1:JO 17 ITI!E DEATH PENALTY: IS IT EVER JUSTIFIED? 8RUCK I TIIE DEATH PENALTY 491 House (a death penalty defense clinic) at Washington and Lee University Sch,•. For those who had to see the execution of J. C. Shaw, it wasn't easy at Law. The essay reprinUd hue ori9inally appeared on May 20. 1985, in th New Republic as a response to the preceding essay by Edward t. Koch. ' keep in mind that the purpose of the whole spectacle was to affirm le. It wiU be harder stiU when Florida executes a cop-killer named Alvin •rd. Ford has lost his mind during his years of death-row con6nement, The Death Penalty ,d now spends his days trembling, rocking back and forth, and mur· "ng unintelligible prayers. This has led to litigation over whether Ford ·ers a centwies-old legal standard for mental competency. Since the Mayor Ed Koch contends that the death penalty •affirms lite: B iddle Ages, the Anglo-American legal system has generally prohibited failing to execute murderers, he says, we ·signal a lessened regard f, ,e execution of anyone who is too mentally ill to understand what is the value of the victim's life.· Koch suggests that people who oppose 1b 111 to be done to him and why. If Florida wins its case, it will have death penalty are like Kilty Genovese's neighbors, who heard her crie, ed the right to electrocute Ford in his present condition. If it loses, for help but did nothing while an attacker stabbed her to death. will not be executed until the state has first nursed him back to some. This is the standard ·moral· defense of death as punishment: Even' blance of memal health. 1 executions don't deter violent crime any more effectively than imprison• We can at least be thankful that this demoralizing spectacle involves a ment, they are still required as the only means we have of doing jusli­ '·,oner who is acruaUy guilty of . But this may not always be so. in response 10 the worst of crimes. 1eordeal of Lene!! Jeter-the young black engineer who recently served Until recently, this ·moral' argument had to be considered in t -rethan a year of a life sentence for a Texas armed robbery that he didn't abstract, since no one was being executed in the United States. But t death penalty is back now, at least in the southern states. where eve, imit-should remind us that the system is quite capable of making the y worst son of mistake. That Jeter was eventually cleared is a fluke. one of the more than thirty executions carried out over the last rw, ' the robbery had occurred at 7 P.M. rather than 3 P.M., he'd have had no years has taken place. Those of us who Jive in those states are getting ' see the difference between the death penalty in theory, and what ha: 1i,and would still be in prison today. And if someone had been killed pens when you actually try to use it. that robbery, Jeter probably would have been sentenced w death. We'd ,., \een the usual execution-day interviews with state officials and the resumed executing prisoners in January with 1h1 'm's relatives, aU complaining that Jeter's appeals took too long. And electrocution of Joseph Carl Shaw. Shaw was condemned to death fo1 helping to murder two teenagers while he was serving as a milita ' :er's last words from the gurney would have taken tl1eir place among the . I ,wingliterature of death-house oration that so irritates the mayor. policeman at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. liis crime. propelled b• l

I don't claim that executions of entirely innocent people will oc, most of any state, and the sixth highest total for any year since Flor­ very often. But they wi.11occur. And other sorts of mistakes already hav, started electrocuting people back in 1924. Elsewliere in the United Roosevelt Green was executed in Georgia two days before J. C. Sha 1teslast year. the homicide rate continued to decline. But in Florida, it Green and an accomplice kidnapped a young woman. Green swore rh, ually rose by 5.1 per:nt. J his companion shot her to death after Green had left, and that he kne But these are just e nresome facts. The electric chair has been a nothing about the murder. Green's claim was supported by a statem« terpiece of each of Koch's recent political campaigns, and he knows that his accomplice made to a witness after the crime. The jury nev, tier than anyone how little the facts have to do with the public's sup­ resolved whether Green was telling the truth. and when he tried to tak1 iort !or capital punishment. What really fuels the death penalty is the a polygraph examination a few days before his scheduled executio :hfi.able frustration and rage ol people who see that the government the state of Georgia refused to allow the examiner into the prison. not coping with violent crime. So what if the death penalty doesn't the pressure for symbolic retribution mounts, the courts, like the publi k? At least it gives us the satisfaction of knowing that we got one or are losing patience with such details. Green was electrocuted on January 10 of the sons of bitches. . while members of the Ku Klux Klan rallied outside the prison. Perhaps we want retribution on the flesh and bone of a handful of\15 ,--fhen there is another sort of arbitrariness that happens a.II 1victed murderers so badly that we're willing to close our eyes to all of Jtime .. Last October, Louisiana executed a man named Ernest I