Charles C. W. Cooke’s essay asks whether a person can oppose the death penalty in principle while feeling that some convicted murderers deserve it. His answer is not a settled change of position: he says he remains opposed, yet finds himself uncertain when abstract arguments meet a particularly brutal case. That tension—not proof that Cooke or anyone else is “lying”—is the essay’s subject.
What Cooke means by asking whether he is lying to himself
In his October 1, 2026, National Review opinion essay, senior editor Charles C. W. Cooke describes a gap between his stated opposition to capital punishment and his emotional response to certain crimes. He writes, “I can rehearse both sides of the argument,” and says, “Were I asked to settle the dispute, I do not know how I would vote.” Those are expressions of his own uncertainty, not survey findings or a claim about what opponents of capital punishment generally believe. Read Cooke’s essay at National Review.
His central distinction is between deciding whether a person is guilty through a fair process and deciding what punishment should follow a conviction. A person may accept a guilty verdict and still oppose execution as punishment; conversely, feeling that a crime deserves death does not resolve whether the state should impose it. Keeping those questions separate helps explain why a strong emotional reaction does not automatically settle a principle.
Why Christa Pike is the essay’s test case
Cooke uses Christa Pike’s case to make the conflict concrete. The essay’s account of the crime and the reported events surrounding an attempted execution should be treated as Cooke’s account, not as independently confirmed here. The official U.S. Supreme Court docket establishes a narrower fact: on September 29, 2026, the Court denied Pike’s application for a stay and petition for a writ of certiorari. That procedural action does not verify the mechanics, medical details, or cause of any reported execution attempt. Supreme Court docket 26A414.
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This distinction matters because a vivid case can intensify the question of deserved punishment without answering separate questions about execution practice, legal safeguards, or whether a system can avoid fatal error.
What U.S. death-penalty figures show—and what they do not
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a nonprofit research and advocacy organization critical of problems in capital punishment, reported 25 executions across nine states and 26 new death sentences in the United States in 2024. These figures describe that year, not a general annual rate guaranteed to continue. Its 2024 year-end account also cited 53% public support, attributed to Gallup; that is the polling figure reported in that account, not a timeless or current estimate for 2026. The report’s headline was “Death Sentences and Executions Remain Near Historic Lows Amid Growing Concerns about Fairness and Innocence.” That wording is DPIC’s characterization. DPIC, The Death Penalty in 2024.
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Death sentences do not all end in execution. In a DPIC analysis of more than 9,700 sentences, using comparison data updated through June 29, 2022, fewer than one in six resulted in execution. That is an outcome statistic for the analyzed set; it is not an estimate of the chance that a particular defendant is innocent. DPIC, Death Penalty Census: Key Findings.
The scale and outcome of capital punishment inform the debate, but neither an execution count nor a public-opinion figure decides whether the punishment is morally justified, fairly applied, or safe from error.
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Why exonerations matter to the argument
At the end of 2024, DPIC reported a milestone of 200 people exonerated from death row since 1973. Its earlier census analysis, based on data through June 29, 2022, counted at least 189 people wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death who had been exonerated since 1973. The totals refer to different reporting dates; the later figure is the updated milestone. DPIC, The Death Penalty in 2024: Innocence.
An exoneration demonstrates that wrongful convictions and death sentences have occurred. It does not, by itself, quantify the likelihood of error in any individual case. But because execution cannot be undone, the risk of an irreversible mistake is a distinct consideration in deciding whether the state should retain capital punishment.
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Questions that should not be collapsed into one
Cooke criticizes what he regards as weaknesses or dishonesty in parts of the abolitionist movement and questions whether life imprisonment is an adequate alternative. These are his judgments, not neutral findings established by the figures above. A clearer assessment separates the major disputes:
- Retribution: Is execution a just response to some crimes, even if it is not needed for another purpose?
- Error and reversibility: How much risk of wrongful conviction is acceptable when the punishment cannot be reversed?
- Deterrence: Do executions reduce homicide compared with other punishments? The cited figures here do not establish an answer.
- Fairness: Are death sentences imposed consistently and fairly across defendants and cases?
- Execution practice: Are the methods and procedures used by the state reliable and humane? The Supreme Court docket in Pike’s case does not verify the reported execution-attempt details.
- Alternatives: Do the available noncapital sentences adequately punish and protect, and what do their actual terms and duration mean?
An argument about whether an offender deserves death addresses retribution. It does not by itself establish deterrence, procedural fairness, or the reliability of execution methods. Likewise, evidence of exonerations bears on error risk but does not alone settle the moral question of deserved punishment.
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How to read the essay’s conclusion
The title is best understood as a question Cooke is testing against his own reactions, not a confession that his opposition is insincere. The essay puts a real tension on the table: a person may retain an abstract objection to state execution while finding a particular case emotionally difficult. Whether that tension should change one’s policy view depends on how one weighs retribution, irreversible error, fairness, deterrence, execution practice, and the adequacy of alternatives—questions the essay’s example and the cited statistics do not reduce to a single answer.
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