‘The People’ as Executioner

Clearly, our society has not arrived at a consensus on the death penalty. Some states have it, others do not. But state laws calling for executions are not indicative of even geographically limited consensus. Passing a law requires only a simple majority of votes in a legislature or referendum, which is not a true consensus. Long stays on Death Row and numerous appeal proceedings may actually be symptomatic of this lack of consensus.

We might come closer to consensus if a different method of execution were used, one that clarified certain moral issues involved in the death penalty.

Suppose, instead of the present execution system conducted by employees of the state, out of public sight, we select execution committees from the communities in which the capital crimes were committed.

These committees would be selected on a case-by-case basis, as juries are. Once notified, the citizen would have to report to a court-supervised proceeding to select the 12-person execution committee.

An execution could not take place until the community produced a duly selected committee. At the execution site, each of the committee would see the prisoner in the execution chamber. At the appointed time, each would press a button that could trigger the lethal event. The gas pellet would not drop or the electricity would not flow until all buttons were pressed at essentially the same time. Like a military firing squad, only one person would actually kill the prisoner, but everyone would know that he or she might have been the one to do so.

I submit that such a system is closer to the real intent of capital punishment. At present, we arrest, try and sentence capital offenders in the name of “the People,” but assign our governmental and judicial officials the burden of carrying out the wishes of “the People.” Many such officials are uncomfortable with this responsibility, which undoubtedly contributes to the delay. By contrast, with the execution committee system, those who represent the segment of society injured by the criminal would carry out the execution.

Society could learn from this hands-on execution process. By examining how people are selected, or excused, from serving on an execution committee, we could assess the willingness of a community to execute a prisoner. By studying committee members before and after the execution, we could examine both good and bad effects of the death penalty.

I have tried to imagine myself as a member of an execution committee. What would I do the night before the execution? Go to church? Read a book? Go to a movie? And what would I do after I pressed the button? Have breakfast? Go to work?

Then, would my community treat me as if I’d done an honorable service? Or would I be an outcast?

In any event, society would have the compensation it demanded, obtained by someone from the community that suffered the crime. And no one could ever again avoid thinking carefully about which criminals, if any, should be killed.