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Jewish World Review April 18, 2001 / 25 Nissan 5761
Philip Terzian
Timothy McVeigh, who is not a very interesting person in his own right,
makes an interesting case. He is scheduled to die next month, the first
federal prisoner to be executed since 1963, and his death will be
"witnessed" by families of victims through closed-circuit television. If he
were so inclined, he could delay his date with death for years on end by
appealing the sentence, or challenging the validity of his conviction; but
he refuses to do so. Evidently, he welcomes his punishment as a kind of
martyrdom, and the law will oblige him. To some, this constitutes an
outrageous manipulation of the machinery of capital punishment; to others,
it is simply good riddance.
Mr. McVeigh is a hard case for critics of capital punishment. Not only
did his wanton act result in the death of 168 innocent people, including 16
children, but he seems to take a certain pride in his achievement, coolly
describing the dead children as "collateral damage." Even opponents will
concede that, if there is a rational case to be made for capital punishment,
Timothy McVeigh is what proponents have in mind. Whether his execution will
deter future mass murderers I cannot say, but people are certainly justified
in demanding the ultimate punishment.
I suspect many Americans have a certain ambivalence about capital
punishment. It is, of course, applied unevenly: You can be executed in Texas
for bumping off your partner in crime, and you can kill two dozen people in
Rhode Island without fear of the ultimate sanction. I have misgivings about
granting the government the power to put people to death -- it exercises
more than enough power already -- and I certainly don't relish the mechanics
of the deed. But it seems reasonable to suppose that certain murders are so
horrific, and certain murderers so diabolical, that execution seems
appropriate. The notion that the act of detaining someone, and then putting
them to death, is ugly is self-evident: The punishment fits the crime.
Until relatively recently in human history, executions were public
spectacles, designed as a combination of education and entertainment. In our
enlightened times, executions have been carried out in relative seclusion,
seen only by prison officials and a handful of witnesses, mostly reporters.
There are several reasons for this. No doubt, the gruesome aspects of
hanging, shooting, decapitation, etc. were considered unseemly in time. And
as belief in an afterlife has declined, execution may also be seen as
extermination, rather than a speedier date with divine judgment.
Opponents have always argued that, if the state is going to kill people,
it ought not to be ashamed of the fact, and executions should be publicized.
They seem to believe that Americans would be horrified by the sight of
extinguishing a condemned man, but I am not so sure. Public executions used
to delight their audience, and human nature is not much changed. Timothy
McVeigh is a case in point. I have no doubt that a crowd, outside the walls
of the penitentiary, will celebrate his death, and some of the relatives of
his victims wish to see McVeigh expire to bring "closure" to their mourning.
Accordingly, they petitioned Attorney General John Ashcroft, who had
been disinclined to televise the execution as an affront to civil dignity.
But after meeting with the relatives, Mr. Ashcroft changed his mind, saying
that he could not refuse them in the face of their evident distress. For
this he has been much pilloried in the press: "Ashcroft," says Washington
Post columnist Richard Cohen, "is an American Taliban who retired his mind
from active duty years ago."
I don't know whether the Attorney General made the right decision or
not. You can argue that the potential for mischief is too great, and a
solemn moment is in danger of being converted into embarrassment. I am
fairly certain that, under comparable circumstances, I would not wish to see
Timothy McVeigh, dead or alive. Yet if the state presumes to take the life
of a criminal, how can it justify barring victims from watching the law take
its course? The point about capital punishment is not that it is vengeance
in action, or a suitable deterrent, or government caprice, but punishment
for behavior too abhorrent to tolerate. The fact that it stirs up emotion,
lends itself to exploitation, or inspires unseemly instincts, is too bad,
but beside the point. Who are we to tell these people how best to assuage
their
04/05/01: Stamp of disapproval
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