George Little, Tennessee Correction Commissioner, maintains that ''we would argue things have worked as intended ... in terms of the handling of the various groups, in terms of accommodating the various witnesses and in terms of ensuring security.''
At the present time, Texas, Virginia, Florida and Oklahoma, the four states with the greatest number of executions, have changed their execution hours to afternoon and evening, meanwhile Missouri, another large volume execution state, still follows the tradition of late night executions. Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, offers that ''Texas changed its execution time in 1995, moving it from midnight to 6 p.m. or later to ease the pressure on lawyers filing late appeals and the judges who must rule on them.'' Lyons adds that ''access to the courts is not easy for them to have at midnight or 2 a.m.''
In 1997, the former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stated ''I think dispensing justice at that hour of the morning is difficult, to say the least, and we have an obligation ... to give our best efforts in every one of these instances.''
Up until the 1930s, when the U.S. stopped the long standing tradition of public hangings, executions were done during daylight hours. After that, executions were performed indoors and hangings were dropped in favor of the electric chair. In 2001, Ohio abolished midnight execution to reduce expenses in overtime pay for prison workers.
John Bessler, a visiting associate professor at George Washington University Law School, acknowledges ''There was a belief by officials and leaders that these (public) executions were brutalizing society.'' Bessler, author of ''Death in the Dark: Midnight Executions in America, adds, ''There was pick pocketing at these public executions, thefts and sometimes violence. They were trying to get rid of the mob atmosphere that attended these public executions.
According to Commissioner Little, ''Tennessee's first modern execution in 2000 was scheduled at 1 a.m. partly because prison officials weren't sure how the inmate population would react.'' Little acknowledged that performing execution at an early hour enables the state to perform multiple numerous executions in one day if required. Presently, the state of Tennessee has three more executions to perform this year and all are scheduled to take place after the midnight hour.
