Let’s Kill the B*tch
After All, Hammurabi Would Have Approved

ELIZABETH GEORGE
Oct 09, 2026

I have been dealing with a cartload of personal and professional issues in the past few weeks. Hence my silence, with apologies. What I’m writing about today will seem like old news to many, especially since Pete Hegseth has declared that he will regale the citizens of the US with a live execution by firing squad. So this is what you would consider an older issue. But life and death are never old news, as far as I’m concerned.

In the interest of full disclosure, I would like readers to know that I do not support the death penalty. My reasons: The death penalty is not nor has it ever been a deterrent, keeping people from murdering each other; the death penalty costs the government millions of taxpayers’ dollars; it is applied arbitrarily; it has been given mistakenly. The death penalty does not provide “closure” to the family of the victim; it does not relieve their grief; it does not mitigate their loss. It is also—as currently administered through lethal injection—inhumane: a cruel and unusual punishment. It is not like putting a beloved animal to sleep: administering a calming sedative followed by a kill shot that stops the heart immediately. Instead it’s a drug or a cocktail of drugs or a series of drugs injected into a criminal’s vein or veins that ultimately will cause that criminal’s death.

As we have recently witnessed in the state of Tennessee, the choice of medication can be a drug that is intended to do one thing—depressing the central nervous system in order to cause unconsciousness and the cessation of breathing, leading to death—but inadvertently does another. In the case of the murderer Christa Pike, there was no cessation of breathing, which meant no deadly denial of oxygen to the brain, which meant no death. Instead, it might well mean severe brain damage or compromised brain function—doubtless more will be revealed on that matter—but as for killing the first woman in 200 years to face execution in the state of Tennessee, it was an abject failure.

Prior to administering the drug, the killer’s attorney had explained—fruitlessly as it turned out—the problems that could potentially occur if lethal injection was going to be the method used. As a result, the prison medical staff knew that Christa Pike’s veins were both small and compromised. Additionally, she had a condition called thrombocytosis, which involves an abnormally high platelet count that, as argued by her attorney, could complicate both the IV process and the effects of the drug. That is exactly what happened: the IV failed to remain in her vein and instead leaked the drug into the surrounding tissue, severely swelling, burning, and blistering her arm. Her attorney reported no less than seven puncture marks from the IV needle as the execution team attempted unsuccessfully to find her vein. Christa Pike herself had requested another form of being put to death because of this issue. She requested death by firing squad.

The question that remains in the aftermath of this botched execution is multifurcate. Christa Pike committed a brutal, heinous crime. Reading about it is enough to make one’s skin crawl. She was a teenager at the time, she murdered another teenager, and when she was found guilty of first degree murder, she received a sentence of death. End of story. However:

In our moderately civilized society, we might want to ask ourselves whether a death sentence is appropriate to hand down to any 18-year-old. Brain development continues into the mid to late 20s, particularly in the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in judgment, impulse control, and the ability to weigh consequences. So we might want to demand an answer to the question: Did we have a cold-blooded killer on our hands in the person of Christa Pike, someone who would go on to ravage other families were she not put to death? Or did we have on our hands a damaged personality with an undeveloped brain? And, more than that, does the condition and development of one’s brain even matter when someone commits a murder such as this one?

While juries hand down verdicts as well as recommended sentencing, whether a killer receives the death penalty in the United States is determined not only by the judge who declares the sentence but also by the state in which one commits a crime in the first place. If Christa Pike had committed her terrible crime in any one of the 23 states that do not have the death penalty, she would instead have been given a different sentence altogether: anything from life without the possibility of parole to a custodial sentence of a set number of years before she could even be considered for parole. So it seems to me that we must ask ourselves and the judicial system about the rationality of a punishment that is, in effect, reliant not only upon a jury’s ability to make balanced and dispassionate decisions as a result of being presented with evidence, but reliant also upon location.

The death penalty in its myriad forms has been around forever. People have been stoned, set afire, crushed, crucified, hanged, disemboweled, drawn and quartered, shot, decapitated, electrocuted, and gassed ever since someone came up with the idea of “justice.” Capital punishment has even been offered as entertainment for the masses, as well as demonstrations of a government’s power over dissenting individuals, and its legality has welcomed its abuse. But in no case has it been a deterrent to anything. Additionally, in no case has it brought the dead back to life. And bringing the dead back to life is the only action that can or will mitigate the suffering and anguish of the victims’ loved ones. Killing the killer gives the victims’ loved ones next to nothing.

We cling to the idea that the death of a murderer is going to bring “closure” to the victim’s family. But I wonder how that can possibly be the case. Someone loved by mother, father, siblings, extended family, and friends has been brutally ripped from the world. How do any of those people close the door on that? How do they breathe a sigh of relief? How do they say, “Well, thank God that’s over” or “Now I can get on with my life.”? How can the death of another person end their anguish? Are we a society that actually believes that the death of a killer is a Scarlet O’Hara moment for those left behind? Do we think that they can breathe easily and say that, after all, tomorrow is another day? I don’t believe that’s the case. Killing a killer answers no question and brings no relief. While it might end the rage inside the victim’s family and other loved ones, it does not mend the destruction because destruction of this sort cannot be mended. It merely cuts off someone’s else’s life without restoring anything to anyone.

If closure, then, isn’t possible when it comes to victims’ friends and families, what does the death penalty provide them? Justice? Are we saying that death is the only justice we can offer the bereaved? Here enters Hammurabi: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth taken to its extreme: a death for a death. But even a cursory examination of Hammurabi’s code shows us that he didn’t exactly see things that simply himself, because nothing involving the taking of human life is ever simple, whether the taking comes in the form of murder or in the form of execution. I suppose we could say that, at the very least, putting someone to death gives the family and friends of the victim a form of revenge, as it also assuages the survivors’ guilt, and, perhaps, dampens or even douses the survivors’ rage. But even if that is the case, are we saying that it’s the responsibility of the state to do any of these things? One might argue that the government—hence, the law—brings the guilty to justice. Yet there remains the subsequent question: What form of justice is appropriate? I’ve long felt that there are instances in which a killer has forfeited his right to the communion of other people. A serial killer, for example, has certainly forfeited that right. What, then, should be the price a serial killer pays? Life in prison without interactions with other people? Three meals a day, books to read, and a solo hour in which to exercise? That certainly removes him from the communion of his fellow man. His death, on the other hand, merely ends his life.

As a society, we reap no benefit from a system that offers nothing but death or imprisonment and three meals a day to those who have committed crimes. You might point out that, at the very least, punishment removes evil from the streets. But often the prison doors are revolving, and recidivism rates are driven by the very circumstances that put people in prison in the first place, circumstances that remain unchanged when the individual is released.

You could argue that there are some crimes for which the ultimate punishment is appropriate, and I would not disagree. We would part ways, however, on what “the ultimate punishment” is. For death punishes no one. It merely ends someone’s life. The only person who gains from the state-sponsored death of a murderer is the actual murderer. The murderer is the person who at last has closure. The murderer is the person who is finally released.

We live in a country to which we pledge not only allegiance but also “liberty and justice for all.” Each of us, therefore, faces the same question when we sit on a jury to decide the fate of another: What is justice, and in every case, how is justice served?

© 2026 Elizabeth George
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104