Capital Punishment

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

The media have recently focused on the execution in Alabama of Kenneth Smith by nitrogen inhalation. An expert on capital punishment said, “Pain for two to four minutes, particularly when you are talking about somebody who’s suffocating to death- that’s a really long period of time and a torturous period of time.” A reporter and eyewitness of the execution wrote that Mr. Smith began “thrashing against the straps on the gurney at 7:57PM…his whole body and head violently jerking back and forth for several minutes.” Then he “began heaving and by 8PM, he was still gasping for air…” 

Now this is grim but misses the main point: capital punishment is inherently cruel no matter how it is carried out, and no more effective than incarceration as a deterrent. Furthermore, it denies the possibility of a human being redeeming himself through education, contrition, and acts of charity. 

27 states in the US as well as the federal government have the death penalty. 23 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have abolished the death penalty. Maine got rid of it in 1887. The US stands alone in its use of the death penalty among economically developed Western democracies. We must ask ourselves why. 

Sources: The New York Times, 1/26/24, Wikipedia