Arkansas wrapped up its eight days of executions Thursday night. Despite the image pushed by those outside the state -- and a few inside its borders -- I don't think any Arkansan is salivating for a repeat of what critics called a "conveyor belt" of death.
The preference is that people die naturally. It is when someone takes it upon himself to violently abbreviate another person's life that the state of Arkansas has an obligation to respond, and to do so in a way that satisfies each community's expectation for justice. Juries and voters have something to say about that.
Yeah, perhaps I and my fellow Arkansans should be able to rise above that. At least that's what we're told by our betters, or those who believe they are.
There are murders for which the appropriate penalty for the killer is the loss of his own life. Some will say that's not very Christian of me, but those suggesting there's a definitive biblical exhortation against capital punishment have oversimplified the matter. From a strict matter of public policy, it's also intriguing how voices that eschew the expression of Christian faith in politics most of the time clamor for its recognition in the matter of capital punishment.
To paraphrase something both Bill and Hillary Clinton once said on another subject, application of the death penalty should be legal and rare. It has never been declared "cruel and unusual" by the Supreme Court, although its application can be. Chief Justice Earl Warren's declaration that the constitutional prohibition is further defined by "evolving standards of decency" suggests Arkansans have every right to determine the definition for themselves.
People forget about the death penalty's usefulness as a tool in prosecutions. How many families -- of killers and of their victims -- have been relieved of a torturous trial because a defendant was willing to plead guilty to his crime in exchange for a prosecutor's decision to take the death penalty off the table? That's not necessarily a complete justification to have the death penalty, but it is certainly one of its effects.
Perhaps my long career of trying to see all sides of issues makes it challenging for me to grasp how someone can be 100 percent certain they're right on issues like the death penalty. Ultimately, those of us who don't get bent out of shape about the existence of the death penalty need to listen to the folks who do and give their concerns due weight. Let's not pretend the judicial system is a perfect administration of justice in every instance.
But it certainly can be.
As Arkansas went through its eight-day death ritual, opponent dredged up every possible objection, the same objections they have put forth for any execution in any state. Collectively, maybe they make a good academic argument for a societal change mirroring that of Europe, where the death penalty is largely a thing of the past as a matter of public policy.
Specific to the four men who died at the state's hands since April 10, the case against execution was less convincing. Only the naive or willingly blind suggested there was any reasonable chance these men did not commit the crimes of which jurors found them guilty. And despite cries of Arkansas' rush to execute and the last-minute maneuvers of their attorneys, it can hardly be argued reasonably that these men's cases weren't exhaustively reviewed by multiple judges inside the state and beyond.
It's ludicrous that the health concerns inmates developed as the agonizingly slow judicial process crept along for 20 or 25 years might be used as justification for avoiding justice. One inmate argued, basically, he was too fat to be executed. Weighing 400 pounds might affect the ability of the drugs to knock him out, thus increasing the chances he might feel the execution, his attorneys argued. Should the state force inmates to exercise and eat right, essentially keeping them healthy enough to be killed?
If there's an argument worthy of more investigation, it's the impact of serious mental illness in the commission of these crimes. Not the kind of mental illness suggested solely by the anti-social behaviors or attitudes that contribute to their crimes, or reflected by the oft-heard attitude that anyone who murders must have something mentally off about them. I'm talking real, verifiable mental illness that disguises right and wrong in the mind of the person committing the crime. A good number of mental afflictions affect behaviors without robbing a person of his moral compass, even if he chooses not to follow its true north.
So, what does Arkansas do now? It's drug "cocktail" includes ingredients set to expire and those pharmaceuticals are increasingly hard to get. Some lawmakers are supposedly eager to embrace the firing squad as an option to keep executions going. I'm not sure even pro-death penalty Arkansas is ready for that.
If lawmakers, with the support of the public, want to shut down executions and never put another Arkansas inmate to death, I'm OK with that. Still, even with the somber reflections that every state-sponsored killing brings to my mind, I could not end the week feeling as though some injustice had been carried out.
Commentary on 05/01/2017