Only Human

Outspoken opponents and unswerving supporters of the death penalty continually claim that the main issue in the debate is a moral one: should the state execute somebody who has clearly committed a heinous crime? Participants are asked by both sides to forget all those embarrassing stories about inmates released from death row after the state almost sent them to an unearned early grave. We are supposed to assume that our criminal justice system operates, or can one day operate, with little or no error.

But the criminal justice system is a human institution, and it will always be subject to human error.

I was reminded of this simple truth last week, when former Governor George Ryan, R-Ill., spoke at the Institute of Politics (IOP). Governor Ryan is known for two things: a petty scandal that may put him in jail and a courageous act that has earned him international praise.

On the scandal side, Ryan has been accused of selling difficult-to-obtain truckers’ licenses when he was Secretary of State. He has also been accused of using his political connections to funnel money to his family. His campaign manager and top aide has already been indicted in the scandal, and many in Illinois believe that Ryan could wind up sharing a cell with his former political crony.

But Ryan has also sparked controversy by commuting the sentences of 164 death row inmates, leaving them in jail but protecting them from execution. When he commuted the sentences, Ryan had already made headlines by declaring a moratorium on the death penalty after 13 residents of Illinois’s death row were proven to be innocent.

Ryan’s speech at the IOP was supposed to explain his action and encourage debate on the death penalty. In it, he spoke of lost faith in the system and a deep internal struggle that left him unable to send another inmate to die. Often appearing flustered or confused, accidentally swatting the microphones when trying to make a point, wearing a pained expression on his wrinkled face, Ryan conveyed the impression of a man who has wrestled with his own shortcomings. There were no overt references to his speckled past or potentially troubled future, but the former governor and consummate politician seemed unpolished, as if he had been shaken by his years in the statehouse.

When Ryan spoke of wrestling with the decision to put a man to death, a man he believed was guilty, his uneasiness seemed so human that everybody in the crowd could imagine making the same decision.

The death penalty is not carried out in some perfect world, where gods and angels preside over just executions for the good of society. Here on earth, we don’t elect gods; we elect human beings. Our institutions of government and law are the impure creations of imperfect men like Governor George Ryan. Ryan just had the integrity to see the impurities in the system and act accordingly.

As the nation continues to debate the death penalty, we should remember that it is not an abstract concept, but a human institution, subject to the problems of all human institutions, including the almost unthinkable possibility for error. We cannot look at the death penalty as distinct from a governmental and judicial system that is, at its best, only human.

—Samuel M. Simon is an editorial comper.