Do You Support Capital Punishment? (Death For Certain Crimes)

This issue is controversial. There are reasonable arguments both pro and con.

Here are some of my thoughts on the Death Penalty.

I tend to be against it because we have executed innocent people several times.
And there is no un-doing that. Dead is dead and cannot be undone.

Life in prison, or other shorter prison sentences, allows the possibility that innocent
people, later proven to be innocent, can be allowed to at least have some kind of
life restored to them.

The Death Penalty can be, and has been, the state snuffing out the life of innocent
human beings. So yes I am against the possibility of that occurring.

I do understand very well the arguments for the Death Penalty. And I understand the
emotions behind those who support the Death Penalty. I understand what a horrible
crime can do to a family who has to live with memories of some killer who was
convicted of murdering in cold blood their loved ones.

But suppose the "murderer" was innocent?

And new evidence proved beyond any doubt that he was totally innocent of the crime
that he was convicted of committing. And the state convicted this innocent man and
snuffed out his life.

What about forgiveness? . . .

Matthew 6:14-15
This verse has to mean something, doesn't it?
"If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father
will also forgive you. But if you do NOT forgive others their sins, your Father
will NOT forgive your sins."___The Lord Jesus

Question: If someone murdered your loved one, would it not be more in keeping
with Matthew 6:14-15, for you to desire that they be given time in prison to repent
of their crime and their sin against you, and come to know the Lord Jesus as their
Savior?

__________


I used to be all for the death penalty back in my younger days, but as I got older and
became more empathetic and sympathetic with the human condition, I lost my
"blood lust" and started to desire 2nd and 3rd chances for all human beings.

Prison sentences do in fact offer 2nd and 3rd chances for evil men who make
serious major mistakes. Some of them become Christians in prison. And some is
enough, isn't it?

There are several very successful Christian Prison Ministries that do in fact successfully
preach the gospel to prison inmates and many of them are converted to Christianity
and faith in the Lord Jesus as their Savior.

But again I do understand the craving that some folks have for the death penalty.
I used to feel the same way.

There was a time when I loved the "Rambo thingy" -- you know where they start off showing you the bad guys doing awful things to the good guys, so that the audience builds up a desire to see the bad guys experience a horrible gruesome death. And the bloodier the better!

The last Rambo movie I saw, Old Rambo literally gutted the bad guy like one would slaughter a hog --- and the audience loved it and cheered. I have personally gotten away from that type of blood lust --- even for the truly bad guys. I say give them prison sentences so they can at least have a chance to change and repent and come to believe in the Lord Jesus as their Savior.

_____

Thought For Today:

"Such is the nature of evil. Out there in the vast ignorance
of the world it festers and spreads. A shadow that grows in
the dark. A sleepless malice as black as the oncoming
wall of night. So it ever was. So will it always be. In time
all foul things come forth." __ Thranduil, The Elven King
of Mirkwood

 

By the way, to the thread:

Does anybody remember Karla Faye Tucker?

Start quote.
Karla Faye Tucker (November 18, 1959 – February 3, 199 was an American woman sentenced to death for killing two people with a pickaxe during a burglary. She was the first woman to be executed in the United States since Velma Barfield in 1984, and the first in Texas since Chipita Rodriguez in 1863.
End quote.

Karla Faye Tucker became a true born again glowing Christian while in prison and had an amazing testimony for the Lord Jesus and for His mercy and grace.

If you are unfamiliar with the heart-warming story of Karla Faye Tucker, you can go to You Tube and pull up numerous videos of Karla Faye giving her testimony of how she came to know the Lord Jesus as her Savior. These videos will truly warm your heart.

 

I gues the two people she killed didn't have that luxury.

 

"I think God knew His business better than we do when He instituted the death penalty for certain crimes."__John Death Penalty Supporter

My view is that God has not instituted the Death Penalty for we who are now living under the guidelines and truths of the New Testament.

Here are some of my reasons for holding this position.

New Testament:
(1) To the best of my knowledge the New Testament does not command the Death Penalty for any crime. There is no verse in the New Testament that specifically says that the Death Penalty is either right or wrong, or should or should not be instituted.

Romans 13 says that the authorities (the government) have been established by God and that the authorities do not "bear the sword for nothing." (Romans 13:4) Paul does NOT explain what he means when he said they do not "bear the sword for nothing."

My view is that it is impossible to demonstrate with certainty that Paul was saying that the authorities have God's approval to impose the Death Penalty merely because Paul said that the authorities did not "bear the sword for nothing."

