Should Executions Be Televised?

Showing an actual death on television is one of the last remaining no-no's in public and private broadcasting. Pay a little extra, and you can see all the skin you want along with a full course of rampant profanity and gratuitous violence.

We've already got a Russian man who wants a video of his assisted suicide streamed live on the Internet, but a New York Times opinion article is arguing that the U.S. should televise executions.

Zachary Shemtob, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Central Connecticut State University, and David Lat, a former federal prosecutor, write, "A functioning democracy demands maximum accountability and transparency. As long as executions remain behind closed doors, those are impossible. The people should have the right to see what is being done in their name and with their tax dollars."

Their argument was launched in response to debate over the July 21 execution of Grant DeYoung, an Atlanta inmate who was convicted of murdering his parents and 14-year-old sister in 1993, allegedly to speed up the acquisition of his inheritance.

Because lawyers for another death row inmate wanted evidence about the effects of the drug used for lethal injections (pentobarbital), DeYoung's execution was the first to be videotaped in America in nearly 20 years.

Now the authorities are trying to decide whether the video can be shown to the public.

Shemtob and Lat admit televised executions hint of barbarism, but suggest people who are against the death penalty will likely find executions "less disturbing than anticipated."