In Defense of the Firing Squad, Cont'd.
The facts about capital punishment that I alluded to in yesterday's post are made explicit today in Slate:
Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School who has studied execution methods for nearly two decades, said she'd pick the firing squad if offered Gardner's choice between the two methods. "To me, it seems like the more humane choice," she said.
All of which raises the question: Why did the states drop firing squads in the first place? Death penalty scholars say that legislators tend to like lethal injection because it appears dignified and medical. It also seems to create less media frenzy. When Utah officials were planning the state's most recent firing squad execution, they were met with interest from the international press, repeated comparisons to Old West justice, and a flurry of volunteers offering their services as executioners. Maybe firing squads get people going not just because they're unusual, but because they cater to a certain bloodthirstiness and obsession with guns. And because they seem like a more heroic way to die. In 1996, just before that previous execution, state Rep. Sheryl L. Allen sponsored legislation to phase out the firing squad, saying that it gave the state an image of "brutality."
Appears dignified and medical. (Dignified because medical? There's a dangerous idea.) An image of brutality. Once again, some suddenly regnant impression about what it takes precedence over what really is. It's a terrible way to make policy -- for criminal justice or anything else.
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Jun '10
Re: In Defense of the Firing Squad, Cont'd.
If lethal injection is less humane than a firing squad, what does this imply for the movement to legalize and legitimize euthanasia? If grandma has terminal cancer and doesn't want to be "a burden" on anyone (or the government health plan doesn't want to pay for her treatment) should we give her the option of a firing squad, too?
May '10
Re: In Defense of the Firing Squad, Cont'd.
Only if the bullets have been sterilized.