An Executioner’s Task

Michael Selsor will soon die by homicide.

The US Supreme Court this week declined to hear the Oklahoma death row inmate’s case. When I interviewed Selsor in 2010, he seemed resigned to his execution. This week’s decision removed its final legal hurdle.

If calling Selsor’s death by lethal injection homicide sounds loaded, then I suggest you complain to the State of Oklahoma.

Upon Selsor’s passing, the state will issue a death certificate as it does for every person who dies in Oklahoma. For Micheal Selsor the cause of death will be listed as homicide, a fact that the head of the Oklahoma prison system, Justin Jones, admitted was “ironic” when I interviewed him for this episode of Fault Lines.  

I plan to attend Selsor’s execution if I’m in the country, a decision that has stirred quite a debate among my colleagues.

I believe one of the most important responsibilities of a journalist is to bear witness – especially to such grave events where so very few are allowed entry.

Yet I dread doing this.

Selsor, condemned for murdering a convenience store clerk, Clayton Chandler, during a robbery 37-years ago, told me he had not had a visitor in ten years. I doubt many, if any, family members or supporters will witness his killing.

I wonder if after all this time Chandler’s surviving family members will come to see the sentence carried out?

I imagine it will be a little-attended, quiet affair. An executioner’s task. A scheduled homicide in the name of justice for an electorate who demands, but will hardly even notice, it.