The death penalty’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ problem

Law360 Canada (October 14, 2026, 1:40 PM EDT) --

Aubrey Harris

The 1939 film adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz includes this famous scene:


As we mark the 24th annual World Day Against the Death Penalty, it is hard not to think of the recent, horrific torture of Christa Pike, delivered at the hands of a shambolic myth: the flaws in the process that led to the State of Tennessee attempting to inject two lethal doses of pentobarbital into her body and ultimately failing. When she came to in the hospital, Christa was reportedly confused and angry. In addition to the long and recent history of botched executions, Tennessee was warned about the likelihood of issues specifically with this case.

Pike’s attorneys this year raised several concerns that the state’s lethal injection protocol would violate her rights. Among them is their contention that because she suffers from a platelet disorder, it’s likely she will need a central line placed. They also argued that she was at risk of needless suffering, alleging death row inmate Tony Carruthers’ botched execution showed that Dr. Mark Fowler — who confirmed publicly that he was to oversee Pike’s execution — is incompetent at placing central lines (After Failed Execution, Health Workers Say State’s Rules Flout Medical Ethics, KFF Health News, Sept. 29, 2026).

Following the botched attempt to execute the first woman in Tennessee in 200 years, Governor Bill Lee has at least imposed a pause on executions to investigate. Texas, meanwhile, which also uses pentobarbital from yet another undisclosed source, went ahead with the execution of a mentally disabled man, Jamaal Howard, less than a week later.

Witnesses reported that the curtain separating the execution chamber from the viewing area was drawn multiple times during the procedure, limiting public visibility into what was occurring.

What was clearly revealed, however, is a deeply flawed system. Appeals for clemency, which are the last hope after the legal process has exhausted, were ignored. A temporary stay of execution issued by the Tennessee Supreme Court was rapidly overturned when the state wasted no time running to the execution-friendly U.S. Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” (noting the dissents of the three liberal justices). The symbolism is difficult to ignore. Just as the curtain concealed the Wizard’s machinery in Oz, secrecy continues to shield many aspects of the modern death penalty from public scrutiny. This is not, we must unfortunately clarify, any kind of call for public executions, but for transparency of process and facts.

The U.S. is alone in the Americas as the only country to carry out executions in recent years. Nearly all countries in the Americas have fully abolished the death penalty, and those that retain it have not executed in years. Even by the U.S.’s own standards it is questionable whether Pike would even have ended up on death row today. Death sentences have continued to fall in the United States, where death-qualified juries are increasingly hesitant to impose capital punishment.

Yet, the politics of the death penalty manages to keep it alive, especially in a handful of states. President Donald Trump, no stranger to ordering and encouraging executions (from the Exonerated Five and his execution spree in 2020 to his day one executive order on the death penalty this term), has just authorized the first military firing squad execution since the Second World War.

The death penalty is kept alive through unproven bluster and secrecy. The lie that it deters, the lie that it “brings closure,” the lie that it can be done competently and the lie that it even belongs in a justice system. Few capital cases receive much media attention, and the public is rarely aware of the details of a case or process. In a failure by her court-appointed lawyers, the jury in Pike’s trial did not know of her own tragic history as a child victim of abuse and rape before they chose death on the teenager. Tennessee is also one of several U.S. states that has declared information on their execution process to be a state secret.

Hiding the source of the poison so it is harder to challenge the efficacy. Hiding behind curtains the attempts to insert lines into the strapped-down inmate and even after clearly botched executions, often rushing out to declare “nothing out of the ordinary” occurred. The “shadow docket” frequently hiding the reasons to not stop an execution. Insufficient and underfunded defence lawyers miss important evidence of innocence or mitigating factors that could persuade a jury to not pass a death sentence. It all hides the truth — that there is no legitimate use of the death penalty.

The tension between transparency and secrecy is not unique to the United States. Although the details differ, many of the same dynamics can be found in other jurisdictions that continue to carry out executions.

Singapore provides a striking example. Authorities have repeatedly restricted public demonstrations against executions for drug offences and applied censorship demanding propagandic “corrections” to research findings. Critics in and outside of Singapore argue that strict controls on public discourse make meaningful debate more difficult. At the same time, neighbouring Malaysia has moved in the opposite direction — and toward the standards in international law — abolishing the mandatory death penalty for many offences and steadily reducing its reliance on capital punishment.

A new report by Amnesty International, “Changing Tides: Reform and Resistance on the Death Penalty in ASEAN” released on the eve of the World Day Against the Death Penalty, makes clear that Singapore, like the executing parts of the U.S., is increasingly isolated. In 2006, nearly half of the member states of ASEAN retained and used the death penalty. Today, that proportion has fallen to little more than a quarter.

Like the United States, Singapore also has no effective evidence of a unique deterrent effect compared to similar countries without the death penalty. As in the United States, people sentenced to death for drugs crimes in Singapore come from the disadvantaged and poor, not the powerful or wealthy. In fact, this is a global feature of the death penalty.

Despite all these problems, hope is on the horizon. Among the ASEAN members, Malaysia and Thailand are nearing 10 years without an execution; Indonesia reached that mark this past July. In the United States, juries continue to reject the death penalty, despite having death qualification.

In Canada, we recently marked 50 years since removing the death penalty from our Criminal Code (we abolished it from military law in 1998). Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2005. Individual U.S. states continue to advance abolition in law. Soon, abolitionist states may hold a majority. According to the U.S.-based Death Penalty Information Center, 11 states have abolished the death penalty in the last 20 years. (In practice, it has long been the case that a majority of U.S. states, including many with the death penalty in law, do not execute. Less than half of U.S. states have executed in the past decade.)

For decades, abolition has advanced because societies have examined the practice of execution more closely. The more the public learns about wrongful convictions, inadequate legal representation, racial and economic disparities, secrecy surrounding execution protocols and the recurring problem of failed executions, the harder it becomes to sustain confidence in the system. Retentionist countries are facing scrutiny at United Nations’ Universal Periodic Reviews. UN Special Rapporteurs often call out executing countries for routine failures to comply with international law and human rights standards, including the need for greater transparency.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has noted, “The implementation of the death penalty without the requisite transparency makes it difficult, if not impossible, to assess whether it is being carried out in compliance with international human rights standards.”

The path to abolition begins with transparency. Citizens cannot make informed judgments about capital punishment when critical information is hidden behind claims of state secrecy, closed procedures or unexplained judicial decisions. If the public is to decide whether the death penalty deserves a future, it must first be allowed to see the machinery clearly.

Like Dorothy confronting the Wizard, we should insist on pulling back the curtain. Once we do, the question becomes harder to avoid: if the death penalty depends upon secrecy to survive, what does that reveal about the institution itself?

Related links:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/10/positive-steps-towards-ending-death-penalty-in-several-southeast-asia-states/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/10/usa-livestreaming-firing-squad-execution-would-compound-cruelty-of-the-death-penalty/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa36/1545/2026/en/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/10/tennessees-attempted-execution-of-christa-pike-was-an-extreme-display-of-cruelty/

Aubrey Harris is the co-ordinator in the Amnesty International Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty, Canadian Section (English-Speaking Branch). He can be reached at dpacoordinator@amnesty.ca.

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