They do not "bear the sword for nothing" can easily mean ONLY that the authorities have God's approval to punish evil-doers. The text does NOT say what kind of punishment they have God's approval to inflict upon evil-doers. One can speculate about this, but there is NOT a clear and certain word from God on this issue in Romans chapter 13. Its all going to be merely personal speculation and personal opinions.

So if you interpret they do not "bear the sword for nothing" to be a specific reference to applying the Death Penalty you do that without any clear and certain Biblical warrant for that interpretation. Also, to be consistent, you would have to hold that the authorities had to use an actual sword when they applied the Death Penalty. The text says "sword" it does NOT say "lethal injection" or "gas chamber" or "hanging" etc.

So the question is raised. What does Romans 13 say about what killing method the authorities all allowed by God to use when they kill a person convicted of a Capital Crime? My view is that Romans 13 says nothing about the method to be used and therefore says nothing about the Death Penalty.

Old Testament:
(2) I am reasonably certain that no one would appeal to the Old Testament for their authority to hold that God does approve of the Death Penalty for we who are now living under the guidelines and truths of the New Testament. Why not? Because those Old Testament Death Penalty laws obviously do NOT apply to us today.

Here is why they don't apply to us today:

(A) "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death" Exodus 21:17

(B) If anyone fails to confine a dangerous bull known to gore and the owner has been warned and fails to keep the bull penned up, then the text says that the owner of the bull "must be put to death." (The passage does allow the man to redeem his life with a money payment under certain conditions.) Exodus 21:28-30

(C) "Whoever does any work on the Sabbath Day must be put to death." Exodus 31:12

Summing up.
(1) The New Testament does NOT have a clear and certain verse where God has instituted the Death Penalty for we who live under the guidelines and truths of the New Testament.

(2) If you appeal to the Old Testament, then to be consistent, you would be forced to advocate the Death Penalty for "anyone who curses his father or mother" Exodus 21:17 and whoever "does any work on the Sabbath Day" Exodus 31:12 Advocating this would be totally irrational.

Death by stoning:

Leviticus 24:16 says that anyone who blasphemes the name of God must be put to death and that the entire assembly must stone him to death.

It would be unthinkable for we Christians here in the 22nd century to advocate and support the United States Government taking people who blaspheme God's name to a place where they would then be stoned to death.

____________

I can and do understand and sympathize with those who support the Death Penalty. I fully understand that their intentions are to uphold and defend their conception of justice.

 

So?

So do you conclude that the world was improved and helped
and advanced when the state of Texas executed Karla Faye Tucker
even though the prison warden and everybody else that knew her
said she was a totally changed woman since she became a Christian,
and that she could and would make a valuable contribution to the
prison population and to her many friends and fellow Christians.

No one suggested that she ought to be let out of prison. Why
would not life in prison be better for her and the state of Texas
and for America?

Its a sad world. The entire 22nd century is plagued with sadness.

I don't have ultra-strong feelings against the Death Penalty, I just
posted some of my thoughts on the subject.

Repeat:

I can and do understand and sympathize with those who support
the Death Penalty. I fully understand that their intentions are to
uphold and defend their conception of justice.
__________

Matthew 6:14-15
This verse has to mean something, doesn't it?

"If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father
will also forgive you. But if you do NOT forgive others their sins, your Father
will NOT forgive your sins."___The Lord Jesus

 

I was on the fence about capital punishment because it is actually cheaper to punish with a term of life in prison than to go through all the legal proceedings to get to an execution.

But now that thousands of felons have been let out of prison for no good reason, I totally support capital punishment at any monetary cost.

 

Jay,
Thanks for your comments. I understand your position.

 

~ No. I did at one time - but I no longer see it's purpose. Also the fact that many procecuters are interested in convictions - not justice. Too many innocent people are convicted .

 

I support the death penalty. We know certain people are guilty. For example the Norfolk, Nebraska bank robbers. They are on video executing the tellers in the bank. This was after had the money and were about to exit the bank. They stopped walked back to the tellers, and shot everyone of them in the head. Should the death penalty have a very high need for prove of guilt yes, but some people do not need to be around anymore.

 

JC,
Thanks for your comment.

An excerpt from my Opening Post:

"I tend to be against the Death Penalty because we have executed innocent people
several times. And there is no un-doing that. Dead is dead and cannot be undone.

Life in prison, or other shorter prison sentences, allows the possibility that innocent
people, later proven to be innocent, can be allowed to at least have some kind of
life restored to them.

The Death Penalty can be, and has been, the state snuffing out the life of innocent
human beings. So yes I am against the possibility of that occurring."___JAG

 

RITW,
Terrible stuff to be sure. I understand your reasoning.

