The Big Needle

Last week I read John Grisham's latest novel, "The Confession" in which a man was executed because he had been coerced into confessing to a murder he had not committed. Grisham sets up the story so there is never any question that the convicted man is innocent. The actual guilty person confesses, but the state machinery of death is in motion and cannot be stopped by the defense attorney because the prosecutor in the case and the governor of the state have vested political interests in upholding the conviction.

The theme of the book of course is that innocent people have been and will continue to be executed because prosecutors cover up the coercive methods of some police officers, juries remain intent on convicting on the basis of confessions, no matter how obtained, and elected officials do not want to be thought of as "soft on crime."

Grisham makes the argument that the death sentence is imposed capriciously, sometimes mistakenly and isn't even economical. It costs about three million dollars to execute a person in the United States, after all appeals have been filed, rejected, and clemency is denied. It would clearly be less expensive just to keep the convict in prison. Grisham, by the way, makes a compelling case that incarceration on death row is inhumane, gradually driving the inmates into insanity.

Readers might remember the governor of Illinois commuting the sentences of all death row inmates once he became convinced the sentence was being imposed on innocent men. If that's the case in Illinois, by strong inference it's true in other states as well.

I'm not absolutely against the death penalty. There are two arguments in favor of killing convicted murderers that have made some sense to me. First, there is the matter of finality. As Isaac (Hanging Judge) Parker once said, Nobody I hanged ever hurt anybody else again." That made more sense in the nineteenth century than now of course. The other argument for executions was made by a different novelist, Joseph Wambaugh, who said that society must have some threat of last resort to hold over the heads of people who are already in prison on murder convictions. What else can we do with inmates who kill prison guards, sentence them to two life sentences?

But the death penalty must be applied only as a last resort and only in extraordinary circumstances. I've wondered what those circumstances might be, if there are any other than the one described just now. Serial killers? Murders for hire or killings that involve torture? Heinous as such crimes are, I would oppose executing such murderers. Yes, the crimes are awful, but we fall right back to the opening question of the undoubted convictions of innocent people.

There are some other aspects to the whole question of the death penalty that might be questionable. For one thing, we have heard a lot in recent years about involving the family of the victim in the prosecution effort. I'm in favor of keeping the loved ones of a deceased victim up to date on the progress of a case, but in our jurisprudence it's the society at large that is offended by the crime. It's "The people versus the defendant" after all, not only the family of the deceased. The victim's rights adherents are sympathetic but the prosecutor must decide how to handle a case based on the evidence at hand, not on anything else.

I've been lucky and no one in my family has been victimized by a violent crime, so I'll concede I might feel differently if someone I love had been murdered, but I wonder if families of murder victims get any sense of closure when the convict is put to death. Probably some do and some don't. Giving the relatives of the victim some solace is important, but it shouldn't be the most important factor in debating this issue.

(By the way I've only mentioned murder as deserving execution. I'd absolutely be against executing anyone for any other crime such as kidnaping, rape or stock market manipulation.)