Opinion · From the wire

Televising an execution wouldn’t be justice. It would be a snuff film dressed up as spectacle.

Executions are conducted like rituals, at least in Arizona. The witnesses are ushered in as solemnly as at a funeral and seated as precisely as guests at a wedding: government officials, families of the victims, guests of the soon-to-be decedent, journalists. A disembodied voice announces over a speaker that the...