Suffocating for three minutes and dying is not cruel and unusual punishment.
So said a federal court judge in Alabama last week, as the first ruling on the use of nitrogen gas as a method of execution ended exactly the way you thought it would in Alabama.
District Court Judge Emily Marks heard the case, which was brought by Jeffrey Lee, an inmate who is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on June 11. Marks’ ruling in the case was a case study in hypocrisy and lunacy, as evidenced by this doozy of a line:
“While Lee establishes that death by nitrogen hypoxia involves some suffering, he fails to show that the protocol is cruel and unusual in violation of the Eighth Amendment.”
Lord have mercy.
Did you ever, in all your life, imagine reading from a federal judge that an execution method was OK because while it causes suffering leading to death, it ain’t that much suffering, really.
By the way, just so we’re clear, during the trial, evidence was presented showing that the last Alabama inmate to be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia was alive for a solid 30 minutes after the execution began.
That means the state of Alabama spent 30 minutes suffocating a human being to death.
And a federal judge just said that’s fine. It’s not too much suffering.
Marks also wrote that the method causes “severe air hunger” for probably one to three minutes.
To put that in normal-people terms, she’s saying at a minimum, this method of execution involves one to three minutes of a human painfully gasping for air as they die. And somehow, according to Marks, that doesn’t violate the eighth amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
But of course it does.
The use of the term “cruel and unusual punishment” by this country’s founders was intentionally vague, because they meant for it to evolve as societal standards progressed. Hangings and firing squads fell to the wayside, as our society moved forward and other, more humane methods became available.
That’s vitally important—that steady progression—because it’s what allows us to hold some smidgen of moral high ground over the people we, as a society, are executing. That high ground is the only thing that makes the system work. Without it, we are no better than the convicted criminals we’re subjecting to death.
And no “but it’s better than how his victims died” argument will make up for it.
Because the death penalty is not in place for retribution. It is in place for punishment and deterrent. It should be devoid of emotion on the side of the state. It should be a cold, straightforward means of punishment.
It should never be one that lowers us to the same level, or worse, than those we are executing.
To be absolutely clear, I am not against the death penalty. I am against misusing the death penalty and against any possibility of its use when questions of innocence remain. Even small questions. I am also against it in cases when the jury voted to sentence the convicted to life in prison but the judge overrode that decision.
But there are cases in which I think it’s an appropriate punishment, particularly cases in which children are harmed. There was a story a few months back about an underground bunker and tortured children, and well, that’s a rather easy call in my book.
Not for retribution or vindictiveness. But to send a message that such heinous crimes will not be tolerated.
To be able to effectively administer such a punishment, though, we can’t sink to the level of those we’re punishing. We can’t kill for pleasure. We can’t ignore suffering.
Taking a life is the most serious act that we can undertake.
We should not be OK with torturing a person to death.
