Killing is Easy

For the first time in 200 years(!), Tennessee has tried to execute a woman. They failed.

Pike herself wanted other options. Through her attorneys, she asked for an all-female firing squad or a hanging, perhaps with the Carruthers precedent in mind. The state apparently does not allow for those choices – a few do – although the electric chair may still have been an option. Tennessee does not allow it for recent death-penalty sentences, but it was still an option in 1996 when Pike committed her crime. 

Governments do not necessarily owe murderers their choice of execution methods. However, they do owe a death to them and the victims of the crime rather than an extended, painful process that ends without any finality.

What's next? It might depend on whether Pike sustained brain damage in this attempt. No one is sure yet what her medical status is, and whether she remains competent to contest another warrant for execution. No governor will sign a death warrant for a prisoner who got brain damage from a previously botched execution.

If we are going to get rid of prisons, as we should, capital punishment is the obvious alternative for particularly serous crimes. It's really not difficult to kill a living being; humanity has a tremendous amount of experience, even expertise, in how this is done. There is no reason to make this hard, especially when the condemned have themselves requested a workable method.  

Of all the challenges facing our governments this is the one thing I'm sure they could really do. Even Communist governments can succeed at killing people. Especially Communist governments, I suppose, but they do everything else so poorly their efficiency at this one task is remarkable. To be incompetent at killing is a chosen handicap.