Mother Jones

On Sunday’s episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver weighed in on the recent botched execution in Oklahoma, the president’s response to it, and the death penalty in general. “The death penalty is like the McRib,” Oliver says. “When you can’t have it, it’s so tantalizing. But as soon as they bring it back, you think, ‘This is ethically wrong. Should this be allowed in a civilized society?'”

Here’s more from Oliver:

It costs up to 10 times more to give someone the death penalty than life in prison. So what a death sentence is really saying is, “Hey! This is America! And the way we treat the most despicable members of our society is by spending the entire budget of the Lord of the Rings trilogy on them.” So what we know now is the death penalty is expensive, potentially kills innocent people, and doesn’t deter crime. And here is where it gets hard—harder than is potentially appropriate for a comedy show late on a Sunday night. But if we are going to answer difficult and profound questions…the toughest one is probably if someone is guilty of committing a horrible crime, and the family of the victim want the perpetrator executed, do we want to live in the kind of country that gives that to them? I would say no. You might, very reasonably, say yes…But it’s a question that is going to need an answer.

The whole segment is very good. Check out the 12-minute clip:

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Watch John Oliver Take on the Death Penalty on “Last Week Tonight”