Suffocated to Death in the Name of Justice

 A few days ago, Alabama prisoner, Kenneth Smith, was executed by the State using a new, and highly controversial method of killing. He was suffocated to death when he was forced to breathe a nitrogen gas. The nitrogen gas replaced the oxygen in Smith's lungs and cells, causing his body to die, violently, from suffocation. 

Smith's death was allegedly supposed to be quick and painless. The nitrogen was supposed to render him unconscious, and then his body would die from starvation of oxygen. But he didn't die quickly, or painlessly. Observers report that Smith was visibly conscious for several minutes while he gasped for air and his body convulsed violently. 

This state-sanctioned killing was conducted in a country who polices other countries for their human rights abuses. We chastise other countries for hanging or shooting political dissidents and other citizens who we deem unworthy of death. Meanwhile, we kill our own citizens, perhaps in more barbaric ways, because they "deserve" to die. The moral contradiction is glaring. 

I oppose the death penalty primarily on moral grounds. I think it is morally, and biblically, wrong. But I also oppose it on human rights and legal grounds. Our country has executed many innocent people because our justice system has put more weight on the finality of a judgment by a jury of peers than on evidence of one's innocence. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, and we ought to stop telling other countries how to be more moral if we don't occupy the moral high ground ourselves. 

Kenneth Smith may very well have been guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. I don't know the details of his case, or of his guilt or innocence. I'm sure if I did I would be outraged by the harms he may have caused. But in 2024, do we still believe that harms can be balanced by killing the person guilty of those harms? Is our world better because we've eliminated a threat to our "good"? 

I'm sure Iran, North Korea, China, and other countries with known human rights abuses feel justified in eliminating people who threaten their country's "good" too. We can disagree what is good for those countries, and therefore justify our outrage over their executions, but how are we any different in the end? 

Alabama is in the "Bible Belt" in America, and sadly, those who support the death penalty often use the Bible to justify their beliefs. They don't understand their Bibles, and they pick and choose what parts of the Bible to use to support their moral positions. They've elevated an ancient law of limits ("an eye for an eye") over the final word of the Law Giver, Jesus. Even Jesus refused to support the death penalty, even when Jewish law was clear. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone," Jesus directed. Then, the only one without sin (Jesus) refused to cast the first stone. 

It's time for America to outlaw the death penalty. We cannot continue to call ourselves the world's moral police while killing our own citizens in the name of justice. Suffocating someone to death is not justice, no matter how you slice it.