To the Editor:
Re “These States Don’t Want You to See the Horror of Their Executions” (editorial, March 15):
As a former corrections officer and as an ethicist who has taught at a state prison where executions were carried out, I share the editorial board’s concerns about the current surge in capital punishment in the United States. I also support the board’s call for the abolition of the death penalty and, short of that, the admonition to mitigate the injustices involved with its application.
In addition to ensuring that genuine justice is done for offenders, these steps would benefit the prison staff members who are assigned to killing them. In the past, executioners were expected to do penance, because the Catholic Church recognized that killing a person — even a guilty one — does something to those doing the killing.
Some corrections officers and prison staff members expressed their discomfort to me about their participation, including some who thought they were doing the right thing.
Eliminating the horrors of the death penalty would help to heal the moral injury of those we expect to administer the lethal injection, shoot the rifle in a firing squad or in any way carry out the killing.
Tobias Winright Maynooth, Ireland
To the Editor:
The editorial board is correct in arguing that the death penalty is “unavoidably flawed and unworthy of a decent society,” but the reality is even worse than most people can imagine.
In 2021 I testified as an expert witness in a death penalty case, Glossip v. Chandler, in the District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. I maintained that the use of novel methods of execution, prompted by shortages of drugs typically used to kill sentenced prisoners, constituted unregulated experimentation and was a violation of federal law that protects prisoners when they are subjects of research. The court rejected my arguments, but they still deserve a hearing.
Instead of using sodium thiopental for anesthesia, which was unavailable, the state was using midazolam, a benzodiazepine; vecuronium bromide, a paralytic agent; and potassium chloride, which causes the heart to stop beating. None of these agents provide pain relief, and the combination has not been demonstrated to be effective.
As such, the executioners were in clinical equipoise, a state of genuine uncertainty about their methods and thus engaging in human experimentation. The result has been botched executions leading to inhumane deaths, ultimately violating the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Human subject protections might seem like a bizarre concern when considering the final moments of a condemned inmate’s life, but the administration of justice must be humane if it ever hopes to be proportionate.
Joseph J. Fins New York The writer is the chief of the medical ethics division and a professor of medical ethics and medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and the chair of the board of trustees of the Hastings Center for Bioethics.
Calling All Teens: Are you a teenager with something to say? The New York Times’s Learning Network invites you to write a public-facing letter about an issue that matters to you. The Open Letters Contest runs until April 8.
Small Talk Soothes
To the Editor:
Re “The Bigness of Small Talk,” by Roger Rosenblatt (Opinion guest essay, March 25):
I was reminded of one day as I grabbed a seat on a crowded bus in New York City. I was happy to sit down and began talking to the woman next to me. We made small talk until I exited at my stop.
As I left, she said: “Thank you for talking to me. I needed that.”
Indeed, the “bigness of small talk”!
Mary Heller Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
To the Editor:
A note by Roger Rosenblatt is like the perfect cup of coffee in the morning: not so hot that you burn your tongue, just warm enough to warm your heart.
I wish I could be on his list of people he engages in small talk. I’m doing fine, thank you. How are you?
Beverly Magid Sherman Oaks, Calif.
To the Editor:
I so enjoyed Roger Rosenblatt’s essay about small talk. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, I was a flight attendant with Eastern Air Lines. Obviously, small talk was a huge part of that job.
One thing I noticed was that even on those days when I went to work not feeling fine at all, after about 37 times telling people “I’m fine! And you?” I really was starting to feel fine.
Pamela Cauble Asheville, N.C.
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