LAW & PSYCHIATRY---- THE DEATH PENALTY

Timothy McVeigh wants to be executed as soon as possible, preferably on national television. He understands crime and punishment. He committed mass murder, a terrorist act against the Federal government. Revenge for Waco. He was arrested, tried and convicted. Guilty of premeditated mass murder, he is given the ultimate punishment--- death probably by lethal injection. The electric chair is now considered to be cruel and inhuman. You can say that killing a person is cruel and inhuman; the thing is, it is essentially human--- animals don't do that.

Ordinarily, the process of carrying out this sentence takes over a decade, after all appeals and stays have run their course. Meanwhile die-hard opponents of the death penalty continue their efforts to thwart the state from carrying out its mission, its obligation to the people--- The People Versus Terry McVeigh. He was found guilty in a court of law. The People want satisfaction; they want justice. The convicted murderer must pay his debt to society with his life.

In these civilized times, a time of political-correctness, the death penalty is not exacted by hanging or a firing squad. The electric chair is becoming a relic of the primitive past. The guillotine is quick and efficient, painless but bloody, and nowadays almost a joke. It is synonymous with the French revolution. Burning at the stake was for Joan of Arc and the Salem witches. Boiling in oil no longer will do, being drawn and quartered would now have to be done with SUV's instead of horses. These ancient methods of execution, all done in public, for the benefit of the public, perhaps in part for the entertainment of the public, are now prohibited. The constitution forbids cruel and inhuman punishment, whatever that means. So we are left with execution by lethal injection, a method used to put pets to sleep. It is the method of choice for euthanasia--- for those desirous of a mercy killing, when death is a release and a blessing. What can be less cruel and more humane?

What can be more civilized, less cruel and unusual, than death by lethal injection? There is no pain, no chance of electrical complications, such as the nightmare execution depicted in the movie, "The Green Mile," made from the novel by Stephen King. That depiction, seen by millions, is a grisly representation of the horror of a state-inflicted death. It is shown to be cruel and unusual, even though in most cases the electrocution is quick and uncomplicated.

Why is there such an opposition by a significant segment of the American public to the death penalty? At one time it was outlawed, as American public opinion seemed to want to fit in with the philosophy of the rest of the so-called civilized nations, holding with the attitude that two wrongs don't make a right, that if murder is wrong for the individual, it is wrong for the state. Supposedly it does not send out a good message to the people. If murder is wrong, execution is wrong. Since American culture is largely Judeo-Christian, the biblical Ten Commandments include, "Thou Shalt Not Kill."

Numerous exceptions to the commandment against killing including killing in self-defense. The death penalty can be rationalized in terms of self-defense because the convicted murderer, if killed, can no longer kill again. We, the people, have defended ourselves against the possibility of the convicted murderer, murdering again. People have been killed for being heretics and infidels--- non-believers were killed because they refused to save their souls, according to one belief system, and so their bodies became dead meat.

People have been killed for the common good, such as the goal of purifying the race. Hitler convinced Germany that it would be a good thing to exterminate inferior peoples, mental defectives, the mentally ill, homosexuals, communists, Gypsies, Jews, Slavs. Could it be that the present group of those against carrying out the death penalty equate our government in this way with that of Nazi Germany, that we are getting rid of an undesirable. According to our Judeo-Christian ethic, no person is so undesirable that we can take their life--- only God can do that, and He does it according to His ineffable plan, a plan with which we mortals must not interfere. With the same reasoning, we should not be condoning abortion.

American culture is of two minds. On the one hand our founding fathers were quite religious, paid respect to God, formed a nation under God, but wanted religious freedom and therefore a secular state. Since the constitution insists on the separation of church and state, the government must not establish a state religion, and yet we conform to religious principles. Here too, we get mixed messages. The Old Testament God was an angry God, a God of wrath. He was not beyond punishing his people for violation of His laws. He smote the people with a mighty hand time and time again.

Fed up that the people did not learn, did not obey, He decided one day to come down to earth, become a man, preach the gospel, perform miracles and be a role-model of goodness. That is a more modern, more civilized psychology. Instead of aversive conditioning, He tried positive reinforcement, also called reward. The ultimate reward, the ultimate carrot to put before the human animal, is everlasting life. Nobody wants to die. Everybody wants to live forever, or at least to be reborn.

It is as if God came to realize that in making the human creature, giving him/her the miracle of life and consciousness, this gift was so great, nobody wanted to give it up. God's wrath didn't do any good; people continued to sin, they weren't afraid of death. But now, in the name of Jesus, He gave the people a choice, one between death and everlasting life. He said that if you believe in Him, if you follow Him, he will make a room for you in His Father's mansion.

He made a new definition of death. Death was the opposite of everlasting life. Death was a choice to refuse the offer of Jesus and be relegated to nothingness. The New Testament was more successful than the old in inspiring a fear of death. The Greatest Story Ever Told was great because it was so convincing, that a billion humans, about a sixth of the present human race now call themselves Christian and go through the motions of following certain rituals and performing good deeds so that they can live forever.

Since Christianity is the dominant American religion, this abhorrence of death is ubiquitous. Nobody should be killed, ever. Not for any reason, with the possible exception of self-defense and war. Crimes of passion can be forgiven. People need not be punished if their crime was a product of mental illness, or it was an irresistable impulse. There used to be such a horror of death, that it was denied that sick people were dying in hospitals. The dying used to be neglected, abandoned, overlooked, not counted; that is, until Elisabeth Kubler-Ross came along and opened our eyes with her landmark, "Death and Dying." The message was that death should not be denied. Death should be faced. Death is not the worst thing in the world. Abandonment of the lonely and suffering is worse. Torture is worse.

Ultimately the Supreme Court overturned the ban against the death penalty. Those sentenced to death were put to death. Most people were satisfied. A minority thought this was terrible, uncivilized and unfair. To a large extent the latter argument became articulated and powerful. The death penalty was unfair. Sometimes and innocent person is put to death, and death is irreversible. Prison sentences are reversible. The inevitable conclusion to many was that a convicted murderer should never be put to death, he could be given a life sentence with no change of parole.

Many people thought that consequence was unfair. Why should a murder be taken care of by the state when he/she has committed a crime that cannot be reversed?

What about the feelings of the family and friends? They want justice, they want closure, they want to move on, the want revenge. Should the state kill a murderer because the family wants revenge? The family says, "yes, but..." yes but the death penalty should be exacted as a deterrent, as a warning to others that they will not escape the ultimate punishment if they commit the ultimate crime. This sounds reasonable to most people, except that statistics do not show deterrence in those states of countries with the death penalty.