Lethal Injection: Easier for the Condemned or for the Executioners? (Book Notes: Who Owns Death?)
In Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment, the American Conscience, and the End of Executions, Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell write:
The preference for lethal injection can be explained by its apparent ease, cleanliness, and relative lack of drama. Lethal injection is a quantum jump in medicalization, and in the overall numbing surrounding capital punishment. It is clinical in ways that are familiar to anyone who has ever visited a hospital: there are IV lines, gurneys, a doctor, technicians, prescription drugs. Sedation is the word. "They put you out," a victims' rights advocate in Tennessee explains, "but in this case you never wake up." A Baptist chaplain in Texas who has witnessed almost forty executions calls it "as humane as any form of death you can find. Basically, they go to sleep."
The sleep metaphor suggests that the execution is merciful, peaceful, for the prisoner's own good, as well as society's — like having compassion for a favorite old dog who has turned rabid. When he was governor of California, Ronald Reagan likened lethal injections to putting an injured horse out of its misery — "The horse goes to sleep--that's it."
Serious questions have been raised about how lethal injection works and whether it is truly humane. After all, no one has gone through the process and lived to tell us about it, so it's impossible to know for sure what the person experiences. The same is arguably true about other methods of execution, like electrocution and gas, but we can at least observe the reactions of those undergoing the process and make informed conclusions. With lethal injection, the person is so paralyzed that they can't react at all. We thus have no data on which to base an informed conclusion — we have only guesses about what we think or hope might be happening.
Another interesting question raised by the claim that lethal injection is more humane is why supporters of capital punishment want it to be particularly humane at all. If the condemned person doesn't deserve to live, then why do they deserve to have a death that is clean, simple, quiet, and easy? Capital punishment is often defended on the principle that a person who takes a life should have theirs taken away, but usually the lives taken are done so in a violent and painful manner — so why eliminate all violence and pain in the process of execution? We don't need to argue that the execution should be made deliberately as painful and grotesque as possible; all we need to do is question why authorities would want to go out of their way to eliminate as much pain and suffering as possible.
It is arguable, then, that there is a contradiction in trying to eliminate pain and suffering from the process of execution. Using lethal injection requires treating the condemned prisoners' in a manner inconsistent with how they are usually portrayed by defenders of capital punishment. When the death penalty is defended as just, the image of condemned prisoners is usually that of a rabid animal that must be put down for everyone's safety; when lethal injection is defended, the image of condemned prisoners is that of a poor suffering animal that must be put out of its misery.
Whether death by needle is easier for the executed is an open question, but surely it is easier for the executioners. By wrapping punishment in a therapeutic cloak, the process feels less morally offensive to those who are required to participate, and it is therefore more bearable. There is a deeper issue as well. "The use of a well-known medical tool, general anesthesia, for execution blurs the distinctions between healing and killing, between illness and guilt.," observes Dr. Jerome D. Gorman, a general practitioner in Richmond, Virginia, who has spoken out strongly on the issue.
So, there is a fairly strong basis for thinking that lethal injection makes the process a lot easier for those who have to administer it. Everything is rendered clean and medical, not unlike a hospital or medical clinic, and people are allowed to believe that there is little to no suffering on the part of the condemned. Thus are moral qualms more readily eliminated or at least suppressed which is itself morally dubious. After all, the ultimate goal of the process is the same whether drugs, gas, or electricity is used, so perhaps the process which makes it easier to ignore the moral questions is itself the most morally problematic.
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Comments
When I was a child in the ’30s, we simply threw our garbage into a garbage can, loose and unwrapped, except for newspaper, perhaps. The weekly collection truck was an open dump type truck that stank to high heaven and was mobbed with flies. The guys making the pickup were not envied. For me, capital punishment is “taking out the garbage,” and the easier we make it for the guys doing our dirty work, the better. No flies, no stench, no fired bodies, no broken necks, no bullet holes. Just a fresh dead body. We’ve come a long way.
Theart@webtv.net
I am totally against capital punishment. Killing is wrong. I don’t see that two wrongs make a right. If it is wrong for a person to kill another why is it right for a killing just because it is sanctioned by the state? I readily accept many violent murderous killers have forfeited their right to live but that does not give authorities the right to take their lives.
It amazes me that the US which contains such Christian influence sanctions official murder. The main English speaking countries have all abandoned execution in spite of being much more secular than the US.
Whether a condemned person is executed by being hacked to death with an axe or is given a painless injection is beside the point.
I know the attitude to capital punishment varies from state to state in the US. I would love to see a blanket abandonment in the whole country.
i’m somewhere inbetween Art and Bob. i feel no pity for the prisoner, which is more than he showed his victim. However, execution reeks of “do as I say, not as I do, because daddy said so”. i hated that crap as a kid and as an adult. If ending the life of someone in your mercy is bad for a citizen to do, it is wrong for a government to do. When we execute someone we teach people that getting caught is wrong, not that the killing is wrong.
Right on, Todd. It’s wrong to kill another no matter who pulls the trigger, administers the injection, pulls the switch, or lights the gas.
There are however two conditions within which taking a life is justified in my book. One is the obvious self-defense. The other is a person’s right to die. My body belongs to me, and no church or government has the right to deny me my right to choose my own death.
I’ve heard that some prisoners would prefer the death penalty to a life in prison. They should be granted that right, and perhaps even the method used to kill them.
