Judicial killing

Not long ago, a friend remarked to me that if anyone were to harm his children, he would be grateful to the law for coming between him and the offender.

My friend is a liberal, irenic and civilised man. He is also entirely honest. In acknowledging the immediate desire for retaliation on the part of a person wounded or ill-used, he owns a human experience which is pretty well universal. He also recognised – as many do not – that such a response needs to be deflected and ameliorated by the adjudicating state if we are not to fall  into savagery.

However, if the state itself becomes an avenger, the savagery is institutionalised and so placed within the bounds of legality and acceptability. The danger of this is evident in so much of the public attitude towards punishment – only listen to any phone-in when a crime has caused particular outrage. The desire for revenge, often expressed in lurid terms, will prevail over any consideration of reform, rehabilitation and – I make no apology for the word – redemption. If the criminal justice system and the sentencing which it is willing to impose does not act as a balancing and humane influence, justice is not served and we are all diminished.

Nowhere is this more evident than when the death penalty is in question. It is particularly shocking to hear voices from the US, claiming to be Christian, clamouring for that against which Jesus specifically warned – the doctrine of eye for eye and tooth for tooth. Such visceral responses can all too easily find a resonance in people who have been profoundly wronged. However, the teachings of Jesus invert these responses and offer the potential for transformation. This demands more of us than giving way to the urge to retaliate as brutally as possible. And make no mistake, death rows and judicial killings are brutal.

The high proportion of black and Hispanic prisoners on the death rows of US prisons reflects both the inherent racism of the system and the manner in which poverty strips men and women of their legal rights in the Land of the Free. The sons and daughters of WASPS have both the finances and the connections to obtain good legal representation, but the sums which the state allocates for the defence of the indigent are so low that the possibility of a competent lawyer is greatly reduced. There are well authenticated accounts of attorneys who appear in court drunk, fall asleep or utterly fail to master their clients' briefs. Appeal follows appeal due to incompetence and incorrect procedure and even when the last of these has been rejected, years may pass before the death sentence is carried out. There are men and women on US death rows who have lived in the shadow of the execution chamber for over 30 years. This is not justice, but it is, beyond doubt, 'cruel and unusual punishment'.

Most of us retain our sanity by not knowing the hour or manner of our deaths. No such mercy is possible for the prisoner whose execution has been scheduled. The mechanism of state killing is obscene. The last meal, the final visits, the walk to the death chamber, the strapping of the prisoner to a gurney or electric chair, the terror, horror and pain of the too frequently bodged administration of lethal drugs or electric current, these are not the actions of civilisation or of grace. They can only be justified in the eyes of those who are hungry for vengeance and who cannot see that to respond to one killing by another is to descend to the very level which they so angrily condemn.

Some offenders pose too great a danger to be released back into society. Others need treatment for mental illness or drug addiction. The need for society to show its disapprobation of violent crime is essential and those who have committed such offences must make reparation. But let us never forget that they are our fellow humans – not 'beasts' or 'monsters' even though their actions may well have been bestial or monstrous. The words of George Fox, dear to the hearts and minds of all Quakers, are significant here: “Answer that of God in every person”.

To fail in that call is to lay oneself open to what is most cruel, base and weak in human nature. It is not necessary to be religious to abhor this failure. But there is surely a specific obligation on the followers of the radical Rabbi from Nazareth to oppose it and to speak out for a criminal justice system which embodies the most humane attributes of the Judaeo-Christian tradition in which it has its roots.


© Jill Segger is an Associate Director of the think tank Ekklesia with particular involvement in editorial issues. She is a freelance writer who contributes to the Church Times, Catholic Herald, Tribune, Reform and The Friend, among other publications. Jill is an active Quaker. See: http://www.journalistdirectory.com/journalist/TQig/Jill-Segger You can follow Jill on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/quakerpen

Most of us retain our sanity by not knowing the hour or manner of our deaths.

That's probably true, and certainly keeps the Life Assurance and Pension Industries in profit. However, what would be the effect, personally and generally, of knowing precisely our own "best before" date? Would we perhaps be better off with an ability to plan our orderly passing on a known date? Ourselves and family would have ample time in which to prepare for the (unavoidable in any case) consequences such as inheritance and taxes.

