Executions in the USA

State-sponsored killing is a blight on human progress, not an instrument of civilized justice. The cruelties Clayton Lockett suffered in the 43 minutes leading up to his death in an Oklahoma prison are an indication of this. Lockett suffered terrible agony when the cocktail of drugs administered by lethal injection failed to do its work; the scheduled execution of a second death row inmate immediately afterwards was postponed as a result. The Lockett case highlights the need to rekindle the debate about a legal form of murder that has been done away with in Europe — with the exception of Belarus — and suspended in a significant part of America.

It is not realistic to think of abolition as happening anytime soon, and the “inhumanity” referred to by a White House spokesman also falls well short of the mark. But it is important to support movements that are having some success in weakening U.S. public support for this kind of punishment by highlighting its cruelty, the constitutional doubts surrounding it and the little or no deterrent effect it has on criminal behavior.

Nor is it a matter of simply administering death by another means; the use of the electric chair is still a lawful option in half a dozen states. And, though the victims’ families desire for revenge may be difficult to resist, people need to know that DNA and other tests have led to errors of justice being brought to light, as a result of which 144 people have been released from death row since 1976, the year in which capital punishment was reinstated in the United States.

The death penalty is a long way from reaching the status of an ignominy associated only with barbaric, authoritarian countries: Last year saw more prisoners executed worldwide than the year before, according to Amnesty International. The United States must now join that part of the planet where the death penalty has either been abolished or is no longer applied. Otherwise, the Western world will lack the moral authority to reproach China, Iran or Saudi Arabia for their frequent recourse to the execution of prisoners; or Egypt for the spate of death penalties being imposed; or Brunei for the recent passing of a law allowing adulterers and gays to be stoned to death.

Legal murder is a moral impediment and an anachronism unworthy of evolved societies governed by the rule of law. In other words, a method incompatible with civilization as we understand it.