Some greetings this season: Death row takes no holiday

What a terrific holiday season. Jesus on the cover of Time, prayer on the cover of U.S. News and Scott Peterson on his way to death row. Is this a great Christmas, or what?

The juxtaposition of celebrations is strange indeed -- this being the time of year when many observe a festival of new life, there’s cheering of a verdict that could send another human being to eternity.

As a newscaster for KFWB radio put it, in a somewhat peculiar manner, “The jury has decided that Scott Peterson has a date with the needle.”

That judgment, a darker version of “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” was met with cheering outside a Redwood City courthouse, with one woman, her eyes cast upward, sighing, “Thank God.” Another interviewed in L.A. said simply, “Hooray!”

It was left to a juror who seemed to understand the enormity of the situation to point out, “It isn’t a joyous occasion.”

There is something terribly disconcerting about the outpouring of delight in response to a verdict that essentially underscores our proximity to the edge of the jungle.

The very idea that we are still marching each other “off to dates” with a needle, a noose, gas or gunfire is in itself an unsettling notion, but that we do so, partially at least, because the accused shows no emotion throughout his trial or seems to cry fake tears in a television interview or doesn’t take the stand in his own defense is beyond even the insane logic that triggers a murder.

Further complicating any intellectual response to this sentence is a haunting question: Can we ever be certain without a direct confession that Peterson did kill his wife and the son who, though he never walked the Earth, proved to be the emotional force that tilted the jury toward its lethal verdict?

Killing to avenge a killing is to compound the horror of the bleak circumstances that existed in the first place. To celebrate the death knell in any manner is to howl at the gates of the lethal chamber, like wolves announcing a fresh kill.

Churchgoers turn to the Bible this holy season to reassess their lives and their culture. But the Bible offers mixed messages when it comes to vengeance, so it is left to the masses to determine how to deal with those who go astray. Lacking the wit or the patience to consider other alternatives, they vote to kill because it’s the least complicated of possible solutions.

Stone them. Burn them. Hang them. Shoot them. Gas them. Electrocute them. Inject them.

That date with the needle involves injecting the condemned person with a cocktail of chemicals, the first intended to ease his way toward dying and the second to send him directly to the Pearly Gates, or wherever. It’s the humane way of killing, pro-death penalty advocates insist, proof of our humanity, like putting an old dog to sleep.

But how can we be sure? Does the first dose merely mute their screams as the second dose sets their insides on fire? That’s what anti-death penalty advocates say. The only sure way to find out, as Dr. Jekyll once determined, is to try it.

When the gas chamber was first installed as the means of execution in California, it was tested on a pig. The pig died squealing in agony. But we installed it anyhow. Who’s to say if we really even care if there’s pain? Murder is murder. Dying is dying. But still ...

Inconsistencies abound in the process that ultimately sends condemned prisoners to their deaths. Money is involved. Race is involved. A lawyer’s capabilities are involved. The makeup of a jury is involved. Deals are involved.

Cop out to 48 murders, as Seattle’s Green River killer, Gary Ridgway, did, and you get life. Fight the system for 12 years, as L.A.’s Caryl Chessman did, and you get death, even if you killed no one. Kidnapping with bodily harm got Chessman to the gas chamber.

Murdering anyone is a horrible crime. Murdering a pregnant woman seems even more terrible, because it involves a life unborn. And when the killing is done by the husband of the woman and the father of her unborn son, the crime assumes an emotional existence far beyond any attained by most homicides.

I’m not a newcomer to covering murder scenes and murder trials. I’ve seen victims butchered beyond any form of humanity. I’ve witnessed executions. I’ve spoken to killers whose crimes have offered no reason for them to be spared.

But it isn’t them I’m worried about. It’s us, and what we aspire to as a species still evolving. And if you don’t get that, then go ahead and deck the death chambers with boughs of holly, and tra-la-la-la....

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.