Having settled that question in my usual manner, let’s examine the issue from a somewhat different angle, shall we? There are a lot of opinions and viewpoints, but let’s start with something that should have a rational, not emotional answer: What is the purpose of a death sentence?

Using the currently talked about case, what is the purpose of imposing a death sentence on Cal Brown (hereafter referred to as CB) for the kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder of Holly Washa?

Revenge: CB did a horrible thing, therefore he should be executed. The problem is that there’s no way society could exact full revenge for the scope of his crimes against Holly Washa. Execution is relatively clean and painless compared to what he did to her. It’s possible that 18 years on death row provides some recompense for the hours of fear and certainty of death he imposed on the end of Holly’s life, but I’m not sure there’s any meaningful equivalence. The alternative (no longer practiced by this society) is to torture him to death, but that’s repugnant, degrading to the torturers, and ultimately rather pointless. At some point his suffering would end in death and nothing more could touch him. Holly Washa would still be dead and the realization that nothing can change that would again sadden those who cared about her.

Punishment: As with revenge, what constitutes adequate punishment for taking the life of another person? There is the “eye for an eye” school of thought and many seem to feel that death is the appropriate and acceptable form of punishment for murder. For some, the idea that CB will spend the rest of his life remembering his horrendous crime is greater punishment than simply ending his life would be. He told the clemency board that Holly Washa haunts him every day. He may just be saying that in a sympathy play; if true, I can’t imagine that anyone would think it wrong that he should be haunted. Assuming that CB is actually haunted by the wrongness of his actions and not merely by the fact of being caught and the specter of his own impending death, it may be that living will be a greater punishment than dying.

Deterrence: Has anyone ever seriously contemplated killing another person and decided not to do so because there is/was a death penalty in place? Quite obviously, the possibility of a death sentence didn’t enter into CB’s thinking and planning. As for others, I’m not talking about the transient “I wish he were dead!” or “I could just kill her for that!” — I mean actually considered, maybe even planned, a killing and set those plans and considerations aside because the death penalty seemed too big a risk. I don’t personally know of anyone, maybe you do? But I know I’ve never read about one, either. Have read about the opposite, though. If I can find the article again I’ll edit this to include the reference, but the gist of it went like this: A suicidally-inclined teenage girl was babysitting two young children and slaughtered them in their beds because she knew the state would put her to death for the crime. Sounds like an urban legend, but it was a newspaper report, not an online gossip posting.
From what I’ve read, most people who commit crimes don’t do much thinking about consequences until after the crime is committed. Logical, rational thought doesn’t seem to have much of a role in most crimes; a person wants a certain result and finds justifications for that result, but the ripples of consequence are not carefully contemplated in real life the way they are in fiction. Personal experience angle: I once worked with a young woman who died in a house fire, along with her boyfriend and her 2-year-old son. When told of the fire, her ex-husband expressed shock that his son was home with mom and boyfriend, since he thought the boy was at Grandma’s that night. He set the fire thinking the ex-wife and boyfriend would either be badly hurt or maybe die, but his son would be safe since he wasn’t there. Killing may not have been his direct intention, although he was so possessive and angry that he didn’t care if the adults died. He wanted to “teach her a lesson” for divorcing him and finding someone else to share her life. He planned the fire and waited to act for weeks, apparently, because he didn’t want to endanger the boy. He might have expected that someone would notice the fire was arson, maybe even that he would be considered a leading suspect, but actually getting caught never occurred to him.
One other thought about deterrence as a justification: I’m skeptical of the deterrence value of a punishment that may or may not be applied. There are many more convicted killers who are not executed than there are those who have been or will be executed — and the viciousness, brutality, and quantity of victims is no guarantee that the death penalty will be sought, let alone carried out. Even with a death sentence in place, the appeals process is lengthy and time-consuming; if you might die of old age while appealing your death sentence, is the death sentence really all that scary?

