NCJ Number
140802
Journal
New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement Volume: 18 Issue: 1-2 Dated: (Winter-Summer 1992) Pages: 117-146
Date Published
1992
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This article examines whether or not the government's prohibition against filming executions deprives death row inmates of their rights under the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Abstract
In resolving this issue, the author argues that the government's prohibition of public executions violates the U.S. Constitution in two ways. First, the government advances the forbidden goal or "end" of hiding executions from the public because of fear that executions, if widely viewed, would engender widespread disgust for and opposition to capital punishment. Second, even if the government's stated goal is permissible, the means the government uses to achieve its "ends" is not rationally related to the intended purpose. In hiding executions from the public and providing mechanisms whereby executioners' identities are hidden from the public, the government is acknowledging that its taking of a human life is not worthy of public viewing. This contradicts the goal of deterring crime by showing to the public the consequences of committing capital crimes and deprives the retributivist of the satisfaction of seeing retribution implemented. Prison authorities are thus acting as censors of public consumption by screening what they believe is appropriate for Americans to see. Society should be able to "stomach" what it approves. 236 footnotes