Of course the Axis of Unethical Conduct news media is framing this as some kind of defeat for Trump and a crushing blow to Hegseth, just as the Axis framed the planned public execution as proof that Trump is Hitler. This is what’s going on here: the President deferred to his Secretary of War, showing support and trust, then properly over-ruled the decision when it was clear that the negatives outweighed the benefits, which, as I noted in the EA post, were dubious at best. The single benefit of the execution being public was…
“For a capital punishment advocate, watching an execution is, if not mandatory, a demonstration of good faith. It’s easy to advocate the State killing someone in the abstract, but the State represents all of us, and we share responsibility for what our government does. Giving citizens the opportunity to see and understand exactly what they say they want bolsters seriousness and integrity.”
Compared to triggering violence from practitioners of the “religion of peace,” that was minor benefit at most. The dumbest reason for cancelling the live-stream was in the open letter signed by retired admirals, generals and other officers opposing the plan because “Livestreaming this execution would clearly violate the basic human dignity of the condemned prisoner.”
You know, if I’m going to be executed for a mass murder, preserving my human dignity—a mass killer has no dignity—isn’t going to be a significant concern. Why would I care who sees it? The letter, by exactly the kind of military leadership Trump and Hegseth are trying to get out of the Pentagon, also added,
“It turns what should be the solemn and grave punishment of a member of our society for committing the most serious crimes into a carnival for the enjoyment of voyeurs and spectators.”
Boy, those signatories must have been to some awful carnivals. Did I miss the part of Hegseth’s order where he said there would be funnel cake and a Tilt-a Whirl?
Nidal Hasan killed 14 people.
(21 year old Private Velez from Chicago was pregnant)
I got a kick out the usual suspects reporting Trump’s over-riding Hegseth and the Pentagon as a sign of out-of-control disfunction in the administration and a scandalous show of disrespect to Hegseth and the Pentagon! Talk about breaking norms! A president overruling subordinates!
The part of the Hasan incident that gets overlooked is our military’s distrust of its own soldiers. Hasan (a military psychiatrist, by the way) was the only one armed. Everyone else was a sitting duck. Why didn’t anyone else have a gun?
We allowed Saudi troops on our military bases to have firearms, but not our own troops. When asked why the Saudi troops can have guns, but not our own, the Pentagon stated that it would be insulting to ask foreign troops to give up their firearms on base. It would suggest we don’t trust them.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/12/16/saudi-officer-who-killed-3-pensacola-had-passed-rigorous-vetting-dod-says.html
The classical Christian argument in favor of the death penalty is from Genesis 9:6
Whoever sheds human blood,
by humans shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made mankind.
The important phrase I want emphasize is for in the image of God has God made mankind, which is the basis for human dignity. So the death penalty is commanded in the Bible to preserve human dignity, of which murder is a denial. This is why arguments against the death penalty on grounds of human dignity fall flat. Similar for arguments against executions in public.
The practice of having convicts executed in public disappeared in Western nations in the 1930s. Rainey Bethea was hanged in Kentucky in 1936, was probably the last person to be hanged in the USA.
Two reasons in favor of public executions that still apply today in the USA are:
The last reason is why even today executions are witnessed by family members of the murder victim(s) for reasons of closure, and by the prosecutor and judge who presided over the trial in which the convict was sentenced to death, for reasons of accountability.
Recently I watched “Hang ‘Em High”, a Western with Clint Eastwood, in which six convicts were hanged in public. This movie displays another reason for having executions in public, namely edification. There is the local pastor, who reads loudly out of the Bible (Psalm 1) to warn the public against things that lead to crime such as keeping bad company, plus one of the condemned gives a very moving statement about how the sin of drinking got him here.
(The movie also shows the carnival atmosphere in town, with many street vendors, plus funnel cake.)
So this movie shows two other reasons for execution in public:
Other reasons for public executions are:
About the last two reasons: The Nazi government reintroduced the death penalty in the Netherlands (which was abolished in 1870) as an instrument of terror. After the liberation in 1945 these laws were used to sentence and execute the worst war criminals and traitors, until in 1948 the Netherlands abolished the death penalty again.
Many of the arguments against executions in public can also be used against the death penalty; e.g. the arguments with appeals to public dignity.
Arguments of those who are in favor of the execution of Nidal Hassan but not in favor of having the execution livestreamed, tend to be based on concerns about PR rather than principle; we would not have this discussion if the death penalty enjoyed widespread support among the population and in politics.