What parasite "services" could be expected to spring up by the change from indeterminable to guaranteed?

Yeeeeeeesssss?

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"Some offenders pose too great a danger to be released back into society. Others need treatment for mental illness or drug addiction."
These two statements will sometimes refer to the same people. That being the case, where does the bigger cruelty lie:
1) Successfully treating those of the latter who are compliant, knowing that they know they are also the former, and will always be incarcerated?
2) Accepting non-compliance in a prisoner who has no concept of their own wrongdoing, and incarcerating them anyway?

How can it be justifiable to "keep a dog"?

What better reason to oppose capital punishment than this: in 1989, the 'kill first, ask questions later' Texan authorities executed the wrong Carlos:-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/15/carlos-texas-innocent-man-death?CMP=twt_gu

You can't generalise by tarring 385 million Americans with the same brush, but some of them have much in common with Vlad the Impaler.

I'm pretty sure my views on this subject will be in the minority on this forum but I'm going respectfully to disagree.

Of course I respect people who have the courage of their convictions and are willing to die for them rather than to kill others.

On the other hands, moral issues are almost always very complex. I know that if I was faced with a choice between killing an assailant and seeing my children die I'd immediately kill the attacker. I respect pacifism but it's not for me and it's never been the way of my people. We learned centuries ago that we had to stand up and fight for ourselves because no one else was going to look after us or defend us.

Now let's come to the biggie. What the hell is the point of leaving the likes of Sutcliffe, Brady, Allitt, Ramirez, Pike and similar scumbags locked up for years at a time when they could and should have been swinging from the end of a rope many years ago?

There's NO doubt about their guilt; not a SCRAP of doubt about it.

And to me punishment should be proportionate to the crime. If you commit murder you should be executed for it.

I would certainly NOT support executing people who are NOT guilty of murder and I would agree absolutely that we have to make sure to the best of possibility that the person is guilty and if there is any doubt err on the side of caution.

Even so, capital punishment is a remedy that needs to be used in the case of murder.

Both pros and antis grossly overuse certain arguments that don't really wash.

The pros are obsessed with the idea that capital punishment deters murder when in fact it doesn't. Suicide bombers, most terrorists, professional assassins and people out of their skulls on drugs or booze don't give a toss about all that and yet they're the ones who pose the most threat.

Antis are equally obsessed with the idea of innocence. It's perfectly true that innocent people have been executed but then again guilty people have also got away with murder. The proportion of genuinely innocent people who have been executed in the last hundred years is pretty small.

On the moral issue, again, it's complex. I understand the moral arguments against capital punishment (my own husband is an anti) but the idea that there is any kind of moral equivalence between a public hangman or a lethal injectioner and a murderer is an idea I find pretty offensive and dubious.

I wish we still had hanging in my country and I honestly think it's the proportionate punishment for murder.

I'm 5'4'' and quite happy at this height.

Hate ladders!!

Love Gliders - figure that one out!

Tiny was 6’11”, 440 pounds

In Scotland, some people of those dimensions get called Lofty. Some do not!


LOFT = Scots for Attick!

Just Fine!!

Here we go again - this time it's Reggie Clemons in Missouri facing execution for a crime he probably didn't commit.

Huge question marks surround his conviction:
- No physical evidence connects him to the crime.
- The credibility of eyewitnesses critical to his conviction is questionable. One was a former suspect, the other a co-defendant.
- Prosecution found to be ‘abusive and boorish’ closing the trial with a made-up version of the crime.
- His legal representation was inadequate and one of his lawyers was later suspended from practising law.
- The jury was ‘stacked’ after the prosecution dismissed many African Americans.

For 19 years, Reggie has sat on death row for a murder that the prosecution agree he didn’t commit!

http://action.amnesty.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1194&ea.campaign.id=16092&utm_source=Share&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=DP&utm_content=Clemons_thankyou

I do not believe one has the right to take anothers life.

However, I do believe that when a crime is commited then the correct and seen to be correct, punishment is given.

The problem being just what is the correct punishment.

