Miles's blog

If you wonder about the future of the death penalty you need only to look no further than death row in Ohio, where a convicted murderer has filed a request with the federal court to stay his execution on the grounds that he is too fat.  I am not making this up.  Apparently his lawyers assert this his massive, 480 pound body would fail to allow the needle containing the killing drug to access his vein properly, that the gurney would not be strong enough to hold him and that the drugs would cause a “torturous and lingering death.”

Before you scoff and call this ridiculous, you need to know that in 1994 a federal judge prevented the hanging of killer Mitchell Rupe in Washington, finding that his weight of over 425 pounds would cause decapitation during his hanging, and such a penalty was cruel and unusual punishment.  Rupe was remanded for a new trial (unclear why just another kind of execution could not have been performed) where a juror held out against the death penalty, allowing the fat man to die of liver disease in prison.

I want to set aside the reaction of “I really don’t care how long it takes a murderer to die or how much he might suffer in the meantime.”  We long ago prohibited torture as punishment for crimes, no matter how heinous they might be.  That the too fat to die argument is made with a straight face, and was allowed on at least one occasion to prevail, provides sufficient indication that public sentiment for the death penalty is waning, and that courts’ willingness to allow for continued executions is on the decline.

A man who is fit enough to kill is now arguably too fit to die.  Death penalty opponents now will try anything to avoid an execution.  Should this guy succeed, I can see the next argument being one of equal protection.  Why should a fit individual die when a fat man gets to live? 

American beliefs about justice are continually changing.  The death penalty is becoming a relic of a past age.  Too many legal challenges, too many innocents released from prison, and too many costly appeals have drained the penalty’s effectiveness, and altered the public’s appetite.  While perhaps never viable as a deterrent, it now barely survives as punishment.  Soon, I believe, most American states will abolish the death penalty, either through statute, as a result of court rulings, or through just plain unwillingness on the part of the prosecution to spend the massive financial and personal resources necessary to seek its imposition.  If a man can be too fat to execute, and we know some can be too mentally disabled, then how many other circumstances would also prevent the ultimate penalty?