Facing Up to Death

LET'S FACE IT. We're all fascinated by death. Every single one of us. And that's no coincidence--it has a lot to do with the fact that every single one of us will die someday.

Americans seem to be particularly fascinated by death. How else can you explain the popularity of Faces of Death--a movie consisting entirely of real deaths? Faces of Death II? Faces of Death III? Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and their slasher sequels?

Sure, those films are, for the most part, kid stuff. But grownups lap up the death thing, too--whether it's "Man Explodes on Operating Table!" in Star or the Stuart case in Time.

Some argue that our constant bombardment with these morbid images desensitizes us to the horror of death. They've got a point. As Stalin recognized, one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic. The Gulf War annihilated more than 100,000 Iraqis, a tornado destroyed more than 100,000 Bangladeshis, and Americans barely seemed to care.

THIS DEATH BUSINESS, of course, brings me to the subject of public executions. (My English teacher once told me: "If you're going to make a ridiculously abrupt transition, hide it behind an 'of course.' Keeps 'em on their toes.")

This Friday, a federal court in San Francisco will decide whether KQED, a public television station in California, has the right to film the gas-chamber execution of Robert Alton Harris, a career criminal convicted of murdering two teenage boys 12 years ago. Harris will be the first inmate executed in California since voters reinstituted capital punishment in a 1978 statewide referendum.

"Horrors!" shriek some anti-death penalty liberals. If Americans are habitually exposed to ghastly executions on the nightly news, they will become hardened to death! They might start to like the death penalty!

"Horrors!" shriek some pro-death penalty conservatives. If Americans are habitually exposed to ghastly executions on the nightly news, they will become sympathetic toward murderers! They might go soft on the death penalty!

Who's right? Who knows? I'm not sure how Americans would react to seeing a real live person exterminated on national television. I'm not sure how I'd react myself. I don't consider myself a particularly bloodthirsty person, but I've got to admit--I'm kind of curious to see what it would be like to see someone die. I wonder what kind of effect it would have on me. Would I be sickened? Saddened? Angered? Relatively indifferent? Beats me.

I also wonder what kind of effect seeing a man die would have on my views on the death penalty. I'm not usually one to waffle about my opinions, but to be honest, capital punishment is a toughie. I know all the questions--the deterrence arguments, the racial bias arguments, the law-and-order arguments, the what-if-we-make-a-mistake arguments, the cruel-and-unusual arguments, the don't-kill-to-show-killing-is-wrong arguments--but I don't have any answers. Maybe the emotional shock of witnessing an execution would convince me that capital punishment is wrong. Maybe the emotional anesthesia of witnessing 12 executions would do just the opposite.

THE POINT IS, I'm not sure what I think. I'd like more information. I'd like to see for myself.

And that's why the First Amendment was passed. Not to protect Robert Mapplethorpe or Luther Campbell--although it does, and it should. But the goal, the spirit, the original intent of the First Amendment was to leave the media absolutely free to keep an eye on the government, to oversee our public servants' activities and report them to the people. Yes, this macabre Film At Eleven might change my opinion about the death penalty. But that's the point. For better or for worse, we live in a democracy--you know, by the people, of the people, for the people. The government can't do things behind the people's backs, because the government is the people. Remember?

Powerful images affect human beings, and in a democracy, human beings affect the decision-making process. That's why anti-abortion activists show The Silent Scream. That's why anti-hunger activists show horrifying pictures of malnourished children. If the networks hadn't sent graphic, troubling images of war home from Vietnam, American soldiers might still be out there in the jungle.

It's true that powerful images are not equivalent to rational discourse. Tough. No one ever said that democracies would make purely rational decisions. That's part of the price of granting sovereignty to the unwashed masses. Anyway, are there purely rational answers to these highly emotional public policy questions? If John Locke were alive today, would he be able to use cool-headed logic to convince John Rawls of the necessity of capital punishment? I doubt it.

In military hierarchies, information is dispersed on a "need to know" basis. Lieutenants are told what they "need to know" in order to be good lieutenants. Spies are told what they "need to know" in order to be good spies. So it is not surprising that in 1971, General Maxwell Taylor testified before Congress that The New York Times should be prohibited from printing sensitive information contained in the Pentagon Papers because the American people did not "need to know" that information in order to be "good citizens." And it is not surprising that a host of disgusted Americans have argued that public executions do not tell us anything we need to know, and that the government should therefore keep KQED away.

But Taylor was wrong. In a democracy, the government cannot decide what the people "need to know." That is the responsibility of unfettered, independent news organizations. Every day, these organizations make difficult decisions about what to print, what to air. Do you print a rape victim's name? Do you print classified information about an undercover military operation? Do you print the Pentagon Papers? Sometimes, they make lousy decisions. Tough. That's another cost of living in a country where the government cannot control the free flow of information.

In this case, KQED decided that since the people had authorized their state to kill killers, the people should be able to watch their state kill killers, to see what they had wrought. Don't like it? Don't watch it. Next time a death penalty comes around, vote against it.

LEGALLY, I don't think this is a particularly difficult constitutional issue. The First Amendment is fairly unambiguous about restrictions on the media. And televised capital punishment is no more "cruel or unusual" than untelevised capital punishment. If anything, a television audience protects prisoners from angry executioners who might be tempted to inflict a little extra pain behind closed doors.

But the public execution issue goes beyond legality. It ranges towards the What Kind Of Society Is This? kind of questions that make most of us squirm. Some people fear that videotaped executions will stir up what Time called a "disquieting Dickensian excitement."

To tell the truth, I think they're probably right. I remember the vicious crowd waving signs outside serial killer Ted Bundy's execution--signs of the "Burn, Bundy, Burn" and "Bundy BBQ" variety. Even more than Faces of Death, killing bad guys appeals to our basest instincts. That's why Bernie Goetz became such a hero. That's why Gov. Douglas Wilder (D-VA), an opponent of the death penalty, has decided that his political ambitions would be destroyed by granting clemency to convicts on Death Row.

KQED promises to handle Harris' execution tastefully. But you can't force good taste into people's living rooms. There's nothing anyone can do about the "Gas the Bastard" parties, the "Every Time He Twitches" drinking games, the inward smiles of satisfaction.

Society can be cruel, mainly because the people who form them can be cruel. Alberto Grella beat me up every day in the schoolyard when I was in second grade. And I've got to admit that part of me still wants to rip him to shreds. I don't think that the cruel side of my character would emerge as Robert Alton Harris paid the price for his sins. But it might.

How would you react?

Are you sure?

Michael R. Grunwald '92, editorial chair of The Crimson, swears he was nowhere near Dallas on November 17, 1963.