Reflections on the execution of D.C. sniper

Reflections on the execution of D.C. sniper

By LEONARD PITTS, JR.

lpitts@MiamiHerald.com

They killed a killer last week.

I kept waiting to feel something when news came that John Allen Muhammad had been executed in Virginia. As a staunch opponent of capital punishment, I wanted some nugget of remorse at the knowledge that the government had taken his life.

But Muhammad's 2002 sniper attacks hit close to home. He terrorized millions of people in the greater Washington, D.C., area, where I live, made us fear to gas up our cars, walk in parking lots, wait on buses, made my grandson scared to go trick-or-treating, even wounded a friend of my youngest son.

So I could not manage remorse. Indeed, what I felt was an unsettling, appalling satisfaction that Muhammad is no longer in the world. I still remember the last time an execution caused my emotions to so thoroughly misalign with my convictions: it was in 2001, when Timothy McVeigh was put to death.

When I argue against the death penalty, I tend to lean on a few salient points: it is far costlier than life imprisonment; it is biased by class, race and gender; it is irreversible in the event of error. I use those arguments because there is ample statistical evidence to back them up, and because they are irrefutable.

But I have one other problem with the death penalty: it's wrong. It debases us. The power of life and death is too awesome to be left in human hands. And here, I know, the abortion opponent wonders how I can square that with support for abortion rights. The answer is simple: I can't

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