Credit: Wikimedia CommonsSixteen minutes into last May’s botched lethal
injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, the warden closed the
blinds on the windows to the execution chamber and turned off the
sound so that witnesses could not see Clayton Lockett writhe or
hear him moan. The procedure, designed to resemble a medical
treatment-albeit one with an involuntary patient and a very low
probability of recovery-had begun to look uncomfortably like the
cold-blooded killing of a helpless person.

Since Lockett was himself guilty of such a killing, having been
convicted of shooting a 19-year-old woman during a burglary and
watching as his accomplices buried her alive, many Americans would
say justice was done. But as Senior Editor Jacob Sullum observes,
the eagerness of death penalty advocates to address the
shortcomings revealed by Lockett’s drawn-out demise suggests that
majority support for capital punishment depends on sanitizing the
practice to conceal its true nature.

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