If someone hurt my children I would feel that there was not a punishment of sufficient gravity to meet the crime and most parents would feel exactly the same.

So these matters must be considered in the cold light of day by those not actually involved or there would not be sufficient prisons etc; to cope.

As for the crime of murder, the perpertrator should be given life in prison with the opportunity of taking a cyanide pill at his/her request at any time they choose.

As for the crime of murder, the perpertrator should be given life in prison with the opportunity of taking a cyanide pill at his/her request at any time they choose.

Interesting notion, but the most likely person to take that course might be someone wrongly convicted.

The prospect of being incarcerated for life knowing you are innocent must be insupportable.

A religious crackpot, who also happens to be a Republican candidate in Arkansas, has quoted Deuteronomy 21:18-21 as the reason why he thinks parents should seek the death penalty for any rebellious children they might have:-

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/08/974321/republican-candidate-in-arkansas-says-parents-should-seek-death-penalty-for-rebellious-children/?mobile=nc

Wonder where he stands on abortion?
It's bizarre, to me, that any adult holding such views is even at liberty, never mind in a position to seek election - hope he isn't voted in.

Whenever you read something in a newspaper which is totally weird and unimaginable, it always seems to be a story located in the United States.

Odd, that.

Whenever you read something in a newspaper which is totally weird and unimaginable, it always seems to be a story located in the United States.

And it's always a right-wing Republican.

Re Ivan's link - discussed it with my mother and cousin today - they both agreed that under such a law I wouldn't have made it past 14

Ah torries in the colonies.

Jill Segger wrote:However, if the state itself becomes an avenger, the savagery is institutionalised and so placed within the bounds of legality and acceptability. The danger of this is evident in so much of the public attitude towards punishment – only listen to any phone-in when a crime has caused particular outrage. The desire for revenge, often expressed in lurid terms, will prevail over any consideration of reform, rehabilitation and – I make no apology for the word – redemption. If the criminal justice system and the sentencing which it is willing to impose does not act as a balancing and humane influence, justice is not served and we are all diminished.

It is an interesting theological and moral puzzle. Many have a thoroughly Jewish outlook to such matters so that many act against the accused as the accused acted against the victim... Most often crime at it's core is a denial of autonomy... of liberties, and punishment in the mind of many seeks to deny the accused autonomy and liberties. A more contemporary and idealized Christian view would be to forgive and rehabilitate the accused so that they can continue on their path to salvation. However, in pursuing the Christian view, people are confronted with their emotions which are in extreme conflict with their theological intellect.

It is easier to emote than it is to think. This is why 'particular outrage' to the savagery of the accused is seemingly uncensored. Yet you cannot form sound moral edicts using the foundation of emotional outrage. Emotions are so fickle and inclined towards changing with the times that injustice is libel to result. You have to wonder then what influence 'victims of crime' lobby groups have upon the mind set of the legislator.

Nowhere is this more evident than when the death penalty is in question. It is particularly shocking to hear voices from the US, claiming to be Christian, clamouring for that against which Jesus specifically warned – the doctrine of eye for eye and tooth for tooth. Such visceral responses can all too easily find a resonance in people who have been profoundly wronged. However, the teachings of Jesus invert these responses and offer the potential for transformation. This demands more of us than giving way to the urge to retaliate as brutally as possible. And make no mistake, death rows and judicial killings are brutal.

On the matter of the doctrine of an eye for an eye with the principle of love your neighbor, one does not usurp the other. Both can be held true for the same situation. I put it to the forum that you can take an eye for the eye taken from you, so long as this is the law of your land, but that it would be cruel to put this punishment in a long wait queue since we do not want to be treated thus were we in that position. The neighborhood principle should argue that long wait queues for eye removal should be reduced so the punishment can follow in a timely manner from the crime.

Jesus was a Jew. He was a Rabbi. He taught Judaism. He did not change the rules, rather he added to them the neighborhood principle and then prioritized as a significant principle to maintain. The neighborhood principle is not dissimilar to the eye for an eye teaching. To do unto others as you would have done to you... is giving an eye for an eye... it is listening when you have been listened to... it is speaking when you have been spoken to... it is sharing when you have shared... it is loving when you have been loved.

