Hurlburt slides a leather helmet over Miller’s carefully-shaven head. He also doesn’t know that this, his 140th execution, will be his last. He doesn’t want to do this, to keep on doing it. But he’s gritting his teeth and a thin sheen of sweat adorns his stern face. Hurlburt is calm, impassive, and entirely professional. The electrode is in working order, and the sponge it contains is soaked in brine, just as it should be. But Hurlburt’s disposition betrays nothing as he carefully checks the electrode strapped to Miller’s right leg. The “State Electrician,” John Hurlburt, a grim-faced man in his late fifties, of average height and wearing a dark suit and spotless black shoes, steps forward. The guards quickly seat him, buckling black leather straps round his limbs and torso. Prisoner Julius Miller, with four guards as well as the chaplain in tow, just walked twenty paces from the pre-execution waiting cells, called the “Dance Hall,” to the legendary “Death House.” He’s standing next to the electric chair inmates long ago nicknamed “Old Sparky.” The inmates are locked down for the night, unable to leave their cells. It’s eleven p.m. on Thursday, Septem– “Black Thursday” to the residents of Sing Sing prison in New York’s Hudson Valley.
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