Supporting public execution, however, is not the same as supporting execution. Opponents should do everything they can to prevent the execution of each inmate. Public execution would shed light on the merits of each case. It would force the system to justify each killing. Questions, such as why a black person who kills a white person goes to the chair so much more often, would ring in the ears of execution's executors.
Public scrutiny brings public pressure.
Executions would, at the very least, have to be more humane. Authorities could ill-afford botched and painful executions. They could not afford to let the viewing public see flames shoot from an inmate's head in the electric chair, or blood pour from his mouth. The movement towards more 'humane' forms of execution, such as lethal injection, is itself a response to moral qualms about the death penalty. Supporters are already at pains to prove that execution is not cruel.