Ryan on Death and Rehabilitation

One of the most penetrating new writers in punishment theory is Meghan Ryan, particularly if one is interested in the relatively recent revanche of rehabilitation in Eighth Amendment law.  Her latest piece should be of special interest to Catholic thinkers, as it explores the relationship between the death penalty and rehabilitation.  Her core claim is that our understanding of the nature of rehabilitation has undergone fairly substantial changes.  To oversimplify, Ryan argues that an earlier understanding of rehabilitation emphasized internal or characterological reformation, while the later, and contemporary, understanding emphasizes the external effects of rehabilitation (for example, successful reintegration and the elimination of recidivisim).  It is these changes which account for the dissociation of death from rehabilitation.  As something of a rehabilitation skeptic, my concerns about the extraordinary ambitiousness of rehabilitation as a punitive ideal for the state to pursue were set on edge by Ryan's piece.  You should read her article in full (it isn't very long), but here is something to give you a sense of her ideas:

The Court’s presumption that capital punishment is completely irrelevant to rehabilitation, however, is faulty. Rehabilitation was one of the primary reasons that capital punishment was imposed in early America,and there are several stories of brutal murderers being rehabilitated on death row.  Further, the idea that capital punishment is relevant to rehabilitation animates various legal doctrines.  For example, the Eighth Amendment prohibits executing "insane" individuals because they lack the capacity to rehabilitate and ready themselves for death; the dying declaration exception to hearsay is rooted in the belief that an individual who believes his death is imminent will transform himself into a trustworthy source; and the value of finality, which is emphasized in much of courts’ capital habeas corpus jurisprudence, is premised on the belief that an offender must accept his sentence so that he can begin the desired rehabilitation process.

Aside from the importance of correcting the historical record, recognizing this overlooked relevance of capital punishment to rehabilitation highlights some important insights regarding the meaning of rehabilitation and its application in the capital context.

First, courts’ and scholars’ understandings of rehabilitation have changed over time. They have shifted from understanding rehabilitation as the offender’s character change to understanding it as revolving around an offender’s effects on society. Rehabilitation as character change animates the understanding of capital punishment in early America. It is also the species of rehabilitation that creates media frenzies around "transformed" death row inmates such as the killer Paul Crump, pickax murderer Karla Faye Tucker, and Crips co-founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams III. Further, character-change rehabilitation is at the root of various legal doctrines relying on death’s relevance to rehabilitation. Modern understandings of rehabilitation, though, focus more on an offender’s direct effects on society.  This understanding of rehabilitation is, as courts and scholars have concluded, irrelevant to the death penalty, because executed individuals clearly cannot reintegrate into society and thus their effects on society are more indirect.   

Additionally, recognizing rehabilitation’s relevance to capital punishment through its role in reforming offenders’ characters raises the question of whether a real opportunity for character transformation is an essential component of the human dignity to which every death row inmate is constitutionally entitled. The Court has repeatedly stated that the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment is rooted in the idea that everyone—even a death row inmate—is entitled to human dignity.26 Scholars have suggested that this entails allowing even the worst of offenders to retain some autonomy, such as choosing their last meals and final words, and deciding who to invite to their executions.  This autonomy also involves the opportunity to transform one’s own character—an event that benefits both the offender and society more generally.o have a true opportunity to reform, however, death row offenders should be provided with greater rehabilitative resources, such as the opportunities to worship and to improve their educations.

This Article attacks the long-held position that death is irrelevant to rehabilitation and asserts that our legal tradition is based on the notion that facing death spurs rehabilitation.An offender who is isolated from the general population for ten to thirteen years and who is facing a near-certain premature death is considered to have greater motivation to repent and reform his character than an offender who is not facing the solemnity of death or a possible confrontation with his Maker.