The high proportion of black and Hispanic prisoners on the death rows of US prisons reflects both the inherent racism of the system and the manner in which poverty strips men and women of their legal rights in the Land of the Free. The sons and daughters of WASPS have both the finances and the connections to obtain good legal representation, but the sums which the state allocates for the defence of the indigent are so low that the possibility of a competent lawyer is greatly reduced. There are well authenticated accounts of attorneys who appear in court drunk, fall asleep or utterly fail to master their clients' briefs. Appeal follows appeal due to incompetence and incorrect procedure and even when the last of these has been rejected, years may pass before the death sentence is carried out. There are men and women on US death rows who have lived in the shadow of the execution chamber for over 30 years. This is not justice, but it is, beyond doubt, 'cruel and unusual punishment'.

This forms a solid foundation to argue for law reform. It is not an argument against the Eye for an Eye justice model.

Most of us retain our sanity by not knowing the hour or manner of our deaths. No such mercy is possible for the prisoner whose execution has been scheduled. The mechanism of state killing is obscene. The last meal, the final visits, the walk to the death chamber, the strapping of the prisoner to a gurney or electric chair, the terror, horror and pain of the too frequently bodged administration of lethal drugs or electric current, these are not the actions of civilisation or of grace. They can only be justified in the eyes of those who are hungry for vengeance and who cannot see that to respond to one killing by another is to descend to the very level which they so angrily condemn.

You are arguing for a hierarchy of emotional response, so that less emoting is required for those who do not know the hour and manner of their death... greater emoting is required for those on death row who do know their hour and manner of death... and although unstated, given the pattern of language... it can be assumed that the highest level of emoting is afforded for those who are terminally ill and therefore have an approximation of the hour and manner of death.

Goodness me! With all this emoting going on, I'd forgotten to think! And lest we forget... all the emoting in the world will do naught but bring us closer to our animal counterparts... it is thinking which sets us apart from other animals and not emotions. From a theological perspective, it is thinking which is the great gift given by God. So, rather than sorting out how much emotional content to be allocated to a situation, it would be better to puzzle out a better way to deliver the rule of law ensuring our thousands of years old mantra 'eye for an eye' is satisfied.

To be continued... at least I'll try.

biglin wrote:

Antis are equally obsessed with the idea of innocence. It's perfectly true that innocent people have been executed .....

The most exact reason the death penalty worldwide must be abolished, yesterday!
One innocent person execution-homicided by the govt/state is one too many.
It could be me!!! or thee for that matter!

bambuman, innocent, ... languishing on death row awaiting the day he'd be taken from his cell to the death chamber for killing by the govt?
No thank you!

The death penalty homiciding of human beings by the state has to be abolished!
Society will just have to put up with convicteds being jailed for life instead.
Can't dig up wrongly executed innocent people and shake them back to life, apologise, pay them compensation, and release them...because they're dead, stone dead.

Now look what's happening...because death chambers exist, some people want to put 'rebellious children' in them to permanently remove them from society.

Poor, Black, young single mom, Sabrina Butler was sentenced to death in America, convicted of murdering her baby.
She was very, very lucky...as fate would have it some people took up her case, she appealed and won a retrial...at which she was found not guilty and released from death row and prison.
While she was in prison there was a guard who was kind to her, despite what she was convicted of being.
When she was released she contacted him...they were married and now have a family of their own.

Then there's Ray Krone...'The Snaggletooth killer'...he talked to the murder victim in a bar, and was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. "Monster" think some in the media described him during his arrest/trial.
He was innocent too.

Sabrina Butler and Ray Krone seem to this day to be advocates for abolition of the death penalty.


