Word: executioner
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KQED promises to handle Harris' execution tastefully. But you can't force good taste into people's living rooms. There's nothing anyone can do about the "Gas the Bastard" parties, the "Every Time He Twitches" drinking games, the inward smiles of satisfaction.
But the public execution issue goes beyond legality. It ranges towards the What Kind Of Society Is This? kind of questions that make most of us squirm. Some people fear that videotaped executions will stir up what Time called a "disquieting Dickensian excitement."
To tell the truth, I think they're probably right. I remember the vicious crowd waving signs outside serial killer Ted Bundy's execution--signs of the "Burn, Bundy, Burn" and "Bundy BBQ" variety. Even more than Faces of Death, killing bad guys appeals to our basest instincts. That's...
We may have a chance to find out, if public television station KQED triumphs in a June 7 hearing before a federal court in San Francisco and is permitted to broadcast Harris' execution. A career criminal, Harris was convicted in 1979 of the murder the preceding year of two teenage...
In its lawsuit, which was filed in May 1990, KQED argues the public's right to know. "Giving voters accurate information about the administration of the death penalty is especially important in California, where capital punishment was enacted by voter initiative." Television correspondents with cameras, the station contends, should have...