Why Capital Punishment Is Pro-Life
By Robert E. Meyer (09/22/04)
Recently, there has been a renewed call to put an end to the death penalty, culminating in the moratoriums and outright commutations in various jurisdictions. There is a long history of opposition to capital punishment coming from both the religious and secular camps.
The rational seems to be that certain death row inmates are often proven innocent by modern methods of evidence analysis, thus we ought to abolish the death penalty. Consequently, we extrapolate this fact into the assumption that there are likely a given percentage of people on death row who are truly innocent of the crime they were charged with.
We see in the last part of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, that loss of life in criminal justice shall not occur without due process: "...nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
While we may be shocked at the number of people on death row who are potentially innocent, we should ask how statistics themselves show the death penalty itself is cruel and unusual punishment, or whether the problem is really inadequate due process. After all, if the death penalty is cruel or unusual punishment, as is sometime ruled by courts, you would have our founders abolishing in the 8th Amendment, what was established in the 5th. Not a very cogent exegesis of the Constitution, is it? We can hardly say current execution methods are cruel, either.
Certainly there are cases where a criminal was appointed a lousy lawyer, or where a procedural gaff in the trial occurs. But does it justify blanket commutation of a death sentence for, say, a criminal who rapes and murders little girls. Is the problem one where the penalty is unjust, or is it the misappropriation of due process that we ought to blame?
Since biblical times, the death penalty has been deemed as a just punishment for capital offenses. "He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed," (Gen.9:6). Notice that the scripture tells us that this is a duty delegated to mankind, not exclusively reserved for God. Specifically the state is delegated the duty of bearing the sword against the evil doer (Romans chapter13), as a derivative sovereign, until the final just judgement of God. There is no vigilantism or vengeance motive in the equation.
The commandment, "Thou shalt not kill", has been a source of great confusion. Most modern translations of the Bible have corrected the Hebrew translation to English rendering, "Thou shalt commit no murder."
The term "an eye for an eye" in the scriptures, is not a directive for authority to seek vigilante vengeance, nor necessarily a mandate to recompense a literal eye-for-eye. This statement represents the biblical principle of Lex Talionis, that is, the crime must be proportional with the punishment. Often times in biblical law, the victim had rights in determining the precise punishment, up to a limit.
There are of course religious objections. Many people observe that Jesus said we ought to forgive. They will point out that in John chapter 8, Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery, who should have been stoned. But if you read the passage carefully, you notice that Jesus was objecting to the due process, not the penalty. Where was the male accomplice? Was the accusser, who had to throw the first stone according to Jewish law, blameless (what was it that Jesus wrote in the sand?) of the crime himself? Or anyone in the group for that matter.
How about Jesus on the cross? What a perfect opportunity to address the issue of capital punishment being wrong. The thief who asked for forgiveness admitted he was guilty and worthy of death. Later in the book of Acts 25:11, the apostle Paul declares before Festus, that if he has done anything worthy of death, he refuses not to die. This indicates that decades after the resurrection, Paul still held that the governing authority had the right to execute criminals.
Secularists will want to say that we have evolved to the point of enlightenment, where such barbaric punishments are obsolete. They want a legal system that has no basis in biblical law. Such pronouncements are the result of wishful thinking, hubris and "christophobia" on their part.
If numerous prisoners are found to be not guilty of the crimes they are convicted of, then what really is at issue, is the standard of evidence necessary for a conviction. In biblical times two eyewitnesses are necessary for capital punishment. With today's technology, DNA samples, fingerprints, or video tapes might qualify as a "witness." If a certain number of death row inmates are actually innocent, then we must assume that such could be the case with all crimes that require incarceration. What good is commuting death sentences to these unjustly imprisoned individuals? That is why emphasis should be on the due process that convicted them not on the death penalty.
The death penalty is certainly pro-life to those would-be victims if a convicted killer is released. And in this day of ultra-liberal courts, anything is possible. The death penalty is appropriate punishment for capital crimes, and is also the ultimate form of deterrence: People who are executed can never murder again.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Robert E. Meyer
