Public Executions, Then and Now ©2001
By Dwight A. Moody, Dean of the Chapel
Georgetown College, Georgetown, KY
Rome is a little community situated on Route 81 a few miles southwest of Owensboro. It was home to my father Tom Moody when he began his student career at Daviess County High School.
No single day of school however was as memorable, as unusual as August 14, 1936.
Long before sunrise Tom and older brother Bill rolled out of bed, dressed, and ate the breakfast prepared unusually early by their mother, Mabel Moody. The boys took up a familiar position by the side of the road and thumbed a ride into town. There were plenty of cars, even at that hour of the day, bringing the curious from places like Rumsey, Guffie, Panther, and Calhoun.
The attraction that day was at the corner of Second and St. Ann, within site of the county jail. A platform had been constructed to accommodate the public hanging of a 23-year old black man named Rainey Bethea. He had been convicted of the rape and murder of an elderly white woman by the name of Eliza Edwards.
Tom remembers few details; it was a balmy day; not much was said; many pictures were taken; it was over quickly. He and Bill stood less than 100 feet from the dangling rope, surrounded by a crowd he recalls as twice the official count of 10,000. They stayed until the coroner pronounced the young man dead and was removed from the end of a rope.
It was the last public hanging on American soil, at least of the official kind. Unofficially, similar events continued as vigilante justice, commonly called lynchings.
All of this comes to mind as I listen to the debate over the execution of Timothy McVeigh. He is the man who planted the bomb that blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. That was April 19, 1995; hard to believe it has been that long.
One hundred sixty eight people died in that blast; many more were injured. McVeigh was found guilty of the deed and sentenced to death by lethal injection on May 16th in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The families of some victims of that tragedy want to watch the execution. Motives are mixed, I assume, as they are about most things: curiosity, justice, revenge, closure; perhaps a little of that common desire to be present when historic things happen: inaugurations and shuttle landings, for instance.
In some ways, an execution is like a demolition; as when thousands of people lined the three rivers of Pittsburgh to witness the recent implosion of their historic stadium. Are souvenirs in order? Pictures? Autographs? What about journal entries? And "I was there" columns for local newspapers? If some want to see the event, will not many want to read about it?
The execution of Timothy McVeigh will be filmed and observed on closed circuit television. More than 200 people will be allowed in a special Oklahoma prison room to watch the big-screen event.
Federal law prohibits recording an execution. There will be no videotape of this death. The transmission will be encrypted to prevent hackers from intercepting it, making a copy, and providing it to the highest bidder.
Imagine how the various channels would cover the broadcast of this event? CSPAN? Good Morning America? Biography Channel? Pay Per View? Wouldn`t this be the ultimate in reality television?
Remember how many times the Rodney King videotape was broadcast? What about the assassination of President Kennedy?
Perhaps the execution of Timothy McVeigh is a matter of public access, like the ballots in Florida. Perhaps the public`s right to know (and see) overrides somebody`s right to privacy. Could a newspaper or television station pursue legal means to secure access for live or delayed broadcast?
In a deep sense, all Americans were victims of this massacre; the perpetrator was attacking, not specific people in Oklahoma, but all Americans and the government that represents us.
I think about all this; also about another man, convicted of a crime; whose execution on the outskirts of an ancient walled city was a matter of public observation; whose death has been a source of curiosity, controversy, and conviction for two thousand years.
