A Christian Views Capital Punishment
Part of the continuing conversation on the faith journey
with the members and friends of
First Congregational Church of Houston
Humans, when in communitya nation,
a family, a church or even a slumber partydevelop common rules
of behavior. Constitutions and laws, as well as unspoken understandings
of acceptable behavior are pervasive in human communities. For
example, here at First Congregational, even though we have a constitution,
a nonconstitutional but overriding principle is that openness
is valued and dogmatism is not.
Rules carry with them a variety of punishments, depending on the
violation and the group: a verbal tonguelashing, isolation, a
monetary fine, and even death.
In the community of ancient Israel, the basic laws were found
in the five books of MosesGenesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers
and Deuteronomy. Since today's sermon is about capital punishment,
I will read some of the ancient offenses requiring the death penalty.
Death is the punishment for murder. But if you did not intend
to kill someone, and I, the Lord, let it happen anyway, you may
run for safety to a place that I have set aside. If you plan in
advance to murder someone, there's no escape, not even by holding
onto my altar. You will be dragged off and killed.1
Death is the punishment for attacking your father or mother.
Death is the punishment for kidnapping. If you sell the person
you kidnapped, or if you are caught with that person, the penalty
is death.
Death is the punishment for cursing your father or mother.
Death is the punishment for beating to death any of your slaves.
However, if the slave lives a few days after the beating, you
are not to be punished. After all, you have already lost the services
of that slave who was your servant.
Suppose a pregnant woman suffers a miscarriage as the result of
an injury caused by someone who is fighting. If she isn't badly
hurt, the one who injured her must pay whatever fine her husband
demands and the judges approve. But if she is seriously injured,
the payment will be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, cut for cut, and
bruise for bruise.
Death is the punishment for witchcraft.
Death is the punishment for having sex with an animal.
Death is the punishment for offering sacrifices to any god except
me.
If any of you men have sex with another man's wife, both you and
the woman will be put to death, just as you deserve.
Exodus 21:1225; 22:1820; Leviticus
20:10 (CEV)
This law, making adultery a crime deserving death, is the background
for this familiar story from John's Gospel.
Early the next morning Jesus went to the temple. The people
came to him, and he sat down and started teaching them.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law of Moses brought in
a woman who had been caught in bed with a man who wasn't her husband.
They made her stand in the middle of the crowd. Then they said,
"Teacher, this woman was caught sleeping with a man who isn't
her husband. The Law of Moses teaches that a woman like this should
be stoned to death! What do you say?"
They asked Jesus this question, because they wanted to test him
and bring some charge against him.2 But Jesus simply bent over and started writing
on the ground with his finger.
They kept on asking Jesus about the woman. Finally, he stood up
and said, "If any of you have never sinned, then go ahead
and throw the first stone at her!" Once again he bent over
and began writing on the ground. The people left one by one, beginning
with the oldest. Finally, Jesus and the woman were there alone.
Jesus stood up and asked her, "Where is everyone? Is there
no one left to accuse you?"
"No sir," the woman answered.
Then Jesus told her, "I am not going to accuse you either.
You may go now, but don't sin anymore."
John 8:211 (CEV)
I titled today's sermon, "Would Jesus Pull the Switch?"
One person commented that the title is a bit "crude."
I admit it is. But, the title does make a point. For, when the
issue of capital punishment is put that boldly, it is hard to
conceive of Jesus participating in, much less approving of, capital
punishment.
Twice Jesus spoke directly to the issue of capital punishment.
The first is in the story I just read, when he intervened in the
legitimate execution of a women for a capital crime. He didn't
directly counteract the Law of Moses, but he did point to the
executioners' illusion of innocence and moral purity: ""If
any of you have never sinned, then go ahead and pull the switch!"
And, the only one there who was innocent enough to throw the stone
wanted nothing to do with killing her.
The second time Jesus addressed this issue was at his own execution.
And, make no mistake about it, crucifixion was an execution. It
was the way that the Romans got rid of someone who committed a
serious offense, like rebellion. Letting a person slowly die over
several hours was meant as a deterrent to others. But, Jesus asked
forgiveness for his executioners, saying "they know not what
they do." According to the record, Pilate recognized Jesus'
innocence. But, he bowed to political pressure and executed a
person unjustly.3
That may be Jesus' view of capital punishment, but does that view
extend to the Timothy McVeigh's of our world? Outwardly, McVeigh
showed no feeling when looking at the pictures of the 167 children,
men and women who were killed in the bombing of the Murrah Building
in Oklahoma City. Individuals like McVeigh certainly make the
death penalty eminently reasonable.
