Nothing is certain save death and taxes, and if you happen to be a citizen of Oklahoma, or any of the other thirty-two states who carry out the death penalty, you can expect the government to be responsible for both.

In a horrifying display of human error, Oklahoma became the subject of considerable public scrutiny last week when convicted murderer Clayton Derrell Lockett underwent a botched execution. After being administered three drugs intended to block neuromuscular activity and send the heart into cardiac arrest, Lockett launched into a 43-minute episode which resulted in vein failure and a subsequent heart attack.

Unfortunately, such execution failures are more common with lethal injection than any other method previously employed by the United States (7 percent according to the Daily Beast). Since the ending of the 19th century, America has grabbled to find alternative capital punishment measures that minimize pain in an effort to uphold “human dignity,” but as cases like Lockett’s indicate, to no avail.

It seems curious that of all the western democracies, America is the only nation left insistent on maintaining capital punishment. Indeed, there is little evidence to suggest it is at all beneficial beyond providing vindictive relief.

According to deathpenalty.org, the state of California has spent 4 billion dollars alone on the capital punishment since its reinstatement in 1978, roughly 184 million each year. States without the death penalty have significantly lower murder rates, while the South (accounting for 80 percent of executions) maintains the highest regional murder rate.  Furthermore, hundreds of people have been released from death row after new evidence cleared them of conviction, leaving questions about the number of innocent people who have been killed by the state.

Perhaps the Oklahoma fiasco will change all that. As of 2013, the percentage of Americans in favor of capital punishment has decreased from 78 percent in 1996 to 55 percent. While still a technical majority, statistics indicate that further exposure of botched executions will only drive the number down.

Americans are apprehensive of big government. The majority of us resent the imposition of taxes, welfare services and universal healthcare. We expect minimal interference in the realm of expression and demand a great degree of liberty. So why are we so comfortable affording government the power of an executioner? Does the building of a more perfect union really rest upon justice as lethal injection? And if we truly aspire to ensure domestic tranquility, why do we insist that state sanctioned violence is the only solution to heinous crime? Surely there is more to humanity than that.