Justice has been served

It is said that Timothy McVeigh walked away from the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, after having dropped off the Ryder van which contained the deadly explosives, and saw the baby's cribs that were situated in the day care center. I have no doubt that McVeigh -- who murdered 168 completely innocent people in his false and warped hope of starting an anti-government uprising -- did not deserve to live.

So then why am I plagued with the thought and feeling that something was simply wrong with the federal government's execution of Timothy McVeigh at the Terre Haute, Indiana death house?

On Monday morning, right after McVeigh died by lethal injection, various media witnesses made statements about what they saw in the execution chamber. Almost without exception, they spoke of a defiant McVeigh -- whose eyes were open even until after expiring -- who gazed upward at the camera, which transmitted that mesmorizing image to the victims and their relatives watching the execution through closed-circuit television in Oklahoma City.

And those witnesses said that watching McVeigh die not only provided real closure, but burned the image of the bomber's face in their brains forever. Most are undoubtedly glad that he is dead. And to be honest, so am I. Yet, I am just not satisfied with the way in which he was executed.

President George W. Bush called Monday a day of "reckoning." But I, for one, am not so sure that happened. First, let's be honest: the death penalty is not a deterrent, except in the specific sense, in that it deters the person being executed. But generally, states with capital punishment actually have higher murder rates than those without it. I still support the death penalty for the simple reason that some people, McVeigh being an obvious example, must be punished in the harshest way possible.

McVeigh is out of his own hell of being in prison on death row for six years, out of the hell that must come with the knowledge that you have just killed 19 children. And not only is he out of it, but he scribbled some glorious lines from a Victorian poem, called "Invictus," which discusses the persistence of the soul and the spirit. He still thinks he is a soldier and his deed to have been a military action. He died that way. Terry Nichols, his accomplice, on the other hand, is spending the rest of his life in prison, where no century-old poem will help him out.

Some might say that we should not consider what the survivors and relatives, who witnessed the execution, are feeling. After all, while it may feel good to take revenge on McVeigh, that is certainly not the stated function of capital punishment in the United States.

Many say that it is simple -- Timothy McVeigh was convicted for the crime of murder of 11 federal agents, who were in the building at the time. He was tried in federal court for those crimes, and was given the harshest of federal penalties, the rarely used (in federal cases) death penalty.

But without a doubt, Oklahoma City seems different from a more "clear-cut" case of first-degree murder. It is the sheer breadth and size of the crime that makes it so. McVeigh might have officially gone to his death for the murder of 11 federal agents, but everyone knows that he died for the 168 individuals, who suffered at the hands of his heinous crime. And it is the uniqueness of McVeigh's crimes that place a question in my mind about his execution by the most comparatively humane means that can be used -- lethal injection.

I guess what I am saying is something that may appear shocking to some, because it is so blunt -- I would have been more satisfied with a hanging, or the electric chair, or firing squad. There, I said it. And I would be willing to bet that a lot of other people feel the same way.

"McVeigh is a coward and a lowdown bastard. Somebody tried to take my life, they deserve to burn in hell." Those were the words of Raymond Washburn, a survivor of the attack.

Still, my dissatisfaction with McVeigh's peaceful death is appropriate only in feeling, and not in action. In the end, revenge may feel good, but it has no place in our society. There must be a line between justice and vigilanty tactics.

It seems appropriate that the very government McVeigh so hated and wished to destroy in the most violent way, did not match his actions, and executed him humanely and quickly without any undue suffering on his part. Perhaps that is part of the real reckoning.

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