Watching him die

Attorney General John Ashcroft has won praise for his decision to permit closed-circuit television coverage of the May 16 execution of Timothy McVeigh. Many consider it fair and proper to let survivors and families of the 168 victims of the Oklahoma City bombing watch the execution while shutting out all others except for a few press and official observers.

But the announcement has wider significance, notably for Maine with its long history of opposition to the death penalty. This state took the lead in 1835 in a national revulsion against frequent public hangings – in which people pushed and shoved for a good view of the corpse and then tried to tear down the scaffold and rope for souvenirs – by enacting what amounted to a moratorium on capital punishment. Maine finally abolished the death penalty in 1887 after a public hanging in which a poorly tied noose left the victim dangling in agony. An effort to reintroduce the death penalty in Maine two years ago was soundly rejected by both houses of the Legislature.

A revealing discussion of the Ashcroft decision last week, on “The Jim Lehrer News-Hour” on public television presented two views on opposite sides. Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School, asserted that all Americans were victims of the terrorist attack and thus should be permitted to watch the execution. He called the McVeigh execution “justifiable homicide” and said that “we are doing it, and we should see what we are doing and remember why we are doing it.”

Bonnie Bucqueroux, executive director of Crime Victims for a Just Society, interrupted to contend that the victims and their families were being manipulated by politicians for their own purposes: “I think in this case McVeigh has been made a poster child to try to gin up support for the death penalty, which is clearly waning in the culture.” She raised the question of why the Bush administration chose Mr. McVeigh for the first federal execution since 1963. He took the place of Juan Raul Garza, a Mexican-American. His execution had been set for Dec. 12, 2000, but President Bill Clinton put it off until this June in the face of protests by many religious leaders that racial minorities accounted for a disproportional number of federal capital convictions. She suggested that the McVeigh bombing was so horrifying and that demands for vengeance were so great that officials believed his execution would boost sagging support for the death penalty.

Professor Blecker bristled at her use of the term “vengeance.” He preferred “retribution,” which he described as “limited, directed, proportional response.” He said Mr. McVeigh was a perfect first choice because “we should have the worst first, and McVeigh is the worst of the worst.”

Ms. Bucqueroux made a strong case. The United States stands nearly alone in keeping the death penalty, and President Bush’s home state of Texas stands alone with its record number of executions. Mr. Bush and Mr. Ashcroft are on the defensive against a massive and growing demand for abolition of the death penalty.

If not vengeance, then what is the purpose of this execution? The death penalty surely has failed as a deterrent. Saving the taxpayers’ money is hardly a justification. In the case of a terrorist, some argue that execution can convert a murderer into a martyr and actually encourage future support for terrorism.

As for the survivors and families of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, they will have to judge for themselves whether it will work as a “closure” for their shock and sorrow. For the rest of us, it raises broader questions.