Of the case of Timothy McVeigh makes it difficult for even the most ardent opponent of capital punishment. Here is a man who murdered 168 people and injured almost 700 others when he blew up a government building in Oklahoma City in 1995. It was the worst act of peacetime violence on American soil. Last night (Australian timed) he was executed by lethal injection at Indiana’s Terre Haute penitentiary. He showed no remorse. Worse, he described his victims as collateral damage.
Perhaps worst cases could be imagined – – such as multiple murders on different occasions, or murders involving long and drawn-out deaths. Nevertheless, the McVeigh case must stand as one of the very worst when one considers crime and punishment as an exercise in dealing with threats to society.
However horrific his crime, however obvious his guilt, and however lacking in remorse he is, the question of whether the state is justified in taking human life as a form of punishment, retribution or deterrence remains. The problem is that opponents of capital punishment will face the obvious question, “Well what do you do in cases like Timothy McVeigh?” It makes it difficult for those who oppose capital punishment. However, the answer must be “life imprisonment”. This is because once the state starts on the execution path for any case, however horrific, it betrays the principles of the sanctity of life. The pre-meditated taking of human life can at only lessen the stature of the state and its citizens – they lower themselves to the murderer’s level. The state’s taking of a life appeals to the baser emotions of its people. It appeals to the vengeful and the violent. And it excludes the better emotions of mercy, compassion and the hope for redemption.
The United States is a lesser nation because of its widespread application of capital punishment. Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976 after a four-year moratorium, the US has carried out 543 lethal injections, 149 electrocutions, 11 gassings, three hangings and two shootings by firing squad. And the rate is steadily increasing. More worrying is the fact that far more black and Hispanic Americans are executed proportionately than white Americans. There is widespread concern about the lack of quality of legal representation of people on death row. And recent developments in DNA technology have revealed at least 13 cases on death row of innocent people (since freed) and other cases where probably innocent people have been killed. There is a worrying trend in the US for an increasing number of the mentally retarded and people who committed their crimes under the age of 18 to be executed. Often people are executed after a decade or more in prison. Too frequently, state governors and legislators allow populism to defeat calls for clemency.
McVeigh’s execution was the first under federal law since 1963. Federal legislators have unnecessarily joined the law and order brigade and increased the number of federal crimes which carry the death penalty. And a more federal prosecutors are asking for its application. The trouble is that Timothy McVeigh does not represent the typical federal death-row case. More typical is the black or Hispanic prisoner disadvantaged by poor legal representation, racism, poverty, mental affliction and lack of education.
The US pays a price for its application of the death penalty. It is morally diminished in the eyes of other nations, particularly the Europeans. And there is no indication that the death penalty is any deterrent. Indeed, the murder rate remains and changed.
Australia must avoid going down this path.