Closure: This one is kind of slippery. It’s one of those words that are so popular these days, but different people have different definitions and I’m not sure it means the same thing to others that it means to me. I would think that “closure” would indicate reaching a point where the pain is lessened greatly, where the awareness of loss is not constantly at the front of your mind, where the trauma doesn’t invade your sleep. Personally, the death of someone who has harmed me has not been the deciding factor in whether or not the harm continues. In some ways, it has made “closure” harder to reach. I can’t get answers from a dead person. I can’t scream at a dead person and make that person feel guilty and ashamed. My ability to accept the past and move toward the future had to come from within, and I’m not sure it could have come any other way. Will Holly Washa’s family and friends find any relief from the pain and loss when CB is dead? Could they reach the same point without his death?

Weeding: This is the one I never hear anyone on TV mention. This is the colder, more dispassionate approach. There’s nothing Biblical or emotional about it. It has little, if anything, to do with legality or ethics. It’s more of a practical application process. When something is dangerous, be it a weed, or a tumor, or a rabid animal, you remove it. You don’t transplant weeds from your vegetable garden into a “weeds only” patch; it’s a waste of space and resources and just plain silly. (Granted, one person’s weed is another person’s flower. Personally, I like dandelions, but not in my vegetable garden.) You don’t create a growth and sustenance medium in the laboratory for every noxious growth removed by a surgeon. (Yes, I know. Some are kept for research and experimentation. Let’s not go there right now, okay?) You don’t take a rabid dog to the vet and try to nurse it back to health while simultaneously trying to avoid being bitten. Life is precious and may even be rare (in this solar system, at least), but malignant life loses it’s value by virtue of it’s damaging effect on other life.

Time out here to examine some of the argument against execution:
Mistakes have happened and will happen in the future, no matter how carefully we examine the evidence or how evenhanded we try to be in dispensing justice. There have been plenty of cases where a death row inmate was proved innocent years after sentencing; sometimes that proof has come after the execution was carried out. This is one of the more powerful arguments against having a death penalty.
Is execution “cruel and unusual punishment” in and of itself? Everyone has an opinion on that and very few would be willing to entertain any position other than the one they have already taken. Personally, I think the cruelest part of modern executions has less to do with the execution of the person and more to do with the extreme slowness of the carrying out of the sentence. The convicted person stays in limbo for years, even decades, often getting close to the “zero hour” only to be pulled back for yet another wait on yet another court ruling. The living victims of a convicted killer — the family & friends of the victim — also spend that time in limbo, waiting on the courts to determine whether their part in the process ends with the clang of a prison door or the signing of a death certificate. And society stays in limbo, too, paying the financial costs for food, housing, medical care, clothes, and quite often legal expenses for the convicted killer, as well as the cost of maintaining the legal system itself. A system with fewer delays, where the time from sentencing to the carrying out of the sentence is much shorter, would seem to be much less cruel than the current process.

If we are going to execute people, then we need define some very precise limitations and requirements that have to be met before execution can happen. The trouble is that it may well be impossible to write any rules because it really does need to be a case by case decision — while still being evenly applied, without prejudice or privilege affecting the outcome. But we have to get it right, because a system that allows decades to pass between the first sentencing and the final step of execution is profoundly unjust and killing someone isn’t the kind of thing you can take back afterwards. When it comes to crime and punishment, I suspect that in most cases prison is the absolute worst, most long-lasting punishment that can be imposed. But sometimes you have to pull the weed, excise the tumor, shoot the rabid animal, no matter how sad or revolting the process may be.

Okay, I said it should have a rational answer; I never promised it would be a simple one.

Oh, you still want a simple answer? There is no simple answer.

Yes, I think CB should be executed. There is no doubt about his guilt and the taxpayers have carried him for long enough. It’s not about punishment, retribution, deterrence, or revenge. We have much more important things to do than sustaining noxious life. I also think execution should be reserved for those cases that are as blatantly obvious as the murder of Holly Washa. There have been, sadly enough, enough notorious and obvious cases of guilt to keep the execution option on the table, although the legal system as it stands hasn’t always gone that way. I don’t think we should execute idiots who “didn’t really want to kill him–the gun just went off.” or fools like my former coworker’s ex-husband. Partly because life in prison seems much more punishing (especially when the chance of parole is removed) and mostly because we cannot afford to get casual or relaxed about killing, even if it is legal.