Toobin on America’s Ambivalence Toward the Death Penalty

Jeffrey Toobin, writ­ing in The New Yorker, used the cur­rent scram­ble among states to pro­cure the drugs for lethal injec­tions as a par­a­digm of the much longer effort to make the death penal­ty palat­able to the American pub­lic. ​“The sto­ry of the death penal­ty in this coun­try,” he wrote, ​“illus­trates a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly American faith in a tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tion to any prob­lem.” However, Toobin con­clud­ed, tech­nol­o­gy can not cov­er up the broad­er prob­lems of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: ​“The oxy­moron­ic quest for humane exe­cu­tions only accen­tu­ates the absur­di­ty of allow­ing the death penal­ty in a civ­i­lized soci­ety.” He end­ed high­light­ing the declin­ing pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty, as well as the drop in exe­cu­tions and death sen­tences across the country.

(J. Toobin, ​“Cruel and Unusual,” The New Yorker, December 23, 2013). See Lethal Injection and History of Death Penalty. For more infor­ma­tion about the declin­ing use of the death penal­ty, see DPIC’s Year End Report.