Editorials, Opinions

Our View: Death penalty can never be executed humanely

To hang, or not to hang? That is the question that revolves around the morality of capital punishment in the U.S. Efforts have been made to “humanize” the death penalty, but the alarming execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma has the media and the president questioning the modern lethal injection.

On April 29, Lockett faced mortality in the McAlester death chamber, but it wasn’t the lethal injection that caused his death. Lockett apparently died from a massive heart attack about 40 minutes after the injection. Reuters reported that the heart attack resulted from the new “lethal injection cocktails” used for execution.

MSNBC reported that President Barack Obama said he is deeply troubled by the events in Oklahoma; although he still supports the death penalty, he is re-evaluating the implementation of capital punishment.

We are startled by Lockett’s botched execution, as the media has taken to calling it. It’s easy to think that lethal injection procedures are the “humane” way to conduct an execution, but that might be because we aren’t in the chamber, watching the needle, seeing death face to face.

 Regardless of how executions are implemented, the end result is the same: a convicted criminal dies. It is probably just more comforting for uninvolved Americans to think that lethal injections are a sophisticated alternative to hangings and electric chairs.

Since Lockett apparently suffered for an extended amount of time, from the beginning of the procedure until long after the projected time of death, we must discuss the possibilities of cruel and unusual punishment that this incident has brought to the surface. It may be that there is no way to execute someone in a humane manner.

“We believe that a vein was blown and the drugs weren’t working as they were designed to,” said Jerry Massie, a state corrections department spokesman, according to Reuters. We would fully support an evaluation of capital punishment procedures as a means for producing tangible change in the execution process, although that may not be enough to satisfy our alarm.

Reports indicate that 13 minutes after the lethal injection was administered, Lockett lifted his head and started moaning in pain. The doctor called to stop the execution, however the damage was already set in Lockett’s system, and he was left to wait for death in agonizing pain.

Despite recent reports from Obama, and lawmakers’ efforts to “humanize” the execution process, we believe that Lockett’s case only proves that execution can never be “humanized.” Criminals are sentenced to capital punishment on the certainty that their crimes warrant death. Is it unfair to assume that a crime deserving of death was inhumane? Probably not.

“Lockett was found guilty of conspiracy, first-degree burglary, three counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, three counts of forcible oral sodomy, four counts of first-degree rape, four counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery by force and fear,” according to Associated Press in August 2000, after his trial ended. Perhaps he didn’t die the way the law specifies that he should have, but he died nonetheless.

What is the point of discussing the shortcomings of this particular execution? Lockett was a convicted criminal, and under the law he should have died — and he did.

Rather than concerning ourselves with how to ensure that capital punishment is humane, which it clearly isn’t, we would like to emphasize the purpose of the death penalty as it stands in American law.

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