Along with McVeigh, there is another person who could serve as
a poster child for the death penalty: Theodore Bundy. Bundy was
finally killed in 1989 in Florida's electric chair. He was a mass
murderer who killed innocent women, repeatedly and without inhibition,
across several states. Only at the very end did he began to tantalize
police with information about his many crimessome for which he
wasn't even suspected. By drawing out the process, he postponed
his execution.
But, if we are going to look to McVeigh and Bundy for justification
of the death penalty, we also need to listen to the story of another
less well known Floridian, James Richardson. Twenty years before
Bundy, Richardson was tried and convicted of killing his seven
children. Crucial to his conviction was the fact that the night
before the murders he took out insurance policies on his children.
Such coldblooded murder of one's own children for profit got Richardson
what he deservedthe death penalty.
Some, though, didn't believe he was guilty. They eventually turned
up the following facts:
neither the defense attorney nor the
prosecutor pointed out to the jury that the insurance policies
had not been paid for and were not in effect at the time of the
deaths;
three of Richardson's cell mates testified
that he had confessed the crime to them, but the fact that they
had been promised reduced jail time for their testimony wasn't
mentioned in the trial (years later, the one still surviving
admitted Richardson never made such a confession);
the lie detector results disappeared
and were never disclosed, and a polygraph operator who administered
the test to Richardson in prison said that Richardson had "no
involvement in the crime whatsoever";
Richardson's nextdoor neighbor was never
called to testify even though she was with the children the day
of their death, while the Richardson's were working in the fields.
The sheriff's office knew that the neighbor's first husband had
mysteriously died after eating a dinner she had prepared, and
that she had served four years in prison for killing her second
husband;
the county former prosecutor deliberately
concealed over 900 pages of evidence that would have brought
these facts to light, and it took an actual theft to get these
documents into the hands of Miami Herald reporters.
Twentyone years in prison for a crime
he did not commitfour of those years sitting on death row and
once being put through a "dry run" execution which meant
a shaving of the head and being buckleddown in the electric chairRichardson
was released.4
The story of James Richardson is not an isolated example. Just
last year we read in the newspaper the story of Rolando Cruz.
In 1985, to cite just one example, Rolando Cruz and another
Chicago man were sentenced to death for the 1983 abduction, rape
and murder of 10yearold Jeannie Nicarico. The prosecution based
its case on a "vision statement" from Cruza dream about
the murder he'd allegedly recounted to police. The convection
was overturned, and Cruz was retried in 1990, but another manwho
had actually confessed to the crimewas not allowed to testify,
and Cruz was convicted on the same dream evidence. In 1994 the
state Supreme Court overturned Cruz's second conviction, and the
government began preparations for a third trial; this time the
key prosecution witness recanted, and DNA evidence cleared him.
Cruz was acquitted in November 1995. Three prosecutors and four
cops have been indicted in the he case. After 11 years, Cruz is
freebut under current federal law limiting appeals, he might not
have fared so well.5
It might be said that the system works since two innocent individuals
were not killed. But, we only know their stories because they
had individuals on the outside who would not let the matter alone.
Since it is the State that prosecutes, if Richardson and Cruz
had been executed, the citizens of the States of Florida and Illinois
would have participated in murder. In that case, should the citizens
of those two states have been taken to court as accessories to
murder?
For me, that is one of the most serious objections to capital
punishment. When the State of Texas executes a person, I, as a
citizen of the State, am an accessory to that murder. To me, it
makes little sense to show our disapproval of killing by killing.
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder
and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another,
but similars that breed their kind.
George Bernard Shaw
Man and Superman, 19036
When we abolished the punishment for treason that you should be
hanged, and then cut down while still alive, and then disemboweled
while still alive and then quartered, we did not abolish that
punishment because we sympathized with traitors, but because we
took the view that it was a punishment no longer consistent with
our selfrespect.
Lord Chancellor Gardiner, debating
for the abolition of the death penalty,
House of Lords, 19657
In my experience, there is no grief deeper and longerlasting than
the death of a child. So devastating is it that the divorce rate
of parents whose child has died or been killed is 80%! Listening
to the parents of those killed in Oklahoma City is especially
poignant. I can well understand the desire for revenge.
the payment will be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, cut for cut, and
bruise for bruise.
Sister Helen Prejean wrote in her book, Dead Man Walking:
Maybe this is my sensitivity, not Sonnier's. Maybe he doesn't
care about the pain he inflicts on others. Maybe he doesn't even
realize that his victims' families, cursed with memory of their
slain loved ones, will forever occupy a "death row"
of their own because of him.8
If someone I love should be killed, I know I would feel rage,
loss, grief, helplessness, perhaps for the rest of my life. It
would be arrogant to think I can predict how I would respond to
such a disaster. But Jesus Christ, whose way of life I try to
follow, refused to meet hate with hate and violence with violence.