Having abolished death sentences long ago, my society just locks the murderers/serial killers etc up in a supermax prison [a prison within a prison] for life...all gone from society.
It's the best system.
If new evidence were to be discovered that proved the convicted person's innocence, they could be released and have a second chance at life.
Life in supermax, or a death sentence, which is worse?
It matters not as we won't allow our govt to kill people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EJFuYjwRys
INSIDE THE SUPERMAX PRISON AT GOULBURN - PART 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VpCqwPyMJk
INSIDE THE SUPERMAX PRISON AT GOULBURN - PART 2


Luckily for Lindy "A dingo took my baby" Chamberlain, we had the death penalty abolished many years before she was nailed to the cross of injustice and sentenced to a long prison term with hard labour, convicted of killing baby Azaria.
The lynch mob was circling her trial court house every day, waving their noose placards.
She could well have been sentenced to death.

Death penalty...baaah!!! consign it to the dustbin of history!

The US penal system makes a victim of itself by the scrupulous attention to legal process, individual civil rights and full disclosure. All of which makes it an easy target for those who oppose Capital Punishment because there is no concealment.

"Execution" is the chilling name given to murder by government decree, and until such time as mistakes can be rectified it has no place in the Laws of a civilised Country. Additionally, there is very little evidence of a deterrent effect.

Nevertheless the same thing happens every day, in multiples, and without the sanction of Law in those countries of the World where different factions kill people for no better reason than having a different opinion about something.

Which is the more reprehensible, and why is not public commentary proportionate?

My concern about the death penalty is to do with the creation of a profession whose job it is to kill people.
I don't want to live near, shop in the same shops as, have dinner with, or have any child of mine marry a professional killer.
I suspect going in to work, in a cold and passionless way, to complete the task of killing another human being is a very corrupting experience.
Killing in the heat of the moment, it seems to me (e.g. in war or during any other fight) is something, right or wrong, which is a more human and redeemable act. Killing just because it is your job flies in the face of anything wholesome or positive about humanity.
Some crimes, of course, are heinous and we don't want to share a world with the perpetrators, but among those crimes I would certainly want to include the practice of state-sanctioned killing via execution.
Maybe the ancient Greeks had the right idea - offering criminals a cup of hemlock.

boatlady. I just don't get your drift, soldiers are killers who are trained to kill, and giving someone's a cup of hemlock, is just like throwing the switch on the electric chair. Or pulling the lever on the trap door when someone is being hanged, anyway they give them something like hemlock in some of the American states, only instead of being in a cup it's in a syringe.

With respect may I offer the following.

All the teaching of Jesus was directed toward the Jews. He was Jewish. He admitted that he had come 'to the Jews'. On the few occasions he 'dealt with' those outside the faith, he often emphasised this fact. Though he said 'other sheep have I which are not of this fold' we do not know who he was actually talking about. Was it the 'gentiles', was it the 'lost tribes', we are not told.
Christianity has assumed this mantle of the 'other sheep'. We hear nothing of Jesus preaching to the Samaritans, save a 'chance' encounter with a woman in which he intimated that there would come a time when they would worship together in Jerusalem.. Indeed we are told that Jesus 'needs go through Samaria' as though it were a 'necessity' and not a choice..

The passage 'the Great commission' in Mark is a later edition, and Matthew's is undoubtedly based on another source.

I respect boatlady's views, but these are the views of a Christian who has taken the view that Christianity reigns supreme. It doesn't.

The Jews were called to 'represent' God on earth according to the Bible. To reveal God and his nature to man. Remember that the OT is only the way Jews see their history, and much of the violence is not necessarily so. If you study the OT there are many indications of a benevolent God.

The real question is simply this. Is an eye for an eye retribution or justice?
Should a man who deliberately murders another be entitled to live. In many cases be freed to enjoy a life he has denied another.

Cultures vary. Each one has its own solution. Who is to say they're right.

Don't think my views relate to Christianity - wouldn't call myself a Christian - just an extreme distaste for the cold and calculated taking of a life and my own unwillingness to be associated with any form of legal killing - plus, it has to be said, concern for the spiritual welfare of anyone whose profession is killing

boatlady wrote:Don't think my views relate to Christianity - wouldn't call myself a Christian - just an extreme distaste for the cold and calculated taking of a life and my own unwillingness to be associated with any form of legal killing - plus, it has to be said, concern for the spiritual welfare of anyone whose profession is killing

My apologies. I was following the thread them, which was by Jill Seggers of course.

