Nine programmes from the BAFTA award-winning documentary series Circuit Eleven Miami.
4: In Britain today support outside Parliament for the resumption of hanging has strengthened. Four years ago in Florida the same process was at work-in 1979 the first murderer for 15 years was strapped into the electric chair. Florida's electric chair was made in 1924 out of local wood by the prisoners themselves. They call it ' Old Sparky But Old Sparky ' had not been used for 15 years, and more than 130 prisoners had built up on the Death Row of Florida's State Penitentiary.
So when JUDGE FULLER, filmed in his courtroom, intoned the awe-some formula of death on mass murderer John Errol Ferguson in 1978, there was something almost academic about the sentence ... Except that change was in the air, in the form of a new Governor. elected on a mandate to tighten up on law and order. In Florida, as here, the issue of capital punishment divides. In the abolition lobby stands paradoxically a man who has signed more death warrants than any other Florida Governor - EX-GOVERNOR COLLINS. On the other side is a man who considers the process humane and dignified - ' Mr Mac *, retired PRISON INSPECTOR MCCLENDON - who has officiated at 114 electrocutions, more than any other living American.
Executive producer ROGER MILLS
Producer MARK ANDERSON * Subtitles on Ceefax page 270