I pray for strength to be like him. I cannot believe in a God
who metes out hurt for hurt, pain for pain, torture for torture.
Nor do I believe that God invests human representatives with such
power to torture and kill. The paths of history are stained with
the blood of those who have fallen victim to God's Avengers."
Kings and Popes and military generals and heads of state have
killed, claiming God's authority and God's blessing. I do not
believe in such a God.
In sorting out my feelings and beliefs, there is, however, one
piece off moral ground of which I am absolutely certain: if I
were to be murdered I would not want my murderer executed. I would
not want my death avenged, Especially by governmentwhich can't
be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably
or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.
Albert Camus' "Reflections on the Guillotine" is for
me a moral compass on the issue of capital punishment. He wrote
this essay in 1957 when the stench of Auschwitz was still in the
air, and one of his cardinal points is that no government is ever
innocent enough or wise enough or just enough to lay claim to
so absolute a power as death.
Society proceeds sovereignly to eliminate
the evil ones from her midst as if she were virtue itself. Like
an honorable man killing his wayward son and remarking,: "Really,
I didn't know what to do with him" To assert, in any case,
that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he
is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely
good, and no one in his right mind will believe this today.9
Camus addresses the moral contradictions
inherent in a policy which imitates the violence it claims to
abhor, a violence, he says, made more grievous by premeditation:
Many laws consider a premeditated
crime far more serious than a crime of pure violence For there
to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal
who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict
a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had
confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered
in private life.10
So not to stack the deck with
only one viewpoint, let me read to you what one philosopher, Walter
Berns, wrote.
Capital punishment serves to remind us of the majesty of the
moral order that is embodied in our law and of the terrible consequences
of its breach The criminal law must be made awful, by which I
mean aweinspiring, or commanding `profound respect or reverential
fear.' It must remind us of the moral order by which alone we
can live as human beings. Which is to say, some animals need killing,
if only to remind the rest of us animals how to live. By this
standard state executions evince more reverence for life.11
Certainly, the American public is much closer to philosopher Berns
than to the position I have articulated in this sermon. In fact:
Current polls show that 74% of Americans favor the death penalty
for individuals convicted of serious crimes, and 16% oppose the
death penalty (the rest are undecided). Those figures hold even
though a majority of people do not believe the death penalty deters
people from committing crimes (52% in a 1995 poll, and 67% of
police chiefs said they did not think the death penalty deters
homicide).12
It is the poor who die. In three recent capital cases in Houston
defense lawyers were observed to be sleeping during the trials.
Appeal courts have not considered this a serious enough matter
to retry the case! With money, a person can get: a crackerjack
lawyer, top-notch investigators, a ballistics expert, and a psychologist
for jury selection. Also, if a district attorney knows he is up
against a top-notch lawyer, he or she will consider the fact that
there is a distinct possibility of losing the case. A noncapital
charge for a plea bargain might be considered. I think it is telling
that in February of this year, the American Bar Association called
for a moratorium on executions because "the administration
of the death penalty, far from being fair and consistent, is instead
a haphazard maze of unfair practices with no internal consistency."13 (Time, 32-33)
With Jesus speaking against, and never for, the death penalty,
with the arbitrariness of our system of capital punishment, with
capital punishment adding to our culture of death, and with the
State making me a participant in murder, the very crime for which
a person is put to death, I am led to view the death penalty as
something that needs to be eliminated.
Would Jesus pull the switch? To me, the answer is very clear:
NO.
Baird, Robert M. and Rosenbaum, Stuart E., eds. Punishment
and the Death Penalty: The Current Debate. Amherst, New York:
Prometheus Books, 1995. [ISBN 0-87975-946-1 (pb)] [Cor 364.66
Pun]
Camus, Albert. "Reflections on the Guillotine" in
Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, trans. Justin O'Brien. New
York: Vintage, 1974, pp. 225226.
Clayton, Mark, "Gentle' Canada Eyes Death Penalty Again."
The Christian Science Monitor, 19 July 1995, p.7
Gray, Ian and Stanley, Moira. A Punishment in Search of
a Crime: Americans Speak Out Against the Death Penalty. New
York, Avon, 1989 [ISBN 0-38-75923-3] [Cor 364.66 Gra]
Newsweek, 16 June 1997, pp. 20-30.
Prejean, Sister Helen. Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account
of the Death Penalty in the united States. New York: Random
House, 1993.
[[ISBN 0-679-75131-9] [Cor 364.66 Pre]
Time, 16 June 1997, pp. 26-39.
Tushnet, Mark. The Death Penalty" Constitutional Issues.
New York: Fact on File, 1994. [ISBN 0-8160-252-9] [Cor 345.73
Tus]
U. S. News & World Report, 16 June 1997, pp. 24-32.
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