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May 10, 2006
What's the best way to kill a killer?
The life sentence imposed on the soon-to-be-forgotten terrorist last week in Federal Court made moot the question of how best to execute him, especially in light of recent moves by appellate courts to rule that nearly every method in the modern arsenal is unconstitutional, a violation of the 8th Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishments.
Most recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that California's lethal injection was an impermissible violation of the 8th Amendment, because the lethal cocktail might cause the condemned man some pain before it killed him.
Let's take a moment to reflect on the profound wisdom of the Ninth Circuit.
You go ahead; I'm going to have a drink and a smoke -- let me know when you're done.
. . . .
That was quick.
Anyhow, the idea that we mustn't inflict any pain or discomfort in the course of an execution is risible, but then, most of the Ninth Circuit's views on the law tend to be laughable. A similar decision out of Florida is being considered by the Supreme Court, and I expect lethal injection will soon have the High Court's seal of approval.
That fact notwithstanding, there are other, more . . . traditional methods that are swift, sure, and relatively painless. Hanny Hindi has an interesting roundup over at Slate.
Dr. Joseph Guillotin's "simple mechanism" for decapitation always worked as intended. The prisoner facing the guillotine was placed face-down on a large wooden plank, their head secured in a brace and steadied by an executioner's assistant known as "the Photographer," who held onto their hair (or, in the case of bald prisoners, their ears). When everything was in place, a 120-pound blade was dropped from 7 feet in the air, immediately severing the prisoner's head.
The guillotine was extremely bloody, but, unlike the garrote—or modern lethal injections—it never missed.
The "extremely bloody" results of the guillotine's use don't usually bother the condemned; it's the witnesses that are presumably disturbed by the crimson fountain, brief though its gouting display may be. That's a common criticism of other relatively quick, painless methods of providing a quick transition from this world to the next: they're too . . . gross, too likely to upset the crowd's digestion.
Which is really the problem with the death penalty. As I've stated before, I'm not a huge fan of state-sanctioned executions. But if we, as a society, favor the imposition of the ultimate punishment, we ought to have the decency to watch with unblinking eyes and witness what we have sought, required and imposed.
To try and make an execution approximate a medical procedure, with all the trappings of the healing profession is -- to be frank -- cowardly.
The pursuit of less "cruel" methods of execution is not new; it was Dr. Guillotin's inspiration for designing the lethal machine that bears his name.
The Slate article discusses a search by an American blue-ribbon panel from the late 19th Century for a more modern, enlightened way to execute prisoners.
Precisely such a method can be found in the 1888 report of the "Gerry Commission." The governor of New York formed this commission to find a "humane and efficient" alternative to hanging. Their final report suggested electrocution, but not before reviewing every method used in the past, from "Auto da fè," to "Wild beasts." For a method that instantly destroys all the body's pain receptors, consider the fourth item in their exhaustive and pedantic list. A paraphrase wouldn't do it justice:
4) Blowing from a cannon ... "The insurgent Sepoy, lashed to the cannon's mouth, within two seconds of pulling the trigger, is blown into 10,000 atoms." "Here," [the witness] adds, "is no interval for suffering, as no sooner has the peripheral sensation reached the central perceptive organ than that organ is dissipated to the four winds of heaven."
The report dismissed such "barbarisms" as unworthy of consideration, and it's hard to disagree. But then the commission also objected to the garrote, the guillotine, and the firing squad as "needlessly shocking to the necessary witnesses." It was a short step from here to the needless complexity and fallibility of the electric chair, and simple and effective methods have been passed over ever since in favor of self-serving displays of "humanity."
There's something guffaw-inducing about the idea that we mustn't strap a man to the muzzle of a cannon -- guaranteeing him an completely painless death -- because of the mess it'll make.
So, you see, it's not really about minimizing the condemned man's pain.
It's all about minimizing our guilt and nausea.
There are other, less extreme variations on the Sepoy Mutineers' fate; as detailed in the Slate article, the Chinese are experts at the application of a pistol round into the back of the head, causing near-instantaneous brain death.
The bottom line is -- as usual -- that the courts have gotten it all wrong. What's really cruel and unusual about the way we've chosen to impose the death penalty is how much effort we've put into making it seem like a clinical, antiseptic procedure.
Death should come with fall through a trapdoor and a twitching dance at the end of a rope; with a target pinned to the chest as riflemen take careful aim; as the blade races down the guides towards the waiting neck.
And we should watch, in a public setting, and think about what we've done, remember the victims, avenging their loss, that criminals who might contemplate inflicting a violent death on innocents will not enjoy the painless death they would deny their prey.
*****
A final (macabre) thought. Did you ever wonder how long consciousness remains after the blade falls? The answer is deeply disturbing.
Posted by Mike Lief at May 10, 2006 12:06 AM
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Comments
The living eyes story linked under 'deeply disturbing' is horrible, impossible, frightening and totally intriguing. Not to be crass, but that would make for great reading on Halloween night. Right before bobbing for apples or something.
Posted by: Vermont Neighbor at May 14, 2006 01:00 PM