A Postscript to Capital Punishment: Now and in the Future

   The papers and the internet are full of comments, mostly—but not all!—indignant, about the “botched execution” in Omaha.  And justifiably so.  Most seem to agree that what happened violated the constitutional proscription of cruel and unusual punishment.  And so it certainly seems.  Opponents of the death penalty, of which I am one, are correctly pointing to this case as the latest example that you can never get it right.  Much has been tried: hanging, firing squad, guillotine, electric chair, injections of drugs.  All have been found wanting.  The Omaha case is not the first “unsuccessful” drug-induced execution, so that it is only the latest unsuccessful attempt to get those executions right. 

     Lot’s of people are upset about these events.  But I am doubtful that this horror has persuaded many to change their basic views and  come to oppose the death penalty altogether.  Do a better job solving the problem is the American, the pragmatic injunction.  Still, one hopes that there will be some who see that it can never be done right.  Much has been written about the mechanics of execution; not much has been said about the mental torture of knowing that tomorrow I will be put to death.

   Opponents of capital punishment will certainly welcome negative votes motivated by this impossibility of getting it right whenever a vote for or against the death penalty is called for  But it should not be forgotten that there are still deeper moral reasons why even the state—or should I say, especially the state—should not take the life of a human being.  The Sixth Commandment does not allow for exceptions.