The Written Word
for June 24, 2001

The Timothy McVeigh execution raises a couple of points that society must address.

The first one I find myself feeling uneasy even writing about but because it ties into the second, I must. The near public nature of the execution reminded one a little of the popular public executions going right into the 19^th century. Has society progressed so little that we are to return to this barbarism?

But what I find really troubling about that is that the rationale was that it would give the victims "closure". Closure, in this context, must be nearly synonymous with "revenge". And it indicates to me that revenge is making a comeback in our political system – if it’s ever been away.

Let’s step back from this a bit. Suppose McVeigh, possessed of his demons, had created an explosion that killed but one person. Isn’t it reasonable to conclude that a trial would have found him demented? Here is a person that thought he had a mission on this planet to kill for half baked convictions – surely he would have been found to have badly diminished capacity. If I’m right, does that change if he killed two? Or ten? At what point does the quantity of harm dictate the penalty?

The real problem here is that Timothy McVeigh was a very sick man. No one who is not insane, in the medical sense of that word, thinks what McVeigh thought or does what he did. No sane person plots to blow up a building and kill hundreds of people. Yet insanity didn’t seem to be a real issue, or if it was, it was ignored because of the magnitude of the consequences of his crime.

The principles of sentencing include deterrence, protecting the public and punishment. No sentence passed on McVeigh is going to deter another lunatic from doing the same thing. Jail for life protects the public. And surely punishment is only relevant if the person punished can learn from the punishment and mend his ways.

The only possible justification for a death penalty is vengeance, individual, group or societal. And I find it troubling that in the 21^st centiry we have brought vengeance back into our judicial system.

But I’m even more troubled that we would execute a man who is so obviously diseased in his mind. Have we not reached the point where we understand mental disease to be, in some cases, disabling of reason? We do in Canada although the majority wish we didn’t since the majority favours the return of the noose.

I stand accused and am probably guilty of being a bleeding heart but I don’t believe in executing the insane – even if they are untreatable … and even if they crimes are huge. And I don’t believe in vengeance playing a role in criminal jurisprudence.