So this morning I saw the headline, "botched execution results in inmate's accidental death," and my first thought was, "Huh?...did they accidentally kill the wrong guy??" No, the story is a little stranger, and disturbingly highlights the peculiarities of human sensitivities. They got the right guy, but the reported horror of this story is that the man died in 40mins rather than 6mins, and reportedly suffered for that time. Sure, I can understand how that would be horrific... but is it really that much more horrific than when things go right? I really have very little opinion on the death penalty, because what would I know? But here's my general impression of what we as a society have accepted is a reasonable practice: some 6-12 people, who've never met the guy (could be a gal, but I'm going to keep writing in the masculine form), decide whether he is to be killed, based on the arguments presented by two parties whose sole responsibilities are to win, regardless of their own moral apprehensions. Then if found guilty, the man is strapped to a table in front of a live audience, for which there is a specific guest list, and murdered... gently.
I can understand thinking the whole thing is horrific, and I can understand thinking it's all very well justified, but what I can't understand is how those who find the whole practice to be generally acceptable would find it SO much less justifiable for the man, who is apparently too evil to live, to suffer before dying. I listened to a reporter who was present at the execution give her sanctimoniously appalled account of events, and the only thing I could think was, "...and your chosen career path is to watch people be murdered...?" Then some other expert came on talking about how offensive it is that in some executions the prisoner dies from excessive anesthesia, and rather than just throwing away the extra chemicals, they are disposed of into the body for which they were intended. To clarify, injecting lethal chemicals into an already dead body = offensive, injecting lethal chemicals into a living body = totally ok.
We joke about the horrors of knowing what goes into the sausage, but it never occurred to me to ask what goes on in the minds of those who make the sausage... and what do they find to be offensive?
