The Devaluation of Life and the Death Penalty

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE U.S.
The devaluation of life; particularly through the death penalty; and we ought to begin with some historical context on the use of the death penalty in the US. So, most US executions are by lethal injection. Lethal injection has been the preferred method in the modern era, with approximately 1,428 deaths by lethal injection carried out since 1976. Texas has done the most, killing 593 inmates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which is a Washington, DC based entity.
Now, since 1977, only three inmates have been executed by firing squad and all were in the state of Utah, with the last one in 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Five states including Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah authorise its use, but it is not the primary execution method. For this method, an inmate is usually bound to a chair and is shot through the heart by a group of prison staffers standing 20 to 25 feet (which is 6 to 7.6 meters) away.
Idaho has had firing squad executions on the books as a backup if lethal injection drugs are unavailable since 2023. But in the wake of last year’s botched lethal injection attempt on Thomas Eugene Creech, lawmakers are considering a bill to make firing squads the primary execution method. The bill’s sponsor, being Republican Senator Doug Ricks, has suggested Idaho could use a firing squad machine, triggering the guns electronically to eliminate the need for additional execution team members.
Furthermore, hanging was once the primary execution method. In the US, hanging was the main method of execution until about the 1890s. Data collected by researchers of US executions from 1608 to 2002 found that approximately 9,322 people were put to death by hanging, in which a person was blindfolded and their hands and legs were secured before a noose was placed around the neck and they fell through a trapdoor. But in capital punishment’s modern era, only three individuals in the US have been executed by hanging in 1993, 1994 and 1996. However, the state of New Hampshire’s remaining death row inmate could be executed by hanging if lethal injection is not available. Here’s more on the history of the death penalty in the US.
THE DEATH PENALTY IS CULPABLE FOR SHIFTING ATTITUDES ON EUTHANASIA
The point of this historical context is to expose a painful and disturbing fact, which is that the state has been granted a licence to kill. And governments where the death penalty is legal tend to get away with this abhorrent practice because they reduce the discussion to mere numbers and technicalities – they even try to remove as much human interaction, because that is where the substantive nature of the death penalty begins to draw criticism. In fact, this is likely part of the reason why Republican Senator Doug Ricks suggested Idaho use a firing squad machine, triggering the guns electronically to eliminate the need for execution team members. And you understand this further when you hear people detail death by firing squad.
Here’s why this matters. It is because euthanasia is a product of the normalisation of state sanctioned killings. For the longest time people who made the argument against the death penalty were attributed to ultra liberals, or merely reduced to a slippery slope. And yet, today, we live in a world where governments are legislating to allow women to have even late term abortions, or assisted suicide. This is not a coincidence – in fact, it is far from it – especially because laws and policies are a KNOWN socialisation agent, which means that overtime they shape how people think and behave. In this case, laws and policies that sanctioned the government to kill, have created a culture towards audacious arguments that ALSO try to justify the legality of killing, whether the killing of an unborn child, or of a person who is ill or old in age.
I;d like to argue this further. At the commencement of Day 2 of the Your Loveworld Specials Season 10 Phase 2, the President of Loveworld Inc., the highly esteemed Rev. Dr Chris Oyakhilome DSc. DSc. DD., showed a documentary titled ‘Legalising Euthansia: A Eugenics Plot – PART 1’, which exposes the horrors of euthanasia. This documentary exposes the fact that euthanasia is an intervention that is based on not treating a patient’s symptoms, and rather intentionally ends their lives. It also refutes the pretentious claim that there are some significant nuances between the different terminology used to refer to euthanasia, with some claiming that when it is medically assisted suicide it is somehow more humane because it involves medical practitioners. euthanasia as synonymous with medically assisted dying (or MAID) or even assisted suicide – BUT, the reality is that whether you call it euthanasia, assisted dying, mercy killing or MAID – they are the same; both in principle, and often in practice.
And when looking at the practice of euthanasia today, this is where we see the influence derived from the practice of the death penalty. This is because the practice or execution of euthanasia reveals that the concoction of drugs used in a number of euthanasia cases are the same as those used for people on death row. Now, often the justification that was used for the use of this concoction when it came to death penalty case was that this was a so-called “humane” way for the state to kill prisoners. But, when you look at the concoction, it was actually not peaceful – it is torturous! However, the reason it looked peaceful is because the drugs are paralytic; therefore, the person who has ingested the drugs cannot move to express pain or discomfort, and they cannot change their mind even if you wanted to – because of the paralytic. And then, the other lethal drugs start to work.
