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Religious Perspectives on Capital Punishment
Travelling around the world, this paper presents the various religious perspectives evidenced in recent actions taken regarding the death penalty.
In St. Lucia, regional Roman Catholic Bishops, at the Antilles Episcopal Conference held as part of the Antilles Eucharist Congress held in St Lucia in May, publicly stated their wish to see the abolition of the death penalty. The president of the conference, Edgerton Clarke, Archbishop of Kingston, Jamaica, said that while he and his colleagues were mindful of the support for capital punishment in the region they saw life as being of tremendous value, and hoped for the abolition of the death penalty. Capital punishment was one of several issues discussed at the Episcopal Conference which is a forum through which Caribbean bishops examine what is happening in the church and society. The Congress was attended by some 20,000 Catholics from the regional and international community.
In Italy, at a papal mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II at Rome's Regina Coeli Prison on 9 July, prayers were offered for prisoners on death row who were awaiting the end of their existence, and for those kept in inhuman conditions. ''May the death penalty, an unworthy punishment still used in some countries, be abolished throughout the world'' the Pope said.
During the year 2000, the Jubilee Year of the Roman Catholic Church, the Coliseum in Rome has been lit up with a bright white light every time a country abolished the death penalty or announced a moratorium on executions. It was also illuminated if a death sentence was commuted or a prisoner sentenced to death was found to be innocent and released.
In the Russian Federation, meeting in Moscow, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church on 16 August called for an end to the death penalty. The church gave as its reasons for opposing the death penalty the fact that it can make a judicial error irreparable and also because the penalty causes controversy in society.
In the USA, in February the pastor of the White House, the Reverend Philip Wogaman, senior minister at Washington's Foundry Methodist Church, called for a review of the death penalty, adding his voice to those concerned that innocent people have been condemned and that sentencing is prone to racial bias.
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On Tuesday, July 29, 1981, eight year-old Cheryl Ziemba, and her four year-old brother, Christopher, bodies were found in a coal dump in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. Only two days after the bodies were discovered, fifteen-year old, Joseph Aulisio, a member of the search party, was arrested for the murders. He had lured the two kids into a house that was under construction and owned by his father and shot them from only 10 feet away, Cheryl was shot in the head and Christopher had been shot in the chest. To this day there has been no motive established as to why Aulisio wished to kill these two kids. Nearly a year later in May 1982, a jury sentenced the then sixteen year-old to death, who was casually chewing gum when the jurors presented him with his sentence and then turned to his dad and pumped his fist in the air yelling “It’s party time!”. It has been 34 years since that conviction, and Aulisio continues to sit in jail with no signs of remorse. So why wouldn’t the death penalty be enforced with someone so inhumane and removed from society? Why not eliminate this being from society ...
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I live in a state where capital punishment is still being practiced. In fact, I live thirty minutes away from a prison that executes the death penalty. Are we playing God by controlling who does not deserve to live? How can we kill anyone who is no longer a threat to the society? Most have committed terrible crimes in order to get the death penalty, but there are those that were wrongfully convicted. The law system is not perfect, it will never be perfect. Sure, they can get numerous appeals before they are executed. If there is no new evidence or new technology to prove their innocence, there is no use in giving them any number of tries before being executed. It was said that it cost more to execute the death penalty (from the time of arrest to the time of execution) than to give them life without the possibility of parole. As technology increases, we have more tools that we can use for forensic investigation. The birth of DNA in forensic helped save at least one of the inmates on death row in California that was wrongfully convicted. If you wrongfully convicted someone, you can set them free. If you wrongfully executed someone, you can not reverse the process. We have all done things in the past that we were not proud of and would never do it again; at least I had. The ability to reform is in all of us. There are other ways to punish the people on death row in California other than the path of death penalty. Nothing is set in stones but death.
It's dark and cold, the fortress-like building has cinderblock walls, and death lurks around the perimeter. A man will die tonight. Under the blue sky, small black birds gather outside the fence that surrounds the building to flaunt their freedom. There is a gothic feel to the scene, as though you have stepped into a horror movie.
