Lee Hartman served as a flight surgeon in the China-India-Burma (CBI) Theater during World War II. He and his twin brother, Sam Hartman, grew up at New Orleans Jewish Children’s Home and both went on to graduate from Louisiana State University’s medical school.



After the war, Hartman worked as a general practitioner (GP) for over a decade before deciding to train as a psychiatrist. In 1957, he moved to Houston and enrolled in the Baylor College of Medicine. After qualifying, he worked with the Wynne Treatment Center, a diagnostic unit for mentally ill inmates, in Huntsville prison. On 14 occasions, he was the doctor present at the execution of an inmate and recorded their body's response to electric shocks and their eventual time of death. This work affected Hartman greatly and he wrote down his thoughts about each case and his own arguments against the use of capital punishment. He also conducted medical experiments on inmates to discover the effects on LSD and other drugs on those regarded as mentally ill.



Lee Hartman suffered from depression for much of his life and his condition was exacerbated by what he witnessed at Huntsville.



Hartman died on 10 February 1964. He had taken an overdose of morphine. He was survived by his wife Nona, his daughters Sara and Marie, and his son Lee E Hartman Jr.



His grandson Ben Hartman writes: 'I don’t know what role his time in Huntsville played in my grandfather’s death. On his headstone in Austin are four simple words: “scholar and compassionate healer.” That was the man I set out to find after my father’s death, and what I’ve pieced together is a picture of a troubled, brilliant man who showed great care for others – if not always for himself.'



Read Ben Hartman's article about his grandfather's life here: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/07/05/my-grandfather-was-death-row-do…