DEATH PENALTY TWO VIEWS : Is There Justice in the Gas Chamber? : It is distorting our institutions and our politics, and proving to be an enormous burden for our society to bear.

Now it is the federal courts that Gov. George Deukmejian finds “incompetent” in their administration of the death penalty, the state courts apparently having performed to the governor’s satisfaction in the matter of Robert Alton Harris. But when a jurist as brilliant, morally principled and highly respected (not to mention conservative) as John Noonan of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decides that a defendant has presented facts warranting a further careful look before we execute him, and when two-thirds of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court agree, surely “incompetence” is not the explanation. Nor, given the background of the judges who participated, is it an unalterable opposition to the death penalty.

More likely, the explanation lies in the nature of the death penalty itself--its irreversibility and, more fundamentally, its profound tension with the value that our civilization attaches to human life. Capital punishment is different from other sanctions, and the difference ought to, and apparently does, make those who are responsible for its implementation exceedingly cautious.

It is understandable that there are many people, and especially the families of victims, who regard this caution as excessive. We have created a system in which we look to the death penalty as the way of bringing about “justice” and “closure,” and as long as we continue to accept those definitions, we will continue to be frustrated. This is so because even if we can expedite some aspects of death penalty appeals, unless we forsake our Constitution and our principles of fairness entirely, it will still take many years from the date of judgment to the date of execution.

The fact is, the death penalty is distorting our institutions and our politics. It has proved to be an enormous burden for our society to bear, not only financially but also in terms of social costs and the strain on our democratic values of life and equality. And, paradoxically, all of this is true because we continue to be a civilized people, unwilling to accept casually the taking of human life.

Other democracies seem to have solved the problem of providing justice and closure to the friends and relatives of the victims through sanctions short of death. In California, while the polls are inconclusive, there appears to be substantial support for the alternative of life without possibility of parole, so long as people can be certain that the defendant will stay in prison and that the proceeds of his labor will go to compensate the families of victims. Instead of focusing on the death penalty, where the political harvest is immediate but tainted, responsible leaders should help us move in a direction less costly and more compatible with our democratic traditions.