by David McKenzie
The Pitt News
University of Pittsburgh
(U-WIRE) PITTSBURGH — Since the last public hanging in 1936, executions in the United States have been private matters. Although they are a function of the state, they have taken place behind closed doors.
That may soon change.
In less than one month, Timothy McVeigh will become the first prisoner since Victor Feuger in 1963 to die at the hands of the federal government. On May 16, McVeigh will be strapped to a table at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., and have lethal drugs pumped into his veins.
Believe it or not, McVeigh desires this fate. Earlier this year, he dropped his appeals.
McVeigh is responsible for the deaths of 168 individuals in his bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City six years ago Thursday.
The federal government, as do many states, permits victims’ families to watch the execution. But in this case, there is a problem — the witness room in Terre Haute seats only 10, while at least 200 of the victims’ kin have expressed a desire to witness the execution.
To allow this, Attorney General John Ashcroft authorized a closed-circuit broadcast of it to Oklahoma City.
But McVeigh wants the entire United States to see him die.
He wants his execution broadcast on national television.
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Entertainment Network, owner of such Web sites as Voyeurdorm.com and Dudedorm.com, has asked for rights to Webcast the execution. Anyone who would want to watch could — for $1.95.
Monday, that company will present arguments in federal court in Indiana.
McVeigh’s execution should not be broadcast for a fee, but it should be broadcast.
I oppose capital punishment — I do not believe that the state has the right to take a person’s life, even in this extreme case. I realize McVeigh is remorseless about what he did in Oklahoma City, and his recent statements show that he wants to die like a martyr. I do not have a morbid interest in seeing a man die.
That said, I still believe that McVeigh’s execution should happen on national television. Capital punishment is the only type of homicide classified as legal, because officially society carries it out.
Although a small group of prison officials will do the deed, it is done in the name of every citizen of the United States. We will all have McVeigh’s blood on our hands May 16. As such, we should be allowed to witness what we are doing.
I know there are plenty of reasons not to broadcast executions. For instance, we don’t want people partying for this somber moment like crowds in Huntsville, Texas, are notorious for doing outside that state’s death house. We don’t want our children to see this. Many also say that this should be a private moment between a killer and his victims.
In the United States, criminal trials are prosecuted by the state, not by the victim. Thus, executions are a public matter, between society and killer.
Trials are public and even broadcasted. This is meant to deepen democracy, as it gives every person a view of the state’s actions. So shouldn’t the trial’s result also be open to public scrutiny?
Politicians justify their continued support of capital punishment by saying that the public supports it. But could this support come because capital punishment happens at a distance?
If McVeigh’s execution is broadcast, for the first time since 1936, Americans will be faced with the reality of capital punishment. We will see an actual person die by society’s hands.
“(If) some of these democratic principles mean anything, we should do (executions) publicly, and deal with that, or we should abolish it,” said assistant professor Paul Leighton of Eastern Michigan University in the March 11 edition of the Indianapolis Star.
Perhaps a broadcast of McVeigh’s execution will spark more debate on legal homicide. At the very least, it will make more people aware of what is being done in their names.
Only after actually seeing an execution for ourselves can we really say whether we’re for or against capital punishment. Perhaps the source of the blood on our hands will no longer seem so distant.
