Death Row: 1,000 Served Since 1976

“It has been said that all of Oklahoma was a victim of the bombing. Can all Oklahoma watch?”

So wrote Timothy McVeigh in March 2001 in a published statement while on death row for the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma. Should his request have been honored? Or did Attorney General John Ashcroft make the proper decision to only provide closed circuit viewing for victims’ families?

When discussing the vagaries of convicted mass-murderers, it’s usually beneficial to defer to the judgment of those who have been deprived of sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers as opposed to granting wishes to a man who with a single detonation destroyed 168 lives (including 19 children), sending shockwaves into hundreds of others and the psyche of an entire nation. It seems hard to believe that anyone who was victimized by the Oklahoma City bombing would agree to endorse even a nominal wish of the man who perpetrated the horror. And this position is at least obliquely supported by the fact that only 15% of eligible victims opted to watch the limited broadcast.

However, such an event would certainly be newsworthy through shear novelty. By current standards, a man incasing himself in a block of ice in Times Square musters national coverage, while there has never been a televised execution in this country and the days of public hangings ended in the 1930’s. Today, public access to witness a man put to death by the state for the nation’s most egregious example of domestic terrorism would likely garner huge ratings. And yet, regardless of whether or not networks would participate in a live broadcast, air an edited tape or stills for news coverage, concoct some avaricious pay-per-view, or allow live web-streaming, the news value would be superceded by what would be for the great majority of Americans nothing more (or less) than a ghoulish, sensationalistic spectacle.

In the late 19th century, the celebratory nature of public hangings prompted the coining of the word “gala,” derived from “gallows.” Today, it is not difficult to imagine large-screen televisions in bars packed with beer-swilling yahoos cheering on a man’s electrocution and chomping on pretzels while “Born To Be Wild” plays on the jukebox. Is this dignified behavior in a civilized nation on the solemn occasion of putting one of its citizens to death? The certainty of internet outlets digitizing and storing the moment for incalculable future audiences, only further devalues to gawking what should be simply shared witness to the gravest consequence of the most heinous crimes.

This is hardly a matter of journalistic ethics. The question is not the responsibility of news organizations that would capitalize on the ratings of public capital punishment or legitimately stand behind its newsworthiness, but the government that would permit it. Charged with formulating and enforcing the law, the government has the more fundamental covenant to keep with the common good.

As an example of such justification, proponents submit a televised execution would provide visceral advertising of the ultimate deterrent. However, if the discussion is limited to premeditated mass murderers like McVeigh, who can argue that other fanatics willing to die for a cause would be deterred in the slightest? Even before the harsh lessons learned by the evil mélange of hatred, militant extremism and large explosions on September 11, 2001, it was clear that a determined individual unafraid to die would not be impeded by anything. Certainly not by an execution sponsored by a state he has sworn to destroy, or by that state’s decision to turn his demise into a media show. For such deluded extremists looking to send a message, who is to say it would not be the ultimate prize to commit a comparably outrageous crime with the promise of similar globally televised or webcast infamy? One need only look at the rash of teenage school shooting copycats of recent years to see this pernicious fallout in action.

The only true justification for the execution—not the broadcast, but simply the actual execution—is retribution and the rights of those he has hurt to know that he paid the definitive price for his malevolence. Under the current system, victims and survivors deserve the option to witness the Hammurabic justice and closure they seek. To extend the audience (even to include citizens of the country whose laws were transgressed and whose government is administering the punishment) cheapens the sensibilities of the victims and the condemned—invites the circus to attend a private ceremony.

Already, an overwhelming majority of the rest of the planet looks at the United States as a barbaric and heavy-handed state that all–to-easily executes it’s own citizens as well as foreign nationals. While more than half of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, Amnesty International has compiled statistics revealing that out of the 1,813 known people executed in 1999, 85% could be accounted for by China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Is this the type of company most Americans want to keep? Countries sometimes refuse to cooperate in American investigations or extradite criminals for cases with the potential of capital punishment. How would the nation’s standing in the international community be enhanced with public executions airing between “Temptation Island” and “Bachelorettes in Alaska?” Not to mention what might happen if a live execution is horribly botched.

Regardless of the semblance of solemnity granted such a broadcast, the worst instincts of this nation’s desensitized and cynical culture would certainly be evident. A man’s death and his victim’s sense of retribution do not belong to advertisers, late-night comics, rubbernecking couch potatoes, scornful Europeans and self-aggrandizing pundits—whatever the motives. Whether or not one agrees with the death penalty, it is not hard to understand that as long as it exists, paramount concern need be provided to the memories of the victims, those they have left behind and the very last thing a guilty man might possess in the eyes of the world he will exit: his dignity.

Even if the fucker don't deserve it.