible cruel and unusual punishment.

Those on both sides of the issue gathered late Thursday at a designated demonstration area about a mile from where Dawson was set to die.

Moe Wosepka, executive director of the Montana Catholic Conference, led about two-dozen others in a vigil at the prison. The conference is one of the organizations in a coalition that has fought in the courts to have the execution stopped.

The Rev. Bob Porter, who is priest at Immaculate Conception, hosted a vigil in the religious activities center inside the prison, which he expected a number of inmates to attend. It ended around 8 p.m. when inmates started preparing for lights out.

Porter intended to wait in the prison chapel to be available for Dawson if he wanted to talk before the execution.

Wosepka said he opposes the death penalty because it creates more victims, including those involved in completing it.

“All of these people, we have created all of these victims,” he said. “It's much larger than just the people who are harmed initially and the people who may be members of the family of Dawson or friends of his. It's much bigger than that: It's all of the people who have anything invested in this. Anyone who is awake is a victim.”

Wosepka said he understands Dawson deserves to be penalized because “he's a bad guy, he did something horrible.” But, he said, that does not mean he should be killed by “legal homicide.”

“I don't know him now, but I do know that people change and feelings change,” Wosepka said. “Even though there may be an immediate need for revenge, sometimes we have to stop and we have to back off and we have to let things settle down a little bit and take a new look at the situation. Killing someone in the name of the victim or the name of the people in the state of Montana is just wrong.”

Wosepka has been going into the prison for about 10 years to visit with inmates. Inmates have been quiet about the execution during his recent visits, but it is obvious some are concerned by it, Wosepka said.

He and a group of men from around the state will make one of their regular visits on Sunday. Wosepka said he expects a large group, maybe up to 25 men, to attend this weekend because of the possibility that inmates will need special attention after the execution.

“I don't know what we're going to see when we go in there,” he said.

The conference will stay involved in fighting capital punishment, Wosepka said.

“We are going to be aggressive in our pursuit of abolition of the death penalty,” he said.