December 22, 2004
Age
The chief justice of the California Supreme Court took it upon himself the other day to say that it may sound a bit whimsical, but it’s literally true that the leading cause of death on death row is old age He ought to know. But it seems to me that, whether it causes it or not, old age sooner or later inevitably leads one to death.
Take my ninety-seven year-old double second cousin Zenobia Ruth. (We got that relationship, by the by, by no fault or credit of our own, but only because her father was my grandfather’s brother, and her mother was my grandmother’s sister. That’s the way they reckon it down in Mississippi.) The leading cause of her recent death could surely be considered to be old age, but so far as I know, she was never on death row (or even skid row, for that matter). She might have been on her college sculling team, but that surely would only have prolonged her life, that kind of exercise and all.
It’s possible the justice was trying to make the case that the strain and stress of spending one’s remaining years on death row was punishment enough and maybe might be a better and more civil way out than injection or electricity. Just a thought, but as usual, I’ve not the foggiest idea what he had in mind.