Principalities & Powersrnbv Samuel FrancisrnProcessions of the Damnedrn”Well, fellow, who are you?” demandsrnthe Earl of Warwick of a character whornappears on stage for the first time at thernend of George Bernard Shaw’s play Saintrn]oan. “I,” huffs the man who has justrnburned Joan of Arc at the stake, “am notrnaddressed as fellow, my lord. I am thernMaster Executioner of Rouen: It is arnhighly skilled myster}’.”rnIn the more civilized times of the laternMiddle Ages, the art and science ofrnputting people to death was indeed arnhighly skilled mystery, much like thernmanufacture of stained glass or the embalmingrnof mummies, and both rulersrnand ruled took pride in the craftsmenrnwhose profession it was to mete out torturernand death to convicted criminals.rnContrarv’ to Hollywood myth, executionersrnseldom wore hoods or masks, for thernsimple reason that no one saw anythingrnwrong, shameful, or disreputable in howrnthey made their living. Indeed, wholernfamilies spawned generations of professionalrnexecutioners (the Sanson family ofrnFrance was the best known). The onlyrnoccasion that I know of on which an executionerrnwore a mask was at the judicialrnmurder of King Charles I of England inrn1649, and both the headsman who wieldedrnthe ax and the more brutal killers whornengineered the king’s decapitation hadrngood reason to be both ashamed andrnafraid of what they were doing. But ordinarily,rnwhen real criminals and traitorsrnmounted the scaffold, it occurred to nornone to hide or try to minimize thernsupreme act of solemn justice that tookrnplace in a legal execution.rnToday, however, executions are virtuallyrnstate secrets, performed during thernnight at hidden locations deep withinrnprison walls, witnessed only by a handfulrnof journalists and other perverts who havernenough clout with the governor to get arnseat at the proceedings, and carried outrnnot by men who take pride in what theyrndo, but by nameless state troopers andrnprison guards forced to draw lots for thernduty. Even these evasions aren’t enough:rnExecutions themselves are now disguisedrnas medical operations, planned to be asrnpainless and unfrightening as possible,rnlest the poor little murderers and rapistsrnwho have to get a jolt of hot juice mightrnbe intimidated at the last minute. Somernyears ago, when the state of Texas pioneeredrnlethal injection as a method ofrncapital punishment, lawmakers tried tornforce prison doctors to carr)’ it out. Therndoctors, to their credit, simply refused,rnciting the Hippocratic oath that forbidsrnthem to take human life and insistingrnthat the state acknowledge that executionsrnare not just somewhat more elaboraterntonsillectomies.rnIn the last few months, however, evenrnthe nearly bloodless executions we stillrncarry out have come under attack: fromrnthe United Nations and its army of “humanrnrights” watchers; from the Pope,rnwho helped spring a convicted murdererrnin Missouri a few years ago; and fromrn”conservatives” —namelv, Pat Robertson,rnGeorge Will, and William F. Buckley,rnJr., as well as the moderate Republicanrngovernor of Illinois, vho has suspendedrnfurther executions in his state until herncan be certain that their guests of honorrnare really guilty. Mr. Buckley’s magazine.rnNational Review, which still claimsrnto be the major conservative journal ofrnopinion in the country, ran a long articlernarguing against the death penalty in itsrnJune 19 issue. The article, by Carl M.rnCannon, was subtitled “a conservativerncase against capital punishment,” althoughrnthere was nothing conservativernabout Mr. Cannon’s argument. Thernsame issue sported an editorial entitiedrn”Thou shalt not fr’,” which, as NationalrnReview editorials in recent years have oftenrndone, failed to tell the readers what tornthink about the matter. “Advances inrnforensic techniques ensure that wrongfulrnconvictions will continue to be exposed,”rnthe editorial bleated. “This raises political,rnintellectual, and moral questions thatrnconservatives must address.”rnThe “advances in forensic techniques”rnare, in fact, the major causes of all the reconsiderationsrnof the death penalty byrnpeople who hae been and ought still tornbe in favor of it. The possibility of DNArntesting now allows the police and therncourts to determine whether some defendantsrnor convicts are really the same individualsrnwho left their hair, blood, saliva,rnsemen, or skin cells at a crime scene. InrnIllinois, for example, some 13 chaps condemnedrnto death have been exoneratedrnof their capital crimes during the past 23rnyears, though only in part because ofrnDNA tests, and it was this fact that GovernorrnRyan, in January, used as justificationrnfor suspending further executions.rn”Until I can be sure that everyone sentencedrnto death in Illinois is tiuly guilty;rnuntil I can be sure, with moral certaint}’,rnthat no innocent man or woman is facingrna lethal injection, no one will meet thatrnfate,” the governor intoned. And muchrnthe same sentiment seems to guide thernthoughts of the other conservative gurusrnwho have changed their minds or are entertainingrndoubts about the death penalty-rnThat also is the brunt of Mr. Cannon’srnargument in National Review. Pointingrnto his experience in invalidating the convictionsrnof condemned criminals, as wellrnas to the 82 known cases of capital convictionsrnsince 1981 that have been “setrnaside for one reason or another” (not necessarily,rnbe it noted, because innocencernhas been proved, though the authorrnrather leaves the reader with that impression),rnMr. Cannon insists that innocentrnpeople have certainly been executed andrnthat “the right question to ask is . . .rnwhether the government should be in thernbusiness of executing people convicted ofrnmurder knowing to a certainty that somernof them are innocent.”rnThat, essentially, is also the argumentrnadvanced bv Buckley, Robertson, andrnWill, and it is entirely without merit.rnNote, first of all, that Mr. Cannon claimsrnto be arguing that a convict shouldn’t bernexecuted unless we are certain he’srnguilty, which is reasonable. But what hernactually says in the sentence quotedrnabove is that the state is executing peoplernit is certain are innocent. Not only arernthe two claims quite different, but there isrnno evidence whatsoever that, in recentrnyears, any innocent person has been executedrn(let alone that state authoritiesrnknew for a certainty he was innocent).rnNeither Mr. Cannon nor anyone elserneven claims that it’s so —except by inference.rnBecause some people condemnedrnto death in recent years have been shownrnto be innocent, therefore some peoplernwho were executed were also innocent.rnThat may be true, but it doesn’t follow,rnand it hasn’t been established.rnMoreover, if DNA testing proves inno-rn32/CHRONICLESrnrnrn