Killing Me Softly: Ending State-Sanctioned Killing

John Riordan

“Upon witnessing the last execution ever to take place in France, Judge Monique Mabelly was confronted with the horror of killing a lucid and healthy human being. At the end of her account, she describes the washing away of the blood as akin to concealing a crime. In modern times, methods of execution have become increasingly sanitised and silenced. There is a shroud of secrecy that envelopes its use, and this is designed to conceal the fact that the death penalty is, at its very core, inhumane and cruel …”