Why Not Televise Executions?

Let’s say you’re a journalist working on a story about the death penalty. And let’s say you call San Quentin Prison with a request. Would it be possible, you ask, to see the gas chamber? Nothing major, just a quick tour.

Here’s the answer you would get: No. It is not possible to see the gas chamber. No one from the public can visit the gas chamber. But, as a favor to the press, a videotape would be made available to you.

And, actually, not a bad videotape. A little spooky, maybe. There’s a guard who silently points out the dials and telephones around the death room like a man who’s had his vocal chords removed. One of the phones is marked “Governor’s Office.” And then you see the twin chairs inside the chamber and the steel door that seals like something on a submarine.

But it’s not the same as being there. And the department knows that. What they are offering in the videotape is their version, a controlled version, of the gas chamber. In fact, the message they are conveying is this: The gas chamber belongs to us, not to you. We will demonstrate our control by denying you the right to touch or even see the real thing. All you can do is watch the images we choose to offer.

These little wars over control of public places get fought continuously between the press and its good friends, the bureaucrats. Because the bureaucrats have their hands daily on the gears and wheels of the government apparatus, they come to believe they own that apparatus. When the nosy press comes marching along, wanting to sniff around, that sense of ownership becomes palpable.

And the gas chamber, of course, is a special public place, full of charged emotion. It has forever been the subject of skirmishes over control--such as the question of who, if anyone, will be allowed to see it.

Now, the skirmish has escalated to something on a grander scale. It began this way:

A year ago, KQED, the public television station in San Francisco, filed suit against the warden of San Quentin, Daniel Vasquez, asking for equal access to executions.

By “equal,” KQED meant it wanted to bring a television camera to the death event itself, which traditionally has been open only to print reporters. Specifically, KQED’s goal was to televise the execution of Robert Alton Harris, first in line on California’s death row.

The dramatic change represented by this action was obvious, and the authorities liked it not at all. Warden Vasquez liked it so little he decided the time was ripe for a show of control. If the press wanted equal access, he would give it to them. Henceforth, he announced, all reporters, print or otherwise, would be excluded from California executions.

What, truly, was Vasquez’s beef? In the courtroom he claimed the problem was the potential danger to the guards, who might be identified for purposes of revenge. And, oh yes, there was a security risk posed by the cameras.

Neither argument will wash. Modern electronics can easily obscure the images of the guards so they become mere blurs. It’s done all the time. And the placing of a single, stationary camera inside the death room poses zero risk to security.

The real danger lay elsewhere. In an interview outside the courtroom, Vasquez said television would take away the “dignity” of the occasion.

Exactly. What if, for example, an execution were botched, as they sometimes are, and the public saw a condemned man struggling painfully toward death? What if bars with big screen TVs started advertising Execution Night with drinks at half price?

The bureaucrats would have lost some control over the most extreme procedure they perform. A botched execution would strip away the pretense that all executions are neat and painless. Celebration parties would strip away certain beliefs we hold about ourselves.

Television would make executions truly public and we--all of us--would be subject to whatever followed.

Would television ultimately work against the death penalty? It might--but that’s not the point. The point is this: We have decided that we the people of California will begin, once again, to gas people to death as a matter of state policy.

Fine. Only, let’s do it right. Let’s look at it. Let’s watch state policy in action.

Ray Procunier was head of California prisons for eight years in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He testified in the opening round of the KQED trial and said he supported televised executions. His explanation was simple. “It’s a public business,” he said.

And so it is. The trial on televised executions resumes May 3.