How To Kill A Killer Chapter 1247 (or so)

"Add Nitrogen to the list of humane ways to kill."

The Oklahoma Legislature sent a bill to the Governor authorizing the use of Nitrogen Gas as a method of execution if the Supreme Court declares the previous humane method to be unconstitutional (or if they can't find the drugs for lethal injection).

I'm not particularly excited about the Death Penalty, nor am I against it. I couldn't help pausing today to consider how many ways governments throughout history have found to execute people. The list is long and gruesome. I think that the way the death penalty is carried out makes no sense.

If the object of Capital Punishment is as a deterrent, or for revenge or justice or some attempt to set right the actions of the condemned, a humane death is not really important. The punishment should match the crime, and the convicted should suffer as much or more than the victim. The deterrent impact would be stronger if the punishment were more painful or grotesque. But that doesn't seem to be what the death penalty is about in the U.S.

So what is it about? Making sure that the criminal never harms anyone else? If that's the case, many more crimes should be punished by death. (And they are in other cultures and throughout history.)

I think that the death penalty really is about revenge, retribution, justice, etc. But we don't want to admit that. We want to pretend that the object is something else - something undefined, but good and right nonetheless. But it's hard to feel sorry for the criminal.

When the jury system was instituted, the concept of an impartial jury was not part of the deal. In 1780, a jury of your peers would have been people from your town that knew you and your family. They would decide your fate not from an impartial legal perspective, but from personal experience with the accused and his background. Then the sentence would be carried out in public for all to see.

I think I'm okay with someone losing his life if he kills somebody else. I just don't want the government to do it. If the government has the right to kill any of us, they can kill all of us if they want to. I think I want to work to make that as hard as possible for vote-seeking politicians and over achieving district attorneys.

Locking people up for the rest of their lives seems like the worst possible answer - for the State and the criminal. Letting them come back into society is not an option. Killing them may indeed be the best of the available bad answers.

Can't we all just get along?