They put a man to death… he died at 9.11 last night

Why, when we have bravely and nobly progressed so far in the recent past to create a decent, humane society, must we perpetuate the senseless barbarism of official murder?

– Abe Fortas (1910-1982), former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, New York Times.

The DC sniper was executed at 9.00 pm last night. Reports on Twitter reveal the irony of his death being announced at 9.11 pm. A quick trawl through Twitter posts under the #DC Sniper tag on Twitter reveals very mixed responses from the delighted and retributive to responses from those staunchly opposed to the death penalty.  There was even one tweet where a person staunchly opposed to the death penalty appeared to make an exception for this case.

I am opposed to the death penalty. Quite apart from  the very real possibility of human fallibility, the possibility that an innocent man could be put to death by the inherent imperfection of any judicial process – it reduces us to the level of barbarians and there can, for me, be no solace in the fact that such execution is democratically ordained and sanctioned by the State.

The death penalty has been abolished in several states in the USA.  A quick look at death penalty quotations from judges on Google throws up some interesting views. Judges, in the main, appear not to approve of the death penalty.

I recall sitting in the Selangor Club in Kuala Lumpur some 15 years ago, while visiting Malaysia on business, talking to a Malaysian High Court judge who I had known for some time. He had sentenced four people to death that very day – for drug offences.  He had no alternative but to apply the law of Malaysia.  He found the the matter profoundly depressing and quite apart from the fact that the death penalty was clearly not a deterrent in drug (or any other cases) he believed it was contrary to morality for the state to put anyone to death.  He felt it diminished the state.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice: “People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty … I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial.”

Arthur J. Goldberg (1908-1990), former Supreme Court Justice: “The deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the dignity of the human personality.”