In the wake of the botched execution at the “death house” in
the southeastern Oklahoma town of McAlester that occurred between 6:23 and 7:06
p.m. on Tuesday night, April 29th, 2014, the shrill voices of proponents and
opponents of capital punishment are once again being heard throughout the land.
Convinced that capital punishment constitutes due justice, proponents
of legal death have reacted with varying emotions that range from indifference
to gratification over the agony experienced by Clayton Lockett as he painfully
struggled for breath in the wake of the breakdown of the execution process.
Lockett, who was convicted of the 1999 murder of 19-year-old
Stephanie Neiman, had been declared unconscious shortly after 6:30 and doctors
had administered drugs designed to paralyze his breathing and stop his heart. Lockett’s crime was particularly heinous
since he not only bound his victim and inflicted two gunshot wounds into her
innocent body, but then watched two other jerks proceed to bury her alive. Thus, there’s little sympathy among
proponents of state sponsored murder (or from anyone else for that matter) for
Lockett’s approximately 43 minute ordeal.
As for opponents of official state sponsored homicide (of
which I am one), our protest has to do strictly with the poorly planned and
administered execution, not only on the grounds that such treatment is in violation
of the constitution’s Eighth Amendment banning “cruel and unusual punishment,” but
also on the grounds that crime is crime whether committed by the state or by a
mean or crazed killer. However, it is
both appropriate and accurate to assert that even among opponents to capital
punishment, what sympathy or empathy there is in the wake of Lockett’s agony
has to be more circumstantial than personal.
Proponents of capital murder believe its existence is not
only just, but that it sends an effective
message to potential killers that their own lives are on the line should
they use murder to settle their personal scores with individuals or with
society as a whole. Additionally,
proponents are convinced that they and they alone, are sympathetic to the
victims of crime.
Having once favored the death penalty, I became convinced of
a compelling reality after reading Thomas McLendon’s novel called “Death Work.”
Capital punishment isn’t right or wrong; it’s pointless and absolutely irrelevant
to any meaningful human need.
The novel, which was published in early 1977 shortly after
the U.S. Supreme Court approved alterations which it had demanded states apply
to their capital punishment laws, describes the crimes and executions of four
convicts at the Gainesville, Florida state prison where “Old Sparky,” Florida’s
electric chair, resides. Each convict,
one woman and three men, had been justly tried and convicted, three for murder
and one for rape. Their motives ranged
from emotional deprivation and professional political murder to passion-oriented
murder. Frustrated by her husband’s infidelity, a woman murders him and their
three children by grinding nitroglycerin tablets into a serving of mashed
potatoes. A self-absorbed young man is
convicted of capital rape under Florida law.
A Cuban exile, trained by the CIA to fight pro-Castro subversives, is convicted
for firebombing a Miami nightclub and killing 95 patrons in order to eliminate
four pro-Castro agents.
The final convict, a powerfully muscled black man who was
charged with the ax murder of his wife, agrees to go meekly to “Old Sparky” if
guards agree to keep their hands off him. When he gets to the chair he makes a
little speech. In it he acknowledges his
crime and accepts his punishment. He
insists however that his executers understand that their treatment of him is no
different from his treatment of his wife.
He thus asserts that he and the state are ultimately guilty of the same
misconception. Legal death, he has
finally realized, is no more successful at solving humanity’s ills than he was
in solving his own. Thus, he and the
state both have operated under the oldest human illusion, that killing is the most
effective way to permanently rid humankind of its most vexing problems.
The individual passing of Clayton Lockett doubtless
satisfies the proponents of legal death who hold the conviction that humankind
has been purified by the elimination of one "bad apple." Therein lays the illusion!
The only legitimate moment to kill Clayton Lockett would
have been as he was about to commit or as he was in the midst of committing his
crime. As for sending a message to
potential killers, two realities render such logic impotent.
First, most people who commit serious crimes on a powerful level
already see themselves as the victims of outrageous fortune brought on them by
a hostile or unfeeling society. Their
desperation blinds, deafens and numbs their sense of perspective and masks any grasp
of the significance or the severity of consequences.
Second, if fear of death or injury were sufficient to
prevent criminal behavior, those very fears also would likely prevent noble
behavior. Hence, no one would have the capacity to be brave in the face of
danger. Thus the policeman, the fireman and the soldier would not dare to exist. Humankind depends on people's willingness to
lay their well-being and their lives on the line for causes that matter. Ultimately, people do what they do for both
good and bad reasons even in the face of danger.
Meanwhile, we're faced once again with the incredulity of a
botched execution. Proponents and opponents
of legal death bombard us with their legalistic complaints and their angry
sorrow.
As for the benefits society would realize were it to accept
the gifts of the reality described above, a reality in which killing was
replaced by justice, those benefits would be endless.
Sadly, incredulity is preferable. We know how to express our incredulity: its
tools and weapons are at our fingertips. It provides us with the license to be
resentful, angry, and to get even. Reality
however, is a place we only agree to go if we are in control.
Thus, as stated above, the score is: incredulity -- 2,
reality -- zip!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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