Crime and Punishment

Thoughts on Capital Punishment

Each week I spend about 1 hour on Zoom with my friend Caroline. She lives in South Carolina, which I find interesting in that she is as liberal as me. She told me that her state was going to implement the death sentence by firing squad. I checked the calendar on my computer to make sure it was in fact 2021.

I Want to Live!

Though I can’t remember exactly what year I saw I Want to Live!, I know it had a significant impact on me. The film stars Susan Hayward in the true story of a sex worker and perpetual offender who tries to go straight but is sent to death row after being implicated in a murder. A journalist played by Ed Montgomery becomes convinced that she is innocent and works to save her life. The governor stays the execution twice, but the writ is overturned and she is ultimately executed in a gas chamber. I recall coming away from the film believing that an innocent woman had been killed and shaken to my core. (The film earned a total of six Academy Award nominations, with Hayward winning a Best Actress Oscar as well as the Golden Globe Award.)

I can’t recall what year I saw the film which was released in 1958. I watched it on TV so I suspect I was a young teenager. At that time, I was not aware of the disproportionate use of capital punishment as it relates to minorities. I had not yet grappled with the state-sponsored killing of the mentally ill or mentally handicapped. And had not come to grips with what should be done to serial killers who admit to their horrendous crimes. I just knew we should never mistakenly kill an innocent person. I was (and am) against the death penalty.

Death by Firing Squad

When I hung up with Caroline I had to do some research. Was she correct? Was a state, even one that elected Lindsey Graham, really going to implement capital punishment by firing squad. It turns out she was right. As her state was finding it more and more difficult to procure the drugs needed for lethal injection, a bill was progressing through the state legislature to allow the use of firing squads.

I also learned that Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah already allow firing squads. That three inmates (all in Utah) were executed by this means with the most recent being in 2010. And, according to Amnesty International, in 2020 eight countries executed convicts by shooting: China, Iran, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Taiwan, and Yemen.

Portugal

Of course, given where we are living I also researched this issue as it relates to Portugal. Here is what I found:

• The last person executed (outside of a theater of war) was in Lagos in 1846.

• Portugal was the first country in the world to begin the process to abolish the death penalty, abolishing it in stages – for political crimes in 1852, for all crimes except the military in 1867, and for all crimes in 1911.

• In 1917, a Portuguese soldier was executed in France during WWI by firing squad. On the 100th anniversary of his execution, a “moral rehabilitation” was issued, not intended as an exoneration or pardon but rather "rehabilitation of the memory of a soldier convicted to a sentence contrary to human rights and the values and principles that have been long ingrained in Portuguese society."

• The 1976 Constitution abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

• Today, while the majority of Portuguese oppose the death penalty, one party (Chega, the far-right, nationalist, anti-immigration party) supports it in certain situations.

I realize this is a complex issue and that some, like Denise, believe there are some people that cannot be rehabilitated … some for whom we should not be burdened with the cost of life imprisonment. And I am not saying I am right…but you have to admit South Carolina has chosen some pretty interesting company.