The death penalty and the culture of death

Last week the Nebraska legislature abolished the state’s death penalty, overcoming the governor’s veto to do it. First Things editor Matthew Schmitz, writing in National Review, adds a salutary note of caution to the celebration that followed: viewing abolition as moral progress allows us to “overlook the countless cruelties of our criminal-justice system as we congratulate ourselves on the elimination of a relatively rare punishment.”

This is most certainly true. The justice system is riddled with caprice and cruelty at every level, not merely when life and death are at stake. This Schmitz blames not so much on America’s yawning economic inequalities or the persistence of white supremacy but, with a measure of fairness, on a utilitarian view of punishment that makes the system “sterile, hygienic, and cruel.”

Calling America’s justice system “sterile” and “hygienic” pushes the metaphorical capacity of language to its very limit, but the point is still an important one. Much ink and activism have been spilled on the system’s lack of humanity, and efforts are afoot to promote restorative rather than purely retributive justice. The astonishing thing is the turn Schmitz makes from this point: “if we are to erect a criminal-justice system that is less cold and cruel, we could do worse than to defend and extend the death penalty” [emphasis added].