For others, watching the execution may provide a visceral satisfaction at McVeigh's having suffered the ultimate punishment, and that satisfaction may help quell the fury at having lost a loved one to a calculated mass murderer. We should not fool ourselves into thinking otherwise. We should evaluate the televising of the execution by keeping in mind the purpose it actually serves. The wrong choice Deciding what role vengeance should play in our system of justice is no easy matter, and I will not attempt the task here. I will simply note for the moment that televising the McVeigh execution for only the victim's families has at least two potential costs, one symbolic and one substantive.
Vengeance is a highly personal emotion.
I will repay. But our system of justice is not individualistic. It is communal. The federal government prosecuted McVeigh not on behalf of his victims or their families, but on behalf of the people of the United States. It is the people of the United States who will be putting him to death.