Louisiana leaders must recognize the struggle they have invited with anti-capital punishment ideologues that wish to cancel democratically-made policy, and how to win it.
For many years, politics prevented the state from carrying out executions, by political pressure zealots put on suppliers of chemicals used for the lethal injection method, the only method allowed in recent decades until last year, and the presence of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, who for political reasons refused to admit he was one of those zealots until late in his second term and would stand in the way of legal changes to add (in the case of electrocution, add back) methods to executions.
But the elections of 2023 and principally Republican Gov. Jeff Landry capturing the office broke the logjam, and last year electrocution and nitrogen hypoxia became legal methods. After a few months to set up an entirely constitutional protocol – reaffirmed days ago – regarding hypoxia, the state announced it was back in the justice business and started to queue up executions, beginning with Jesse Hoffman who has been sitting on death row for 27 years.
And not a moment too soon. It never can be stated too often that the moral case regarding capital punishment rests in favor of those supporting it – as long as it is performed in a manner that reasonably encourages the deterrence that saves lives, both in the earthly and spiritual realms. That is precisely the pressure point on which opponents try to defeat it, by a sitzkrieg of roadblock after roadblock to prevent any execution that destroys the deterrent value which, in the final analysis, makes immoral their concentration on trying to save a series of lives already forfeited rather than those of innocents.
Now that an execution was nigh, the zealots swung into maximal action. A flurry of last-minute appeals with a consistency of pasts thrown against a wall were filed, and rejected, added to a number of others issued over the years. None succeeded,
All throughout, there was a whiff of disingenuousness. Before trying to relitigate his conviction at the last minute, Hoffman claimed he would go through with his execution if it were by firing squad – not permitted under state law and of which only a few have occurred in the past few decades – or by lethal injection. In other words, not at all given the political realities.
That still left electrocution – not done anywhere for five years – as a method that could be chosen. But that was the gambit his lawyers were attempting because they could run most of the same arguments with it, along with it a parallel argument already attempted that as lethal injection in their terminology and argumentation is the least cruel method then the state must try harder to use it instead of other methods – again, politically unrealistic. It illustrates how any means are tried, justified by the ends they seek. (The concurring opinion that negated a religious exercise argument written by Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Republican Jay McCallum, as well as a U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion rejecting others dealing with punishment, readily point out the speciousness of these tactics.)
Thus, while these zealots are not as morally culpable as others even more extreme who seek to exonerate even if that means imprisoning the innocent as previously discussed, they also put ideology ahead of justice in instances such as these, destroying whatever positive service they provide the community in those rare instances when their actions do uncover a mistake that violates a death row convict’s rights. That is a valuable service which the state can encourage.
To do this, Louisiana needs to follow Texas’ example and start an assembly line of carrying out capital sentences. By lining these up every couple of months or so, it will overwhelm the zealots’ resources (some of which come from taxpayers) if they try the throw-against-the-wall strategy. Instead, they will have to focus on those very few exculpatory factors that actually could merit reprieves or even commutation of a sentence, which genuinely aids society. And it obviously accomplishes the all-important deterrence objective.
Hoffman left the world tonight. This should be the first of many signals the state sends to save lives.
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