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Curious about how many people in Georgia are sleeping easier and living with less fear now that this woman's been executed. Curious, too, about whether any of the people of Georgia are any happier. Curious, also, how many people who plan to kill others will put those plans on the back burner because Georgia killed her. Curious about how many Georgia folks will consider that their laws are fairer and their courts more just because the State extinguished this life. Curious about whether the State of Georgia saved any money after the legal bills are paid for. Wondering if there was any gain to anyone by this execution.
If the laws of Georgia considered some kind of gain to be the reasonable and expected outcome of an execution, it's not likely that they'd hide it from public view in a remote part of a prison distant from all population centers nor that they'd proceed with it in the middle of the night. I think that states do those things because they know that it's shameful and appeals to the worst, not the best, instincts in people to take such a life as a matter of state law and policy.
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Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice. . . Restraint in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue.
Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964
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