Public executions exist to show the people justice has been done before the body politic to reinforce the social contract. However, opening an execution to the public allows people to “add to the punishment” outside of judicial norms – derision, mockery, throwing things, etc. This acts to degrade the public more than the soon-to-be-executed.
The compromise is controlled environments that allows a certain number of curated witnesses. In the case of Nidal Hasan, I’m open to the idea that the execution be open to any veteran who wants to watch as the primary victims of this crime were soldiers and the primary breach of the social contract was within the military (which has always been treated as a unique society within society).
I have never liked the invocation of the Genesis passage as support for Capital Punishment. It is too much of a passive voice that lends itself more to a warning: If you live a violent life your violence will eventually catch up to you ala Matthew 26:52. It doesn’t read as God granting an active directive: “if you murder someone, I authorize governments to kill you”.
The bible has plenty of other passages justifying a death penalty, simply by listing a series of moral failings punishable by death. One can disagree with that list of moral failings nowadays, but the bible does clearly indicate that there are moral failings series enough to warrant death.
But you don’t need the bible to justify capital punishment.
But you don’t need the bible to justify capital punishment.
I agree that Biblical arguments do not provide a necessary argument for the government to justify the death penalty. But I hope you agree that we cannot use the Bible to argue against the death penalty, as this practice is widely supported in the Bible.
However, opening an execution to the public allows people to “add to the punishment” outside of judicial norms – derision, mockery, throwing things, etc. This acts to degrade the public more than the soon-to-be-executed.
I have many things to say about this, as I am not convinced of the strength of the arguments for limiting the people in attendance at an execution to the direct family members of the murder victims. The argument pro attendance of family members is that is provides closure to them, and the argument against a fully public attendance is that it coarsens the public, and may add additional punishment not provided by law (mockery etc.). So why do we assume that attendance by only family members of murder victims does not coarsen these family members? The argument against mockery and derision can also be used against the current practice of victim impact statements; e.g. in the case against Larry Nassir, the doctor who sexually abused Olympic gymnast the day after day victim statements by hundreds of women was a humiliation ritual.
In the case of Nidal Hasan, I’m open to the idea that the execution be open to any veteran who wants to watch as the primary victims of this crime were soldiers and the primary breach of the social contract was within the military.
Here we get to the core of the issue. The main issue with limiting attendance of execution to certain classes of people based on victim status or veteran status is that crimes are committed against the people of a certain jurisdiction. If a murder is committed in New York by defendant X the prosecutor brings a criminal case on behalf of the people of the state of New York: the People vs Defendant X. In a federal case it becomes: The U.S.A. against defendant X. In other words, the law does not allow for elevating a subset of the people a privileged status based on victimhood or veteran status. A murder within a jurisdiction affect all of us in that jurisdiction as it rends the fabric of society, makes us feel unsafe, etc. This means seeing justice done is a proper matter of interest to all people in that jurisdiction. If executions are made public by livestream or television, that handles objections dealing with public order such as throwing objects at the condemned.
Let’s illustrate this with the biggest crime ever committed in the U.S.A., namely the terrorist attacks at 9/11. Do you think the people of the U.S.A. might need some closure on that? How much closure do we have? Two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that solved nothing, the election of a mayor in New York who is openly antisemitic and sympathizes with the terrorists of Hamas, and none of the masterminds of 9/11 have been executed.
So let’s say that we are going to execute Zacarias Moussaoui, where should we do that? As the more than 3,000 victims of 9/11 have enough family members to fill the entire Yankees Stadium. Would you be in favor of that? Why / why not? I would be in favor, and I would loved to see it televised.
Would that coarsen the public? Not more than watching the twin towers fall, over and over again on television, and seeing footage of people jumping from the towers to escape the flames. 9/11 traumatized the entire USA. All of us need closure. People who have seen 3,000 people die before their eyes that day should be able to handle seeing the execution of the 9/11 masterminds.
And what has that to do with Nidal Hassan? He is an Islamic terrorist of the same ilk as Zacarias Moussaoui. He was fighting the same war against the USA as all the other terrorist. Therefore his execution is a matter that is in the interest of all the people in the U.S.A.
The people who argue most vehemently against livestreaming his execution are also against the death penalty. The corollary is that if you accept the death penalty, you should not have principled objections against having the execution done in public. The only objections against public executions are pragmatic, given the flimsy support of the U.S.A. population of the death penalty.