I Am Ready, Warden (2024)

Nobody has been executed here in the UK since 1948 so it's quite difficult to get my head around a society that not only still condones state killings but, more disgustingly from my perspective, has a television programme called "Execution Watch". This short documentary follows the last week of John Henry Ramirez who has spent years on death row for a killing he openly admitted. Now he has found Christ and the new DA has requested that the death penalty be commuted to life without possibility of parole. It's not because he's a Christian that he has asked for this, but more because he has his own moral objections to this whole process of punishment. This new approach has it's supporters and detractors and we hear from both - including the murdered man's family. It's presented clumsily and as if it were an hastily cobbled together news feature - complete with repeated soundbites and lingering photography that made it look more like a staged drama than a serious look at how people deal with something quite this visceral when it touches their lives. There's always going to be debate about this ultimate penalty, but I am afraid this does little to inform that discussion and is really quite disappointing.