John Allen Muhammed, RIP.
by John
John Allen Muhammed
John Allen Muhammed, one of the virginia snipers, will breath his last at 2AM Irish time tonight. He will die in apparent peace, as one after another drugs are injected into his body to induce unconsciousness and suspend his breathing. Finally, a large dose of potassium chloride will be injected to stop his heart.
The death penalty is one of those issues that I have never been able to arrive at a fixed position on. Certainly, nobody could possibly find a more worthy candidate than Muhammed. With an accomplice, he calmly shot innocent people from a distance as if he were hunting deer or elk. His actions terrorized a community twice as large as our own little country. He did it all, he says, primarily for the thrill, but also because of a mild interest in waging a holy war. He has refused to apologise, express regret, or offer any further explanation. He can never be rehabilitated and returned to society.
The alternative, life in prison to reflect on his crimes, only works if he regrets the crimes. He apparently does not.
Several family members of his victims are scheduled to watch his death tonight, many openly speak of their desire for revenge. Others take comfort in what they see as justice being done. Yet, while I can find no argument that allows me to feel passionately opposed to what will happen later this evening, I cannot help but feel somewhat uncomfortable about it.
It seems to me a perversion of medical science, for a start, to strap a healthy person to a gurney and inject them with a lethal combination of drugs, and then watch as they die. I think that if it were a scene in a horror movie, we would recoil from the sight. It’s cold, brutal, and strikes me as psychological terror. I can only imagine the feelings of somebody watching those drugs travel down a tube towards a needle in their arm, and I simply cannot imagine the terror of those last few seconds as you wait for the first of the drugs to take effect. It does not strike me as “humane”.
On the other hand, I cannot decide if it is the execution, or the method, that makes me uncomfortable. I recently watched the really excellent Pierrepoint, a film which the more enterprising amongst you can find in full on youtube. It recreates the story of Britain’s last hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, who personally led over 400 men and women to the trapdoor. It depicts standard-drop hangings as swift, humane, clean, and efficient. Certainly, some can dispute the underlying issue of innocence or guilt, but once you reach the point of no return, the old British method seems as decent to me as any other.
Discussions of methods, however, are a little bit of a cop-out, I think. Whether death is achieved through drugs, suspension, electrocution, bullets, or burning, the final destination is the same. The relative comfort of the journey is only a small factor to consider.
So, does the state have the right to do what Virginia is doing to John Allen Muhammed tonight? I think that on balance it does. I think that some crimes merit a punishment that makes ordinary people recoil. I think my discomfort at the thought of what will happen to Muhammed, and his own terror, are the price of his actions. He took many lives, and now, in clinical surroundings, he will lose his own.
The whole sorry mess is upsetting, but the final act of this story is, I think, fitting. Tonight he repays his debt to society, and in doing so, he frees the rest of us to say – and mean – the words “rest in peace”.