What does muted reaction to failed execution say about us?
When I wrote editorials for this newspaper in the 1980s, the paper had a long-standing policy in opposition to the death penalty.
We did not crusade or rail against capital punishment at every turn, but there certainly were opportunities to do so because the debate over capital punishment was much more intense at that time.
Thus, I have been struck by the rather muted reaction — nationally — to the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee. I think it not only reflects Americans’ continuing support for capital punishment (recent polls put it between 52% and 66%), but also a certain resignation. Forty years ago, the Pike case would have roiled editorial pages for weeks.
Most understand that President Trump strongly supports capital punishment and that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will not reverse the 1976 decision that reinstated the legality of the death penalty after a four-year period when it was ruled unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia.
Capital punishment today is legal in 27 states and illegal in 23 and the District of Columbia. However, over the past decade, executions have been carried out in only 10 states and by the federal government since 2019 when President Trump reinstated the practice.
In recent days, Defense Secretary Hegseth announced that the Dec. 3 execution of the Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, would be livestreamed, an idea that received immediate bipartisan pushback and, ultimately, a rejection by President Trump. Now only survivors and victims’ families will be able to view the deed, similar to the 2001 execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, when 230 individuals chose to watch.
One witness described McVeigh’s death by lethal injection as “unsatisfying” because it was not violent enough. Apparently, they wanted a “snuff film.”
I wish that Americans were more outraged by these events, but I feel our country has, year by year, become coarser and more tolerant of the violence that surrounds us, including ICE shootings, the bombing of alleged drug boats, the bombing of a girl’s school, etc.
We all have only so much bandwidth for outrage and one example seems to follow the next with such rapidity that it seems impossible to focus on a single issue over a sufficient period of time to allow debate, consideration, momentum and the possibility of change. Attention spans seem to grow shorter.
The Christa Pike case raises issues beyond why two tries at her execution failed. One can’t relitigate the case, but why has she been on death row for 30 years? She was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed her roommate and admitted their guilt. She’s now 50. Note that her boyfriend, who was 17 at the time of the crime, was paroled in 2025.
The execution of Major Hasan by firing squad will not fail, because the Pentagon will no doubt find enough bullets to get the job done. Yet, the idea of a public execution was called “barbaric” and President Trump, sensing the political winds, said no. So, yeah?
The arguments against capital punishment have not changed. Though Pike’s and Hasan’s guilt is without question, 200 death row inmates have been exonerated since 1976. The chance of executing an innocent person is real.
Studies show that executions provide no discernible power to deter; the justification Hegseth gave for wanting Major Hasan’s death to be made public.
They are expensive. Lawyers cost more than prison guards and mandatory appeals draw out the process. Death denies the possibility of rehabilitation.
Finally, there is the moral issue. When the government executes someone, it signals that it is permissible to take a life to achieve justice. Too many feel they can take matters into their own hands.
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.