Unfortunately, a lethal injection or concoction of drugs that serve as a paralytic is just one part of the story – when it comes to euthanasia. The other part is that whether it’s a death row prisoner, a terminally ill person, the method of so-called assisted killing and the result are the same, which is that it results in prolonged torture! And most people actually have no idea how agonising these lethal injection or drug-induced  deaths are because (once again) the victim is paralysed. And yet research has proven, however, that DESPITE BEING PARALYSED, the person who has been given the lethal injection or drug concoction suffers great pain, all while being aware of everything that’s happening – so much so that death by lethal injection is deemed highly tortuous and violating of the most basic human rights of an individual.
Firstly, what we have just seen means there is no valid argument on the humane nature of the lethal injection that can be made for supporting either euthanasia or the death penalty, without justifying the use of torture. But even more importantly is that the justification of the use of the lethal injection in euthanasia cases exposes the fact that euthanasia is a product of a culture and jurisprudence that allows the state to kill, through the death penalty.
MIDAZOLAM: THE KILLING AGENT BY DEATH PENALTY AND EUTHANASIA PRACTITIONERS
But, let’s also talk about a common ingredient in death row cases because it has now appeared in what can be described as forced euthanasia cases – and this ingredient is Midazolam. For some context, when it comes to capital punishment (or the death penalty), hanging was the most common form of capital punishment in the US until the 1890s. Then, the electric chair became the most widespread method. In 1982, the first execution by lethal injection was carried out by the state of Texas, after which it gradually replaced the electric chair across the nation. Perhaps surprisingly, though, there is still no consensus on the exact combination of drugs and dosages to use for the lethal injection.
The drug midazolam – a sedative used by several states to cause unconsciousness – has proved so controversial that, in 2017, Alabama inmate Thomas D Arthur asked to be executed by firing squad, external. Arthur lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court to postpone his execution on the basis that midazolam, one of the drugs in Alabama’s three-drug lethal injection combination, could contribute to ‘prolonged torture’. The Supreme Court denied the appeal, and Arthur was executed (by lethal injection) in May 2017. But, the controversy around midazolam became particularly heated at the time of Arkansas’s ‘mass executions’ in April 2017.
Now, in the state of Arkansas in the US, the lethal injection comprises three chemicals: midazolam, to sedate; vecuronium bromide, to paralyse the muscles; and potassium chloride, to stop the heart. Each of these is delivered at a dose that could theoretically kill the inmate; however, each drug has drawbacks. A cocktail of all three is apparently used to mitigate the other drugs’ disadvantages. At the time of execution, the inmate is strapped to a gurney, and IV tubes are inserted into both arms. Notable is that the Arkansas procedure uses two IV sites. This is allegedly partly to protect against ‘vein failure’. Vein failure was cited as the reason behind the ‘botched’ execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in 2014, which reportedly took 43 minutes as Lockett ‘thrashed on the gurney, writhing and groaning in pain’. So this paints a graphic picture of just how torturous lethal injections are, and why midazolam has been featured in the concoctions.
And yet, states that use the death penalty, have become so dependent on this drug, that they even plan executions based on its expiry date in a manner that is nothing short of psychopathic disregard for life.
HOWEVER, midazolam was not only controversial when the state of Arkansas used it for a mass murder project for an expiry date – it also came to light that they gave elderly covid patients an injection called Midazolam. Here’s Andrew Bridgen discussing this.
IS THE DEATH PENALTY WORTH THE EXPENSE?
Then, I would like to pose the question on expenses. More specifically, you would have heard that the death penalty is an expensive process, and it is. The reason is that it is also a gov­ern­ment pro­gram and therefore it comes with relat­ed costs. Many peo­ple assume that the state saves mon­ey by employ­ing the death penal­ty since an exe­cut­ed per­son no longer requires con­fine­ment, health care, and relat­ed expens­es. But in the mod­ern appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, that assump­tion has been repeat­ed­ly proven to be wrong.
The death penal­ty is far more expen­sive than a sys­tem uti­liz­ing life-with­out-parole sen­tences as an alter­na­tive pun­ish­ment. Some of the rea­sons for the high cost of the death penal­ty are the longer tri­als and appeals required when a person’s life is on the line, the need for more lawyers and experts on both sides of the case, and the rel­a­tive rar­i­ty of exe­cu­tions. Most cas­es in which the death penal­ty is sought do not end up with the death penal­ty being imposed. And once a death sen­tence is imposed, the most like­ly out­come of the case is that the con­vic­tion or death sen­tence will be over­turned in the courts. Most defen­dants who are sen­tenced to death essen­tial­ly end up spend­ing life in prison, but at a high­ly inflat­ed cost because the death penal­ty was involved in the process.
