The Lift Line
“Legality is not the only form of justice.”
Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam
This column in The Indian Express of 7 October 2026 is by Shibashis Chatterjee, professor at Jadavpur University. It reads the failed execution of Christa Pike in the US state of Tennessee as proof that “humane” execution is a myth, and asks what a constitutional state may do once a death sentence has been tried and has failed.
For Indian aspirants, the column arrives some seven weeks after the Supreme Court, in Rishi Malhotra v. Union of India (2026), dismissed a plea to replace hanging with lethal injection. Read together, the two raise every core question of the death-penalty debate: method, dignity, deterrence, delay and abolition. The idea that Article 21 protects dignity even at the end of life also runs through our earlier piece on the right to die with dignity.
GS Paper 2: Fundamental rights (Article 21); judiciary; pardoning powers of the President and Governor. GS Paper 4: Ethics in public institutions; retributive versus reformative justice; human dignity.
Background and Context
What happened in Tennessee
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Who | Christa Pike, Tennessee’s only woman on death row, convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer |
| When | Execution attempted on 30 September 2026 |
| What | Given two doses of pentobarbital; survived and was taken to hospital, where doctors worked to save her; reported unconscious and on a ventilator |
| Since | Her attorneys said on 6 October that she was conscious and speaking but faces a long recovery; they have gone to court to preserve evidence from the attempt |
Earlier “survivors” of execution in US law
| Case | What happened | What the court held |
|---|---|---|
| Francis v. Resweber (1947) | Louisiana’s electric chair malfunctioned in 1946; Willie Francis survived | A botched execution was an accident, not a separate punishment; a second attempt was allowed |
| Frankfurter’s caveat | Concurring opinion | “A series of abortive attempts” might raise a different constitutional problem |
| Later rulings | Challenges to lethal-injection protocols | The Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment) does not guarantee a painless death |
India: how the law on execution stands
| Point | Position |
|---|---|
| Method | Hanging: “hanged by the neck till he is dead” (Section 354(5) CrPC, now Section 393(5) BNSS 2023) |
| Deena Dayal v. Union of India (1983) | Three-judge Bench upheld hanging as consistent with Article 21 |
| Rishi Malhotra v. Union of India (2026 INSC 873) | Judgment of August 2026 by Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta: PIL dismissed; no material showing lethal injection has any added advantage over hanging; no reason to refer Deena Dayal to a larger Bench; future scrutiny on new scientific or medical evidence, and an expert body set up by the Union, not ruled out |
| Centre’s stand | Its affidavit, highlighted at a hearing in October 2025, said giving prisoners a choice of method was not practically feasible |
The Analysis
1. Two faces of the modern state. In one place, authorities apply chemicals intended to cause death; in another, doctors employ their expertise to preserve the same life. If Pike recovers, the author asks: “Can the state then prepare to execute someone its medical system has just fought to save?”
2. Not a plea for sympathy. Pike’s crime was appalling, and no serious discussion should diminish Colleen Slemmer’s suffering or disregard the claims of victims and their families. The moral challenge of the death penalty arises precisely because the crimes are often so horrific. The real question is: “What can a constitutional state do once guilt is confirmed?”
3. The Frankfurter warning. In 1947, the US Supreme Court let Louisiana try again on Willie Francis. But Frankfurter’s caveat about “a series of abortive attempts” deserves renewed attention. The deeper question is whether bringing a person to death’s door more than once changes the very nature of the punishment.
4. No unlimited licence. A court may impose death, but “the state does not automatically gain an unlimited licence to keep trying to cause death until it succeeds.” Punishment includes the actual suffering imposed: the fear of death, invasive treatment, deadly chemicals, emergency care, and then the whole ordeal again. A second attempt is a different experience from the punishment originally declared.
5. Foucault and the invisible execution. In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault traced how punishment moved from public spectacle of bodily suffering to something bureaucratic, regulated and increasingly invisible. Lethal injection is that journey’s end point: sovereign violence disguised as clinical peace. “Pike’s survival shreds that clean, polished facade.”
6. Medicine against execution. Lethal injection owes its acceptance partly to medicalisation: the prisoner lies on what looks like a hospital gurney. But “medicine and execution have utterly opposite moral foundations.” Medicine intervenes to preserve life or ease suffering; execution can only remove a life.
7. The myth of the painless death. The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Eighth Amendment does not ensure a painless death, so prisoners face a tough standard when contesting execution protocols. Yet Pike’s case is not only about faulty needles or wrong doses. The question is whether any institution built to kill can attain the moral standing of a routine medical procedure.