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throughout the whole world--the last murderer lying in prison ought to be executed before the resolution was carried out. This ought to be done in order that every one may realize the desert of his deeds, and that blood-guiltiness may not remain on the people; for otherwise they will all be regarded as participants in the murder as a public violation of justice.” (Rachels, 2010)
...ed United States. U.S. Government Accounting Office. Capital Punishment. Washington: GPO, 1994 Cheatwood, Derral and Keith Harries. The Geography of Execution: The Capital Punishment Quagmire in America. Rowman, 1996 NAACP Legal Defense Fund . Death Row. New York: Hein, 1996 "Ex-Death Row Inmate Cleared of Charges." USA Today 11 Mar. 1999: 2A "Fatal Flaws: Innocence and the Death Penalty." Amnesty International. 10 Oct. 1999 23 Oct. 1999 Gest, Ted. "House Without a Blue Print." US News and World Report 8 Jul. 1996: 41 Stevens, Michelle. "Unfairness in Life and Death." Chicago Sun-Times 7 Feb. 1999: 23A American Bar Association. The Task Ahead: Reconciling Justice with Politics. 1997 United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Report. Washington: GPO, 1994 Wickham, DeWayne. "Call for a Death Penalty Moratorium." USA Today 8 Feb. 1999: 17A ILKMURPHY
Among the major nations of the Western world, the United States is singular in still having the death penalty. After a five-year moratorium, from 1972 to 1977, capital punishment was reinstated in the United States courts. Objections to the practice have come from many quarters, including the American Catholic bishops, who have rather consistently opposed the death penalty. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1980 published a predominantly negative statement on capital punishment, approved by a majority vote of those present though not by the required two-thirds majority of the entire conference (1). Pope John Paul II has at various times expressed his opposition to the practice, as have other Catholic leaders in Europe.
In this paper I will argue for the moral permissibility of the death penalty and I am fairly confident that when the case for capital punishment is made properly, its appeal to logic and morality is compelling. The practice of the death penalty is no longer as wide-spread as it used to be throughout the world; in fact, though the death penalty was nearly universal in past societies, only 71 countries world-wide still officially permit the death penalty (www.infoplease.com); the U.S. being among them. Since colonial times, executions have taken place in America, making them a part of its history and tradition. Given the pervasiveness of the death penalty in the past, why do so few countries use the death penalty, and why are there American states that no longer sanction its use? Is there a moral wrong involved in the taking of a criminal’s life? Of course the usual arguments will be brought up, but beyond the primary discourse most people do not go deeper than their “gut feeling” or personal convictions. When you hear about how a family was ruthlessly slaughtered by a psychopathic serial killer most minds instantly feel that this man should be punished, but to what extent? Would it be just to put this person to death?
Guernsey, J. B. (2010). Death penalty: fair solution or moral failure. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. Retrieved February 8, 2011 from http://books.google.com/books?id=38slHSsFFrgC&pg=PA125&dq=death+penalty+in+other+countries&hl=en&ei=F6dQTZHLBsm_tgfD7rHBCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBDgU#v=onepage&q=death%20penalty%20in%20other%20countries&f=false
Americans have argued over the death penalty since the early days of our country. In the United States only 38 states have capital punishment statutes. As of year ended in 1999, in Texas, the state had executed 496 prisoners since 1930. The laws in the United States have change drastically in regards to capital punishment. An example of this would be the years from 1968 to 1977 due to the nearly 10 year moratorium. During those years, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment violated the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. However, this ended in 1976, when the Supreme Court reversed the ruling. They stated that the punishment of sentencing one to death does not perpetually infringe the Constitution. Richard Nixon said, “Contrary to the views of some social theorists, I am convinced that the death penalty can be an effective deterrent against specific crimes.”1 Whether the case be morally, monetarily, or just pure disagreement, citizens have argued the benefits of capital punishment. While we may all want murders off the street, the problem we come to face is that is capital punishment being used for vengeance or as a deterrent.
Our discussion accordingly turned to the question of life imprisonment. While this admittedly looks attractive when compared to the death penalty, considered in itself it is a terrible thing. However antiseptic and humane his quarters might be, the thought of a human being locked up for life gives pause. Surely only the most grievous offenses could warrant such severe punishment. Are there really any offenses that severe? In Italy, later in the spring, I became aware of a campaign against life imprisonment.
Capital punishment has been a controversial topic in association to any person condemned to a serious committed crime. Capital punishment has been a historical punishment for any cruel crime. Issues associated to things such as the different methods used for execution in most states, waste of taxpayers’ money by performing execution, and how it does not serve as any form of justice have been a big argument that raise many eyebrows. Capital punishment is still an active form of deterrence in the United States. The history of the death penalty explains the different statistics about capital punishment and provides credible information as to why the form of punishment should be abolished by every state. It is believed
Crime is everywhere. Wherever we look, we find criminals and crime. Criminals have become a part of our daily lives. Does this mean we let them be the darkness of our society? No, definitely not. Eliminating crime and criminals is our duty, and we cannot ignore it. Getting the rightly accused to a just punishment is very important. Some criminals commit a crime because they have no other option to survive, but some do it for fun. I do not advocate death penalty for everybody. A person, who stole bread from a grocery store, definitely does not deserve death penalty. However, a serial killer, who kills people for fun or for his personal gain, definitely deserves death penalty. Death penalty should continue in order to eliminate the garbage of our society. Not everybody deserves to die, but some people definitely do. I support death penalty because of several reasons. Firstly, I believe that death penalty serves as a deterrent and helps in reducing crime. Secondly, it is true that death penalty is irreversible, but it is hard to kill a wrongly convicted person due to the several chances given to the convicted to prove his innocence. Thirdly, death penalty assures safety of the society by eliminating these criminals. Finally, I believe in "lex tallionis" - a life for a life.