I was 10 years old, in the juvenile holding cell of the county jail.

I looked down at the floor. There was a perfect square. About four feet by four feet.

A deputy stood in front of me.  Badge, handcuffs and gun: He made an impression. Authority? Power? Yes, I was intimidated.

He explained to me that I was standing on the trap door.  Of the gallows.

Welcome to Great Falls, Montana.

I wasn’t under arrest.  This was a Cub Scout field trip.  A tour of the Cascade County jail, not a museum. It was an active jail. With prisoners.

It was a different time.  Today, it’s unlikely that Cub Scouts would be allowed to tour an active jail. Then, no one thought twice about it. It was the 1960s.

For the adults, it was ordinary. One month it was the TV station, the next the jail. For me, it was life-changing.  I stood inside the machinery of execution.  I was standing in the space built for the condemned.

No one thought that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to take 10-year-olds to the place the government built to hang people. To kill them.

I was introduced to capital punishment as a child.

It wasn’t a political issue. It was a place. It was an experience; a memory seared into me.

We had been taught that the police were our protectors. Our government was good. If we were afraid, look for the man with the badge.

And then I learned that our government kills people. The power of the government was beneath my feet. The machinery of death was part of a room for children.

At age 10, I had never attended a funeral. Never.  I didn’t know how to mourn or grieve.  But I had stood on the trap door of the county gallows.

There were no threats, but still I felt threatened by the room. I had a new understanding of government power.

What did I learn?  I learned that government authority could be used to kill people. Power wasn’t just a gun and a badge. It involves the power to decide who lives and who dies. Government violence changes children.

Today, there are roughly 2,000 people on death row in the United States. Capital punishment is the law in 27 states. In Montana, two men are on death row.

One-hundred forty-five countries have eliminated capital punishment by law or practice. Those who haven’t?  Those believed to execute the most: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United States. It isn’t a place of honor.

Yet, since 1973, at least 203 people on death row have been exonerated. Wrongfully convicted, proven innocent. Some of those exonerations have been through DNA evidence. Others because of recanted testimony, new evidence, or proof of official misconduct. And they were on death row probably for many years. How many people have been executed who were innocent?  People who might be exonerated today with DNA evidence.

If only they were still alive.

There were roughly 84 who were lynched in Montana. “Extrajudicial killings” is the term for them.  Many of those executed were taken by the Vigilantes, the citizens-turned-law enforcement mostly during the state’s territorial days. Add to that 74 government executions, the last three by lethal injection. The last one, David Dawson, died in 2006.

Today, we hear about new execution dates and new executions.  Alabama, Texas, and other states.  It’s often in the news.

How do children learn about our government? Not just from books. From what government does. What it protects. What it destroys.

I learned about our government in a juvenile holding cell.  I was 10.  Looking down at a four-foot square beneath my feet.

I still see that trap door, six decades later. It taught me about government and power. And the abuse of power.