THE MORAL ARGUMENT AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY: LIFE IS INHERENTLY VALUABLE
So towards the end of the clip we just watched, we heard the gentleman say that the death penalty is not about justice, it is about retribution that reveals some of the worst societal urges; and I think this is a point with a fair amount of credibility. And I should state that I am aware that while we’ve touched on the moral or ethical side of the death penalty, this discussion has largely centred on the practical issues. And so, let’s address the ethical aspect of the death penalty debate.
The primary issue is that the death penalty, which is the state being given a licence to kill, undermines the inalienable nature of the right to life. The right to life is inalienable because it is supposed to be regarded as being so inherently and fundamentally important that it is not violated under any circumstance. It is also inalienable because the utility and enjoyment of other rights and freedoms hinge on the protection of the right to life, in the sense that you cannot enjoy the freedom to speak freely if you aren’t alive. However, the death penalty then conditionalises the inalienable nature of the right to life to allow the state to kill certain people that it deems to have committed other henious acts, like murder or rape.
I would like to argue that this is fundamentally wrong and in violation of the nature of inalienable rights and freedoms. First, in condiitonalising who enjoys the inalienable right to life (irrespective of whether the state deems it justified – especially in cases of murder), the state is ironically doing the thing that it is against, which undermines the ethical message it is trying to communicate, while also diluting its perception as an ethical actor itself.
Secondly, inalienable freedoms and rights are God given, and therefore, the state is not sanctioned to take them away. We see this in the case of the freedom of speech, which is also an inalienable right. This freedom applies to ALL, even when people lie, misinform others, or spew hateful remarks. The reason is that it is far more dangerous and oppressive to live in a world or society of censorship than in one where people can speak and debate freely. This tells us that inalienable rights and freedoms are applied (or should be applied) with absolute protection, REGARDLESS of their potential for abuse. And this is primarily because they are God-given, and thus not in the purview or power of the government to take away.
THE DEATH PENALTY IS NOT JUSTICE, IT IS AN EYE FOR AN EYE
Still on the point of morality, I would then like to engage the point raised by the gentleman who said that the death penalty is not about justice, and that it is rather about retribution that reveals some of the worst societal urges. I mentioned that I think that there is a fair amount of credibility to this point. Here’s why. In various societies, people make the argument that justice should be commensurate to the harm done. This principle was further appropriated to say and eye for an eye, which is what the death penalty amounts to.
However, in assuming that an eye for an eye is a commensurate measure of justice, many societies have been robbed of genuine justice, through the assumption that the death of the person who is responsible for the death of your loved one will suffice. No, often death inhibits or delays constructive changes to social anomalies that lead to crime. For instance, Ted Bundy was the first serial killer to be called that – that term in legal jargon did not exist before him. He committed many heinous crimes, but he was clearly not of sound mind. In fact, Bundy received a mental health evaluation when he was on trial for the Florida murders. He was interviewed by Hervey Cleckley, who was considered to be the “father of psychopathy”, and he diagnosed Bundy as a psychopath. And yet, because his crimes were so heinous, the state doubled-down on the claim that he was sane – both to stand trial and therefore also to be executed. This meant that the justice system in the US, which was already not well equipped to trace and deal with serial killers at the time, placed a greater emphasis on killing someone, as opposed to understanding how they can prevent another case like his. Therefore, at least, certainly in the Ted Bundy case, the death penalty was not so much about justice, but was more about the desire to kill someone who has killed others – upu literally hear this from the people who were investigators or police men following his cases. And so, if society embraces this mentality, it does not become different from the people it seeks to punish.
Then, finally, on morality, I would also like to emphasise the important fact that those in the justice system are not immune to error. For instance, on August 14, the Associated Press report­ed that the city of Edmond, Oklahoma agreed to pay $7.15 mil­lion to Glynn Simmons, the longest-incar­cer­at­ed inno­cent per­son in the United States. Mr. Simmons spent 48 years in prison, includ­ing two years on death row, before he was released last July. Mr. Simmons was offi­cial­ly exon­er­at­ed by a judge in December 2023 and received $175,000 from the state of Oklahoma, the max­i­mum amount allowed for wrong­ful con­vic­tions under state law. If he was executed within the 48 years, this discussion would have a more sour ending.
Written By Lindokuhle Mabaso