Approaches to Autonomy in Capital Punishment and Assisted Suicide

Literature tells us that death is not the worst we can suffer and that personal autonomy may often be just as important as the preservation of life itself. In Euripides’s Hecuba, Polyxena refuses imprisonment, preferring to die nobly. The father in The Reader, tells his law student son there is no justification for superseding others’ views of what is good for them, even if they will become unhappy about their choices later, because “we’re not talking about happiness, we’re talking about dignity and freedom.” Even on a popular American TV program, such as Law and Order the writers find it plausible that a defendant should acknowledge criminal responsibility and elect to die, as an expression of contrition and free will. Dramatists represent and even glorify those who choose death, but it is legislatures, courts, and defense lawyers who sometimes control the decision in practice. What duties should a lawyer and the justice system have in those rare cases when a person sentenced to death seeks prompt execution?

Twelve percent of the 477 persons executed between 1977 and 1997 were “death volunteers:” they chose death without exhausting all their possible appeals. This growing phenomenon presents a conflict between the autonomy of a criminal sentenced to death and society’s interest in just execution. The European and American death-with-dignity laws offer guidance in answering whether we should honor the request of an inmate awaiting execution.