Jack, my point about the hemlock is that the criminal has a choice - if s/he's offered a cup of hemlock s/he can obviously choose not to drink it and continue to experience society's disapproval, maybe even beginning to address some of the unacceptable bahaviour in an effort to become a better person - if you're being injected or electrocuted or hanged, clearly you have no choice, and there's no chance of redemption - not to mention the adverse effect on the executioner.
I do understand the point about soldiers being trained to kill - they are also trained in conflict resolution and a range of other useful skills.
It doesn't make the killing any better, in my view, but does place the violence within a context that is about more than terminating life.
I feel sure soldiers are adversely spirituallty affected when they are involved in violent incidents, but I do feel there is a distmction between that and cold bloodedly turning up to work intending to kill someone who has no means of self defence, and where there is no other possible outcome to the situation.

There are two kinds of Law in England. There is STATUTE LAW which is handed down from The Houses of Parliament, and there is the Law of Precedent which permits a Court to say that a particular case corresponds closely to an earlier one, so will receive the same verdict. In that way, Judges are not perpetually re-inventing the wheel, because they can decree that the matter has already been decided.

There is often disagreement, and a matter may be referred to the Court of Appeal which not infrequently overturns an earlier judgment.

Where the Penalty has already been exacted, restitution can be ordered, which hopefully puts everyone back to where they were before the case began. The obvious exception is where the penalty was Death, which cannot be reversed, so should never be permissible, for that very reason.

much more straightforward than my ramblings - probably a better argument on the whole

Where the Penalty has already been exacted, restitution can be ordered, which hopefully puts everyone back to where they were before the case began.

And that is a fallacy, as I suspect you know. Nothing can ever be the same again. Even if conviction is overturned the consequences in the meantime can be severe. Depending on the seriousness of the case and original conviction the family can be ostracised, verbally and otherwise abused and ill-used by others in the community who maybe were friends or acquaintances. Financial reparation is on offer. Friendships etc are not so easily, if ever, restored.

I think the USA and Japan are the only developed countries which still use the death penalty. Since it was reinstated in the USA in 1976, 140 people on death row – one in ten – have been exonerated after their innocence was proven.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/02/25/what-happens-to-people-on-death-row-later-found-innocent/

But how many innocent people have been put to death in the USA since 1976, I wonder? How about Troy Davis, executed in Georgia in September 2011 after spending 22 years on death row? (Former President Jimmy Carter had suggested that executing Davis "risks taking the life of an innocent man”.) Or Edward Earl Johnson, executed in a Mississippi gas chamber in May 1987?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Davis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Days_in_May

The risk of executing an innocent person is for me the most important aspect of any debate on capital punishment. It was also the biggest factor in ending judicial murder in the UK in the 1960s. Until such time that someone finds a way of bringing back to life executed people who are later shown to have been innocent, I could never consider supporting the death penalty. In my opinion, it’s better that 1,000 beastial murderers rot in jail for the rest of their lives than to risk the possibility of killing one innocent person.

I'll support the Death Penalty when it can be shown to be reversible on Appeal.

Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.

Genesis 9:6

But ... but ... I thought the coming of Jesus rendered Judaic law obsolete?

That can happen when people go straight to the end of a book instead of reading consecutively from Page One.

Hundreds of prisoners sentenced to death in the US are innocent, research suggests
 
From an article by Tom Payne:-
 
More than 4% of inmates sentenced to death on the United States’ notorious death row are probably innocent, research suggests. The findings, led by a University of Michigan Law School professor, offer a “conservative estimate” of the number of wrongfully convicted death row inmates over three decades. Researchers reviewed the outcomes of the 7,482 death sentences issued from 1973 to 2004, and found that of that group, 117 inmates were exonerated. They concluded that with enough time and resources, more than 200 other prisoners, at least 4.1%, would have been proved innocent.

The results of the probe are likely to send shock waves through anti-death penalty campaign groups. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, said the findings expose profound problems with the death penalty. “This impressive study points to a serious flaw in our use of the death penalty,” he said. “The ‘problem of innocence’ is much worse than was thought."
 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hundreds-of-prisoners-sentenced-to-death-in-the-us-are-innocent-research-suggests-9300472.html