The Victim Will Not Get Equal Time : Executions: Televising them only compounds the tragedy and offers the criminal an opportunity to garner sympathy.

America’s last public execution took place in Galena, Mo., on May 21, 1937. Since that time, all executions in the United States have been conducted inside prison grounds, sparing the families of both the victim and the criminal unnecessary pain and suffering.

Now, after more than half a century, public TV station KQED in San Francisco is trying to revive the practice of public executions by suing for the right to take cameras into the gas chamber. KQED’s lawyer, William Turner, said, “It is appropriate in a democratic society for citizens to be able to see virtually firsthand . . . the ultimate sanction of our criminal-justice system.”

A federal judge must decide the questions of law in this case. But for most of us, it is not a question of law but of decency. Public execution has drawn opposition from both supporters and opponents of the death penalty because it violates commonly held standards of decency.

Letting cameras into prisons to record executions will not serve the public good. Instead, it will compound the tragedy of violent crime by focusing attention on the method of punishment rather than the nature of the crime.

The terrible events that prompt the state to deal out its harshest penalty cannot be captured on videotape for live broadcast on the nightly news. The victims of these crimes are not available for comment because they are long dead. Their stories will be left untold.

This is just the latest example of how the rights of victims and their families are too often ignored. KQED argues that it has a right to film executions. What gives it this right? Cameras are not allowed in the Supreme Court and federal courtrooms. Why should they be permitted in the gas chamber?

The news director for KQED contends that the television camera is the “only neutral witness,” implying that newspaper reporters are incapable of objectivity at such an event. Have television journalists grown so arrogant that they feel the camera has replaced the written word? Do they think that an event has meaning only if a camera is there to record it?

It does not trouble KQED that their “neutral witness” was not present when the crime was committed. And that the terrible acts of brutality committed by the individual sentenced to death will not be broadcast on a split screen along with the execution. The victim will not receive equal time.

An execution is not a media event or photo opportunity. It is the method of punishment the people of California have chosen for individuals convicted of the most vicious crimes.

As such, it should not be sensationalized or used as a forum to advance a particular political agenda. Live broadcast of an execution would only tell us what we already know--that an execution is a grim proceeding. And it would give those who oppose capital punishment an opportunity to garner sympathy for the criminal.

In a very real sense, reviving public executions would give criminals the last word.