I’m watching The Green Mile and thought of two things that I’ve missed before. I haven’t read the book(s); maybe this is explained there.
Melinda Moores, the warden’s wife, was subjected to Coffey’s powers just like Paul and Mr Jingles. Did she live for a really long time too, you think?
During the botched execution of Delacroix, at least one of the guards is clearly shown to be carrying a gun. Wouldn’t he have shot Del in the head or heart the moment he realized what was going on?
A third question: How likely is it that a black man who raped and killed two little girls and was found by a mob of hillbillies in a southern state in 1935 would survive to see trial, incarceration and eventual execution? Isn’t it vastly more likely that they’d just see justice done then and there?
There’s an old Law and Order episode which illustrates this point quite well: If you saw a woman falling from a skyscraper, certain to die when she hit the ground, and you shot her as she fell, you would be guilty of murder. It does not matter that she was going to die anyway. You did a deliberate act which ended her life.
Just because a guard has authority over the prisoner does not give him the right to kill him to end his suffering. He was not the executioner. He was there to make sure the prisoner underwent the punishment ordered by the state.
I had a copy of *The Green Mile * handy and found a few things…
Melinda Moore lived 10-11 more years, died of a heart attack and outlived her husband by two years. There is more emphasis on her surviving the cancer in the first place and no mention that she had a remarkable state of health afterward.
I agree with Lissa- it would be illegal to intervene in an execution in that way.
Lastly, I don’t know how he avoided being lynched but I have a couple of theories. The book mentions that the father of the girls was present when they found him and did attack John Coffey. The sheriff or deputy was there and stopped the attack. John Coffey was basically bawling, and was such a huge big man that the scene must have been very strange to them. Perhaps so strange that they didn’t think to lynch him- if that makes sense. The sheriff/deputy “knew his job” and would have protected the prisoner from a lynch mob.
Really? This is maybe more of a GQ type question, but has this ever been tested in court? The way I see it, the prisoner has already undergone the punishment ordered by the state; it doesn’t say anything about slowly burning up.
You mention “He was not the executioner”. But the executioner was present, of course, and presumably armed (and even if not, quite able to take another guard’s gun). I assume the guy behind the screen who throws the switch is the executioner; could he have shot Del?
But Del was sentanced to die by electric chair, not by gunshot. The executioner would be interefering with that if he were to shoot Del, and, yes, I still think it would technically be murder to shoot him before the execution was completed.
Legally speaking, nothing went wrong with the execution-- as Paul says, “It was a successful execution,” meaning that Del did die in the electric chair as ordered. That he suffered is immaterial as far as the law goes.
If a condemned prisoner tries to kill themselves right before the execution, the prison has to do everything in its power to save him/her. If he has to go to the hospital to be patched up, they’ll delay the execution until he’s/she’s healthy again.
I don’t have a copy handy but I seem to remember that the specific reason that Mr. Jingles and Paul lived extended lives was that Coffee had “given” a bit of himself to Jingles to resurrect him - more than just taking away a sickness, he had to give life, and that he had also imparted that same small bit of himself when he gave Paul the view of what had happened that day with the girls. Had Coffee only cured Paul’s “plumbing problems” he probably would not have lived any longer.