The Supreme Court, its conservative majority in place for years, no longer debates whether state-imposed death is morally right or constitutionally valid. Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation last month all but guarantees this will remain true for another generation, despite Justice Stephen Breyer's best efforts. Since the court doesn't weigh the substance of the death penalty, it instead focuses on the aesthetics of the system it oversees.
These aesthetics are vital to maintaining public support for the system. American capital punishment is ritualized, with a carefully orchestrated set of appeals that often culminates in a last-minute denial from the Supreme Court. It's also theatrical: Executions are choreographed to produce a quiet spectacle for an audience of witnesses, who then convey what they see to the wider world. Justice Harry Blackmun, concluding in 1994 that the system no longer met constitutional standards, described it as “the machinery of death.”