Nonetheless, do you think the following has any truth
in it at all?

JAG Previously Wrote:
I used to be all for the death penalty back in my younger days, but as I got older and
became more empathetic and sympathetic with the human condition, I lost my
"blood lust" and started to desire 2nd and 3rd chances for all human beings.

Prison sentences do in fact offer 2nd and 3rd chances for evil men who make
serious major mistakes. Some of them become Christians in prison. And some is
enough, isn't it?

There are several very successful Christian Prison Ministries that do in fact successfully
preach the gospel to prison inmates and many of them are converted to Christianity
and faith in the Lord Jesus as their Savior."___JAG

________

Suppose the Norfolk, Nebraska bank robbers had been given life in prison
and later on in their life they changed and repented and became Christians.

Or if you are not a Christian and if you put no value on that --- then what about
if the Norfolk, Nebraska bank robbers, after say 10 years in prison, changed
and repented and became good moral men, making a daily positive contribution
to the prison population. America has over 2,000,000 people in its jails and
prisons so there is a lot of people in there that can be helped --- that is if the
people who want to help them are alive and not dead-executed by the state.

Again, I am not totally 100% against the Death Penalty -- but there seems to
be at least SOME truth to the points I am making, don't your think?

 

Some people by the choices they make deserve the death sentence. Take child molesters, they have no value in society. They destroy lives. If you find God good for you. This is the justice system and it is not gods place.

 

~ I have to admit in this particular case I probably could pull the switch myself ...

 

Our justice system is adversarial. It's oriented to making the winning argument. That's a flawed approach to findig truth. And, it has been shown to be incapable of making accurate decisions of guilt in capital cases.

It's always possible to find a case where the evidence looks perfect. But, the larger issue is whether our judicial system can accurately identify those cases.

My own view is that we and our government do not have the right to walk up to a person in chains and kill him.

There IS another solution. It's not like the only alternative to execution is freedom to reenter society.

 

Have you heard of ANY prisoner convicted of capital violence being released?

 

I agree the death penalty is immoral, though I don't equate becoming Christian as being a better person. The purpose of the justice system is to protect innocent people, though, and perhaps they would be less dangerous after becoming Christian... but it depends. Historically Christians used their faith to justify the slaughter of innocent people, and its largely the taming of religion with secular ideals that has made Christianity less of a force of death in the world.

With the death penalty they have to choose between an extremely expensive act of catharsis or spend less on appeals and have a higher risk of killing innocent people, and the risk is never zero. Policy should not be about what people deserve. Policy is about improving outcomes and quality of life. In the case of the criminal justice system, that means making us safer. To act as if execution is anything other than barbaric revenge is delusional.

Deterrence is often cited as a reason for execution. But deterrence doesn't work that way. Deterrence is based upon perceived likelihood of getting caught (generally >1/3 for a calculated crime), not severity of punishment unless we're comparing a minor fine against imprisonment, not life in prison versus execution, which are both essentially game over if you get caught. Some people would rather be executed than rot in prison, anyway.

 

Just remember that the Jesus character will toss your butt into the fire if you don't believe in him. And when he returns he will torture everyone, kill all life and blow up the planet. He is not a nice guy at all.

 

You would have had to kill just about all of the characters in the Old Testament because they were baby rapers.

 

I would like to see people have 2nd and 3rd chances to change and repent.

They will become a better person if they actually practice what the New Testament teaches.

They would become less dangerous if they actually became a practicing Christian.

Christendom is in its infancy as is the entire human race. You have to be patient and
give Christianity and the human race time to grow in wisdom and maturity. The
human race and Christendom is in the Third Grade historically speaking and it will
be many millenniums yet future before we graduate up to, say, the Eleventh Grade
and stop all the bad and immoral behavior.

In the time of Calvin they burned Michel Servetus at the stake. Calvin tried to talk the
Church authorities into changing the method of execution to a less painful death,
but Calvin failed to convince them and they burned Servetus alive at the stake.

So?

So there is not one single mainstream Christian denomination on Earth 22nd century
'that would advocate or tolerate burning any human being alive no matter what crime
they had committed.

They have a name for this. They call it moral progress.

