Sublime executions and material affections: law, aesthetics, and the death penalty

This Chapter exposes the extent to which the constitutionality of the death penalty pivots on the question of beauty, or the aesthetic experience of death. While the common arguments for abolishing the death penalty may cite the pain and suffering experienced by the condemned, an investigation of state practice and capital punishment jurisprudence brings into sharper relief a very different image of what makes state killing unconstitutional. This analysis reveals two important insights. First, that the Courts define an unconstitutional death by reference to the regularity with which it gives rise to a spectacular and ‘ugly’ death. Second, that institutional practice is directed at controlling the affective qualities of an execution to temper its spectacular and ugly nature. It is for this reason, this chapter argues, we need to recognise the normative force of the violent and spectacular execution-gone-wrong as an expression of that which law has made unthinkable. These ‘sublime executions’ dismember law’s (human) body, giving birth to a counter aesthetic which moves us to devise alternate ways of living and dying.<p></p>