Film + TV:

What 'Dexter' Can Teach America

In its new season, Showtime’s ‘Dexter’ is slyly taking on the death penalty.

By Andrew Bluebond
November 25, 2009

Dexter Morgan: Judge, jury, and executioner. (Showtime)

This month’s execution of Washington-area sniper John Allen Muhammad prompted discussions about everything from death row inmates’ last meals to how varying religions feel about capital punishment, but there was little talk of the possibility that Virginia was executing an innocent person.

The case against Muhammad was strong. His accomplice testified against him, and unless the courts accepted his plea of insanity, then it was not very likely that he would have escaped with anything less than a conviction on all counts and the maximum sentence. Still, every time the state executes someone, it does so knowing full well it might be killing someone who didn’t commit a crime.

Recently, Showtime’s Dexter has begun slyly exploring this issue, parsing it in a way others don’t dare, and yielding some interesting lessons.

The series’ star is Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a Miami Police Department blood spatter analyst and serial killer. Dexter isn’t your typical mass murderer, though, in that he only kills people who have murdered or gravely wronged others and not been convicted—until now. (SPOILER ALERT!). For the first time in three and a half seasons, Dexter has mistakenly wrought his vengeance on an innocent.

When the murder takes place, the seeds of the victim’s possible innocence are sown as he begs for mercy. Dexter, as usual, remains unfazed; that is, until he returns to his office at the police station, where he discovers his colleagues have arrested the man who committed the crime for which he just killed. An immediate crisis of conscience ensues as the episode comes to close.

The next episode opens on Dexter still reflecting upon his latest kill. “So I made a mistake,” he says to himself. “It could have happened to anyone—well, any murderer.” He adds, “Not that murderers typically care whether their victims are innocent or not. Then why is it eating at me?” As Dexter’s latest kill gnaws at him internally, viewers notice something within themselves: they too feel uncomfortable.

When Dexter was just killing child molesters and murderers, viewers were not as troubled by the vigilantism. He may not have been their ideal bringer of justice, but as long as he was dispatching “bad” people, they could say, “He isn’t so terrible. In fact, he’s kind of good—those criminals had it coming.” On the other hand, if he’s killing innocents, then Dexter, once a strong moral compass, is no better than Jason or Freddy Krueger.

Execution touches people differently than war casualties or gang violence, because it’s right at home, and it could be us. We could end up like one of the Marietta Seven: sentenced to death based on the allegations of a woman who changed her story mid-testimony and later confessed to the crime (a murder) herself (she was so high at the time of the killing that she had to have her memory “refreshed” by a hypnotist).

That’s why it’s especially terrifying to think that the U.S. criminal justice system, the body charged with protecting the innocent from murders, could commit murder.. We want to believe that the appeals process is airtight, that no innocent person could ever be put to death in the United States. But, just as Dexter takes a risk every time he unsheathes his tools for another kill, America takes a risk with every prisoner it sends to the gas chamber or gallows (Washington and New Hampshire still allow hangings).

Since 1973, 139 people have been exonerated from death row in the United States. It would be somewhat comforting to believe that these were the only 139 innocent people to reach death row, but that isn’t likely. The state has probably already executed an innocent person, but it is difficult to know because appeals and investigations end when hearts stop. It may take a while, but it seems inevitable: One day, the state will find itself like Dexter–fully aware that it is has killed an innocent person with no way to undo what it has done.

Andrew Bluebond is a junior at Claremont McKenna College.

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