It appears to me to be just the opposite. My view is that Christianity has tamed
the evils of Secular Humanism. Consider this list of evil perpetuated upon
humanity by Atheists and Secularists:

"The Death Toll From Statism: Civilians Killed By Governments - excluding wars"

China (communists) 35 million
Germany (total 20th century) 21 million
The Holocaust (1938-1945) 6 million
Soviet Union (total 20th century) 62 million
Stalinist Purges (1930 -1938 ) 20 -60 million
Cambodia (1975-1979) 1 -2 million

Source: It's getting Better All The Time: 100 Greatest Trends Of The Last 100 Years
by Stephen Moore and Julian Simon
page 16
published by the Cato Institute.
Moore and Simon got the above from Statistics Of Democide by Rudy J. Rummel
as cited in The Economist magazine.

I don't understand what you mean by your use of "catharsis" in your comment.

catharsis - the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

I will be glad to read your explanation on your use of "catharsis."

We all deserve worse than we get. Grace means "unmerited favor."
I know I do not want to receive justice. I much prefer to receive
grace and mercy. You?

I will admit I have "mixed emotions" regarding Capital Punishment.
I do want society made safer, but I also want criminals to be given
a 2nd and 3rd chance to change and repent and of course giving
them prison sentences, instead of killing them, is the only way to
give them that chance.

Yeah I guess? I really don't know what their motive is. The state
taking revenge you say?

Noted.

LU, thanks for your interesting and contributory comments.

 

Yeah the state's prosecutors are paid to win cases and I think its
reasonable to believe they have a strong $$ money motive to
win.

And there is no doubt that some innocent people have been executed
under this present system.

Start quote.
More than 4 percent of inmates sentenced to death in the United States
are probably innocent, according to a study published Monday that sent
shock waves across the anti-death penalty community.

What the researchers call a “conservative estimate” about the number of
wrongfully convicted death row inmates is more than double the percentage
of capital defendants who were exonerated during more than three decades
that were studied. That means innocent people are languishing behind bars,
according to the study. __Huffpo article
End quote

You can google "innocent people executed" and pull up a ton of reputable
articles to support the claim.

Good point. I would hate mighty bad to be a poor man charged with
a crime I did not commit and be at the mercy of a court appointed
lawyer and then be facing the state's top prosecutor and his team
of lawyers.

That statement sure does require some serious reflection.

Makes good sense to me.

I repeat what I said in my Opening Post:

JAG Wrote:
"This issue is controversial. There are reasonable arguments both pro and con.

I tend to be against it because we have executed innocent people several times.
And there is no un-doing that. Dead is dead and cannot be undone.

Life in prison, or other shorter prison sentences, allows the possibility that innocent
people, later proven to be innocent, can be allowed to at least have some kind of
life restored to them."__JAG

 

I like your point about the progress we are making. That progress obviosuly didn't stop at the end of the OT. It didn't stop after the various inquisitions or the enforcements of a national religion. Even in secular punishment we've progressed, such as in terms such as "cruel and unusual" that our founders chose not to define - probably in recognition of ongoing progress.

Judging religions by the body count doesn't make sense to me even slightly. Reasons for war go beyond religion. Weve made progress as above. Having a murderous leader doesn't necessarily characterize all those within the nation. Etc. There were plenty of Christians in Germany during both world wars.

We allow victims to testify at sentencing hearings directed at allowing victims to make claims of seriousness outside the protections of a trial. That can not possibly help but introduce an element of revenge. Our system is predicated on the wellbeing of the country as a whole, not the eloquence of a victim.

 

Nope, never, never. Under no circumstances. Just because someone may forfeit a presumed right to live through his heinous act, does not mean that government or anyone else now has established the right to kill him. No government has the right to tie, or chain or restrain someone and then poison, shoot, electrocute, or hang him in a premeditated and deliberate effort to kill him. We are allowing his barbarism, to make us a little smaller, weaker and more morally ambiguous as a society, than we would otherwise be if we did not reach for retribution or vengeance and label it justice. When we react to his crime in such a way, we empower him to change us.

 

So this is a post in defense of child molesters today. Good to know how you come down on this subject. What happened in the distant past is only something we can talk about for historical purposes. But child molesters and murders today are something we can do something about.

 

I agree with your viewpoint as I too have had a similar change of opinion from my youth.

Even one innocent person being executed makes a mockery of justice. In addition to the moral argument, there's the pragmatic one of the costs of appeals being far more costly than a life term sentence.

In my opinion, there are only two parties that have the right to demand a death sentence; the surviving family members and the convicted murderer. The state should not have any authority to act as a surrogate to a revenge killing.

The only exception to the above is the maritime USMJ code regarding mutiny being punishable by death. In a closed off community such as a ship, actions of mutiny and treason should be punishable by death because alternate resources may not be available, or seriously rationed.

 

In order for any justice system to be just, we need to have a just society first.