The execution of Timothy McVeigh: must see TV?
BMJ 2001; 322 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.322.7296.1254 (Published 19 May 2001) Cite this as: BMJ 2001;322:1254
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"Executions are brutal, they involve the deliberate killing of a
human being, and if we cannot stomach seeing this then perhaps we should
not do it at all."
The problem is that a majority of American people are brutal and the
killing of Timothy McVeigh is simply not going to be brutal enough. The
majority will be cheated, the entertainment industry will be cheated by
this attenuated spectacle, this first public execution in a few years. The
majority could stomach much more than they will get, so it seems unlikely
in this land of politicized judicial killing that America will abandon its
death penalty. This would be just too simple, too much like common sense
and there would simply be no outlet for revenge, for vengeance.
I agree with Stuart Derbyshire that McVeigh "is part and product of
our society". However like American society I would contend that McVeigh
is beyond the bounds of civilisation.
Leaving aside that particular doomed "psychokiller" and moving to the
State of Tennessee at the end of March this year. Philip Workman had been
a prisoner on death row for 20 years and had already survived two recent
appointments with the executioners needle. Finally as a new date
approached and despite the offering of clear new evidence that he was not
guilty of the crime for which he was condemned the good Governor of
Tennessee turned down a plea for clemency. The judges of the state Supreme
Court thought otherwise and granted him a reprieve but reserved their
judgement till just half an hour before he was scheduled to be put to
death at 1am on 30 March. The good people of Tennessee will have to wait
yet longer for their moment of revenge; the rest of us will have to wait
longer for America to join the civilised world. The people of Tennessee
are certainly cruel but they are not unusual. As Amnesty International has
recently restated "the USA is engaged in a cruel, brutalizing, unreliable,
unnecessary and expensive activity for no reasonable gain." Americans
support a punishment that fails to prevent crime, targets people who can't
afford a decent lawyer, is used on the juvenile and mentally retarded and
often gets the wrong man. Despite this they even have the nerve to lecture
the Chinese on human rights.
In a farce of an election last November the American people turned
away from their man in Tennessee and voted (?) instead for the
'Compassionate Conservative' from Texas who in his watch as Governor over
the Wild West state has given the neronic thumbs down to some 160
arbitralily chosen felons. As the Republican administration raises its
hugely expensive national missile shield it seems not to realise that the
danger comes from within. The obscene public execution of Timothy McVeigh
will only make America an even more dangerous place. It's hard not to
conclude in all this that America is just a little bit stupid.
Competing interests: No competing interests
When life imitates art
Some 20 + years ago the film Running Man came out, it was a film
about a game show in which contestants were handsomely rewarded (their
freedom) for killing their opponents on a TV gameshow, all the contestants
were convicts......... and so life begins to imitate "art".
McVeigh murdered as a protest against the FBI for the killing of God
knows how many women and children in Waco. McVeigh most certainly is not
fully cognisant of the devestation of his actions and will have all the
childhood dysfunction that breeds this type of thinking, having said that
the American government ever apologised for their atrocious handling of
the Waco "seige" and subsequent deaths of innocent children despite all
their "training" and "skills" which one is the lesser evil I ask?
If McVeigh is legally murdered, (State Homocide is what is put on the
death certificate of those executed in the USA) he insantly becomes a
martyr to the many far right wing groups and "lost" children and adults of
the USA who spend their lives surfing the Net looking for some meaning in
their lives or something to join where they just might "fit". If he dies
the families of those that are dead will never get their apology and I
doubt any peace of mind. The death penalty does not work as a deterent, it
doesn't make any difference to those who have lost their loved ones, their
dead neither resurrected nor vindicated, just another unnecessary death.
It took a long time for domestic terrorism to hit the USA when it did it
was always going to be the unleashing of so much hatred and anger in one
go.
If this travesty is filmed for posterity and shown around the world,
what next............ modern day gladiators using all those people that
"waste our taxes" in prison?
2001 AD or 2001 BC? Have we really not progressed at all?
Competing interests: No competing interests