“But secondly you say ‘society must exact vengeance, and society must punish’. Wrong on both counts. Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God,” wrote Victor Hugo in The Last Day of a Condemned Man.
The US, 2014: capital punishment still exists in full fervour in 32 out of 50 states; shocking, cruel and unusual. On April 29, 2014 in the state of Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett, a death row inmate, died after suffering a heart attack due to a failed execution by lethal injection. That is not all. He was administered an untested mixture, a ‘cocktail’ so to speak, of drugs previously untested for executions in the US. The execution was halted but Lockett died 43 minutes after that fact, during which time he went through excruciating pain, convulsed, tried to rise from the execution table 14 times….in short, a nightmare was in progress. The reason behind what has commonly been called now a ‘botched execution’ was due to the fact that many European companies that provide a necessary drug known as Propofol (largely used as a sedative and anaesthetic) for the lethal cocktail have ceased to provide it for purposes of lethal injections as the European Union (EU) is staunchly against the death penalty. The EU has enacted strict export controls on a number of drugs. The European Commission announced in December that it wanted to ensure none were being sold for use in “capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.
In the past, the US executed people using the electric chair or even by firing squad. Some states such as Virginia still use the electric chair. What was shockingly surprising after the mess and embarrassment of Lockett’s botched execution was that instead of reviewing and contemplating seriously the cruelty of the death penalty, what some states have decided to do is to choose other methods, those methods used in the past, to continue practicing it! Some states have started to decide on bringing back the electric chair and…yes, even the firing squad. Other methods of execution were used less and less and a there grew a preference for lethal injections over the years as it was considered a more ‘humane’ form of executing death row inmates. The question is: is there anything ‘humane’ about killing a human being, no matter what his crime is and no matter how guilty he is? It is baffling to even think that anyone with a sane mind could consider anything humane in the execution of another human being. Not to mention that it is common practice in a US execution to allow members of the victims’ families to sit in and watch the spectacle, as apparently this process provides some sort of catharsis and closure to the family members and loved ones of the victim. No, this is not medieval Europe when public executions were probably one of the biggest sources of entertainment for the masses. This is the US in 2014. Enough said?
A very interesting and heart wrenching article recently published by a human rights lawyer aptly pointed out that while the US is at it, why not widely nationally televise executions for the entire country to witness? The point being, where does this madness end? Where is the line drawn and will it ever be drawn? What does it say about a society and its core values when it can condone the wilful killing of human beings and join together to actually witness it to achieve a sense of relief and closure? In countries where the death penalty has been abolished, do families of victims not manage to deal with their grief? What seems clear from this is that a society becomes accustomed to what is allowed to it. There is no more reason for Americans to actually physically witness the killing of the person who has caused their family harm and for American society to extract justice in doing so any more than for instance, in Europe. Granted, we are not talking about the execution of an innocent person with regards to Lockett. He was accused of kidnapping, beating and burying alive a young woman. Such atrocious crimes should obviously never go unpunished and thank goodness the perpetrator was caught. However, the quintessential question that arises with regards to the matter of capital punishment is this: is it the least bit moral, logical, humane or even normal to murder a human being who has murdered or committed a crime? Do two wrongs make a right? The Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments, including torture. The US Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause also applies to the states. A great deal has been said about the Eighth Amendment following Lockett’s execution. However, has it thus far been applied? Not really. There is absolutely no doubt that “cruel and unusual” only begins to describe what the death penalty entails. There is no morality or dignity in a form of justice, or lack of it, which finds any legality or normality in murdering human beings on the pretext of obtaining that justice.
The writer is an English and French professor and columnist residing in the US and France. She can be reached at [email protected]