Marilyn
“Another interesting question raised by the claim that lethal injection is more humane is why supporters of capital punishment want it to be particularly humane at all?……so why eliminate all violence and pain in the process of execution?”
Austin,
I am a little perplexed by this line of reasoning. To make it as painless as possible is the most moral way to execute a person. I myself am ambivalent about the death penalty. I am highly troubled by the possibility of executing an innocent, and the fact that the death penalty is biased in terms of class and “race”. Near absolute certainty is not always attainable. However, there are such horrible and sadistic murders by some that death would seem appropriate. On the other hand, as Epicurus, so wisely pointed out, we have no reason to fear death, because if we live, then death is nothing to us. If we take this seriously, perhaps the death penalty is to easy of a way out for the guilty. Afterall, there is no hell.
Sheldon
Marilyn makes some good points: Gary Gilmore, who murdered two men in cold blood, sued to be executed, and by a firing squad instead of hanging, as I recall. Since, Utah has gone to lethal injection.
Many would argue that life imprisonment, especially in maximum security pens like Pelican Bay, is cruel and unusual punishment.
I don’t see execution as punishment or revenge, but rather, as a sure means of society to protect itself from sub-human garbage. Condemned men HAVE escaped and have murdered guards, staff, and other prisoners. The fact that the death penality may or may not be a deterrent is irrelevant: punishment MAY deter a few, but in 2000, over 100 MILLION jailable felonies and misdemeanors were reported in America, and a estimated 35 MILLION
such crimes went unreported. And THIS in spite of the fact that our jails and prisons are brimming full.
They say that a conservative is a former liberal who got mugged. TheArt@webtv.net
…and a liberal is a former conservative who has been falsely charged with a crime.
Of all those “jailable felonies and midemeanors,” how many were non-violent drug offenses involving small amounts of drugs? You can’t draw any conclusions about the death penalty from the statistics you cite.
Christianity has a long history of death associated with it – both in the old and new testaments – that has shown up in the Crusades, witch trials, inquisition, etc.
I don’t find it surprising that many christians are for the death penalty.
However you feel from a moral standpoint, the death penalty makes little sense from a pragmatic standpoint.
Our justice system is fallible, and it’s documented that we have killed innocent people accidentally. And it’s also documented that it costs more to put somebody to death – because of the huge additional legal costs – than to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives.
The ones who are the most insistant in hanging the Ten Commandments everywhere seem to be the least likely to follow them.
Why is it more moral to execute someone painlessly than painfully? Or, perhaps more to the point, why is it more moral to execute someone painlessly than with just a little pain? The explanation offered must not be able to be used to argue that execution itself is immoral. We need an argument that results in execution being moral, but painless execution being more moral than execution with a little pain.
Enough with the moralizing. Capital punishment is wrong because it gives Republicans a licence to kill. If they had their way, they would murder the poor for jaywalking. Basically, anything that gives Republicans pleasure is suspect. Besides killing a person is a way of hiding evidence-evidence that might get some of them sent up the river.
I am all in favor for capital punishment. You have someone in your family: Your wife, husband, sister, brother, mother, father or even you own child senselessly killed by a ruthless murderer, and see if your views don’t change, see if you don’t want JUSTICE to be served. Closure I guess is what so many are calling it now.
In fact, as a biblical scholar I believe the government should go back to PUBLIC STONING, or even hanging for that matter. The United States has one of the biggest crime rates in the world because of sympathetic hearts and minds that I read here in this column today. Criminals know that they can get away with crime, sure they may get caught, but they know that they will be warm, fed and have a place to sleep if they get caught.
What was it Todd said, Wrong to get caught? It wasn’t wrong to get caught, It was wrong to do the crime in the first place. And the punishment should fit the crime. If a person steels, take their hand, if they kill someone, they should be put to death.
With that being said however, I will say that to convict someone for the death penalty there should be ROCK SOLID evidence. You are right that a few (again FEW) innocent people that have been convicted and sentenced to the death penalty because of slick lawyers on the prosecuting side. I believe to convict someone to the death penalty that there should be no less than 3 eye witnesses and the murder weapon at least. And as far as being racial, that’s a bunch of BULL. More Anglo Americans have been executed over the years than any other race. So I just won’t go there.
Thanks for hearing me out. Love the site.
Are you aware that there are many people in just such a position who are opponents of capital punishment? Quite frequently their position is based upon their understanding of Christian love.
The Bible is irrelevant in matters of criminal law and punishment.
Why is there less violent crime in nations which don’t have the death penalty or which apply it far less often?
Can you cite any evidence of violent criminals engaging in such a calculation before committing a crime?
So, you favor and Islamic system of justice?
Are you aware of the unreliability of eyewitnesses and how often innocent people have been failed due to faulty eyewitness testimony?
Then please do rebut the evidence.
That is true, but it’s also not the whole story. Blacks are executed at far higher rates than their numbers in the population. This is relevant information which you left out. Then there is the fact that a person is more likely to be sentenced to death if their victim is white than if their victim is black. Did you miss this?
Black people are more likely to be put on trial where the death penalty is asked for and given than white people accused of the same sort of crime, even when factoring out things like socioeconomic status. If race isn’t the reason, I’d love for you to explain what is — many (if not most) statisticians and sociologists who study the matter have concluded that race is the key factor so if you have evidence that they are wrong, you can make quite a name for yourself.