8. The global trend. By the close of 2025, 113 countries had abolished capital punishment for all offences, while the US carried out 47 executions that year, its highest total since 2009. The state’s monopoly on legitimate violence exists to replace personal revenge with impartial justice; by ending a life deliberately, the author argues, the state risks mirroring that inflexibility and forecloses remorse, restoration or remedy.
9. Restraint as strength. The law will probably permit Tennessee to try again. But “legality is not the only form of justice.” A constitutional state that has tried and failed to end a life lawfully should acknowledge the limits of its authority, since sovereignty can also be shown through restraint: knowing when and how to stop.
Data and Institutions Vault
Prelims-grade facts:
India:
- Method of execution: hanging, under Section 393(5) BNSS (earlier Section 354(5) CrPC); the judge must record special reasons for a death sentence (Section 393(3) BNSS).
- Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980): death penalty constitutional but only in the “rarest of rare” cases.
- Mithu v. State of Punjab (1983): struck down the mandatory death sentence under Section 303 IPC.
- Deena Dayal v. Union of India (1983): hanging upheld; reaffirmed in Rishi Malhotra v. Union of India (2026).
- Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India (2014): inordinate, unexplained delay in deciding mercy petitions is a ground for commutation.
- Pardoning power: Article 72 (President, including death sentences and court-martial) and Article 161 (Governor; may commute a death sentence but not pardon it).
- Law Commission, 262nd Report (2015): abolition for all crimes except terrorism-related offences and waging war.
- Last executions in India: March 2020 (four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case, Tihar Jail).
World:
- 113 countries abolitionist for all crimes by end-2025; the US carried out 47 executions in 2025, the most since 2009.
⚠️ Watch the trap: The Governor can pardon, remit or commute most sentences under Article 161, but only the President can pardon a death sentence (Article 72). And the 2026 Supreme Court judgment upheld hanging; it did not order a switch to lethal injection.
The Debate
For the author’s view (abolition, or at least restraint). Every method of execution, however clinical, involves the state deliberately killing a person, and botched attempts show that “humane” is a label, not a fact. The irreversibility of death rules out correcting judicial error. Studies have found little evidence that the death penalty deters better than life imprisonment. Most of the world has moved away from it, and India’s own Law Commission recommended abolition for ordinary crimes in 2015.
The other side (retention). For the gravest crimes, many citizens and victims’ families see the death penalty as the only proportionate response. India already confines it to the rarest of rare cases, with layers of review: High Court confirmation, Supreme Court appeal, review and curative petitions, and mercy petitions. On method, the Supreme Court found in 2026 that lethal injection is not shown to be more humane than hanging, and Pike’s case in fact supports that conclusion.
The balanced verdict. The method debate matters less than the questions behind it: who gets sentenced to death, after what kind of trial, and how long they wait. India’s practical priorities are rigorous sentencing (including mitigation investigation, as the Supreme Court required in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2022), time-bound disposal of mercy petitions, and an informed public debate on the Law Commission’s recommendation.
How to Think About This
Theories of punishment. Retributive (deserved suffering), deterrent (preventing future crime), reformative (changing the offender) and restorative (repairing harm). The death penalty serves only the first two, and its deterrent value is contested. In GS4 answers, contrast Kant’s retributivism with the saying often attributed to Gandhi, “an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind”, and the reformative ideal in Indian jail reforms.
Dignity runs through the process. Indian courts have read Article 21 to protect dignity until the very end: the right to a fair trial, protection against solitary confinement, and humane treatment on death row. Pike’s case shows why the manner and the aftermath of execution are not mere technicalities.
Use the case as an example. In an essay or ethics answer on the limits of state power, Pike’s failed execution is a vivid illustration that a lawful act can still raise questions of justice. Pair it with the Indian position: hanging upheld in 2026, but the door left open to fresh evidence and an expert review.
Diagram-in-Words
Takeaway Box
- Thesis: Christa Pike’s survival exposes “humane” execution as a myth; a constitutional state should know when to stop.
- US law: Francis v. Resweber (1947) allowed a second attempt, with Frankfurter’s warning on “a series of abortive attempts”.
- Numbers: 113 countries abolitionist by end-2025; 47 US executions in 2025, the most since 2009.
- India: hanging under Section 393(5) BNSS; upheld in Deena Dayal (1983) and Rishi Malhotra (2026); rarest of rare since Bachan Singh (1980).
- Reform path: Law Commission’s 262nd Report (2015): abolish except for terror offences and waging war.
Sources: The Indian Express, column by Shibashis Chatterjee, 7 October 2026; PBS NewsHour, 6 October 2026; Rishi Malhotra v. Union of India, 2026 INSC 873 (Verdictum)
Source: Christa Pike Case Exposes the Myth of Humane Execution — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis
