We can no longer mask the barbarity of the death penalty

The United States is bumbling its way toward the bitter end of the death penalty. As the numbers of executions fall every year, the state-ordered deaths that we do commit become that much more unusual, freakish and unfair applications of the law. As states scramble to implement arbitrary new lethal injection protocols, the cruelty of the procedure only worsens. The way Alabama killed the convicted murderer Ronald B. Smith on Thursday is only the latest example.