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The Death Penalty
We Oppose Execution
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The death penalty is not an easy issue and deciding to oppose executions is a difficult choice to make. Certainly in the case of gruesome murders our instinct is to get revenge. A person who slaughters another person doesn't deserve to live. But what is best for civilization? Is it better for society as a whole to execute people even if they clearly deserve to be executed? Or is it better for some people to escape what they deserve because the cost to society as a whole is too great? This is an extremely difficult call to make and both sides of the argument have merit. But after careful consideration the Church of Reality comes down on the side of opposing executions because the down side of executing people far exceeds the up side.
How does one make a decision for or against the death penalty? What is the overriding factor that we have to consider as most important in taking this position? When no solution is perfect and each position has merit how do we decide which one is best? How do we decide who wins and who loses? How do we apply our wisdom to this issue?
As we see it, the decision rests on what is best for society as a whole and after a lot of consideration, we have determined that in order to execute the guilty, even if you accept that they clearly deserve to die and you have no moral barriers to killing murderers, that the cost to society to kill those people is far greater than the lesser punishment of life in prison. That the difference in justice between death and life in jail is not sufficient to justify the costs to society of allowing nation-states the power of death. In practice, too many innocent people are unjustly executed and the lives of the innocent people are more important than the justice differential between life in prison and execution. Even if the death penalty were justified, the cost in innocent lives makes it not worth it.
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One thing we need to keep in mind in this decision is that we are comparing execution to life imprisonment and not releasing murderers who should be executed back on the street. The choices here relate to comparing the justice of execution to other ways of dealing with the problem of how to deal with people who wrongly take the life of another. The issue is even if death were more justified than life in prison, is the additional justification worth the cost? That is what we need to think about when deciding the merits of this issue.
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Much of the reasoning for execution is based on our worldview of justice: "An eye for and eye, a tooth for a tooth." If someone murders someone, then they should be killed. It sends a strong message to people contemplating murder that if you kill someone that you will pay for it with your own life. The argument that the death penalty isn't a deterrent to murder flies in the face of common sense. Of all the people who have been executed, none of them have ever murdered again. There is debate as to how much it helps the families of victims but the idea of erasing brutal killers from existence does have appeal especially for very gruesome murders. Some people believe that being against the death penalty is an indicator of weakness in not facing up to what really needs to be done. The arguments in favor of the death penalty do have merit. This is what makes the issue difficult and why it requires some deep thinking to make the best choice.
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The down side to execution is that sometimes you may execute the innocent. Although we like to think this is rare, it isn't. It is far too common. We have the illusion that our court systems are fair and just and that the legal system produces accurate results. The problem is in reality justice is more like a shotgun than like a laser. It is at best imprecise and often highly corrupt and abused. As a result, innocent people are wrongly convicted and executed. Some nation-states impose death for trivial crimes. In southeast Asian countries you can be executed for possessing small amounts of drugs. In Muslim countries women are often stoned to death for sexual behavior. America allows prosecutors to make deals with prisoners to get them to lie against an accused person who they want to convict in exchange for a lighter sentence.
The death penalty costs too many innocent lives to be justifiable.
In a corrupt judicial environment one has to weigh the rights of the families of murder victims against the rights of the families of the people who are wrongly executed by the state. also, to decide if the incremental advantage of execution over life in prison is worth the cost of putting the innocent to death. We have concluded that clearly it is not. That the lives of the innocent are not sufficient to justify executing the guilty.
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Another down side to execution is that it breeds a worldview that includes vengeance as a virtue. There is an element of justice and fairness in getting even. Someone hurts you and you want to hurt them back. Paying the price for sin is deeply engrained in our culture. But is it the best solution? The problem with vengeance is that the cost is often too high. The Christian and Muslim religions have been at war for almost 1000 years and what good has come of it? Both sides have lots of atrocities to point to in order to justify their right to revenge. And so the wars continue with blood still flowing and as the innocent are slaughtered in what they see as "justified murder." In reality they are laying the groundwork for future vengeance. These two religions are forever caught in a loop of senseless killing and it's all in the name of justice.
The death penalty is an extension of the culture of revenge. It breeds from the "eye for an eye" worldview. Our worldview sees that an eye for and eye leaves everyone blind. We have to put aside our emotions to see a bigger picture and decide that generations of war is wrong. But to do that we are going to have to give up some justice in exchange for peace. We have to look towards the future and decide what we want tomorrow to look like. Do we want a world of war and vengeance, or do we want a world of peace and forgiveness?
Even when murder is righ, murder is still wrong. Our society is our collective soul and what we do as a culture is part of each of our souls. It affects the way we think about things. It colors our worldview. It influences how often we choose revenge over forgiveness. This is an important factor because if we, as a society, choose the death penalty solution out of vengeance, then we give power to revenge as part of our worldview and we have to ask ourselves if it is worth the price. Our conclusion is that it is not worth it.
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Some people believe that if a person gets a "fair trial" and is convicted, that they deserve to die even though they are innocent. In fact the United States Supreme Court has ruled that way. People think that with all the appeals a prisoner gets that surely justice would be accurate, but that's not the case. The way the system works is, if you are convicted at trial, an appeal is not a new trial. It is mostly only about if the original trial followed certain procedures, not if they came to the correct conclusion. If the process itself is flawed then a reexamination of the flawed process to determine if the flawed process was correctly followed is still flawed.
The bottle line is that the courts are getting it wrong. An example of that is in the state of Illinois, the pro death penalty governor commuted the death sentences of all death row inmates because he determined that at least half of the people who were being executed were in fact innocent. The process of determining guilt is so bad that we are killing a huge number of innocent people. Police often lie about what happens. Torture is often used to get confessions that are used at trial. Governments, including the United States, have allowed convictions to stand based on confessions obtained under torture. Testimony by people claiming the defendant confessed are obtained through bribes. Prosecutors often fabricate evidence to convict people when the evidence is insufficient. Fraud is more common than rare, and people are being killed by the state as a result.
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The death penalty has a political component. A prosecutor uses death as a way of showing the electorate that he is "tough on crime and tough on criminals." It matters not that the symbol of that toughness is a person the prosecutor knows is innocent. We want to believe that the system is fair and that our political leaders are executing hardened criminals who would otherwise pillage and rape the community. But illusion isn't truth and it feeds the culture of revenge that is based on short term thinking. Politicians looking for votes will preside over the execution showing the voters than he is tough enough to kill criminals who deserve to die. An innocent person who's death penalty should be commuted is subject to the political standing and pressures of the governor of the state. Executions that are based on a strong political influence are fundamentally wrong and it happens far to often that innocent blood becomes the price we pay for vengeance. |
 In a free nation that is ruled by the people, do we want to give government the power to take lives as a criminal penalty? If we are executing murders, then an argument can be made in favor. But should a government be trusted with that kind of power? Has any government been able to use the power of execution responsibly? History tells us that the answer is, no!
A nation that has the power to execute, even a little bit, faces the temptation to abuse that power. Nations can evolve in the wrong direction or be suddenly taken over through either coup or through fraudulent elections. Nations thar have the power to execute can slowly expand that power using it to "protect" society from threats such as people who have "dangerous ideas". In the past it was common for people to be tortured to death for heresy. People with dangerous political ideas can be considered to be disruptive to society and need to be eliminated for the greater social good. Once the death penalty is accepted for some things, then it can be expanded and justified for other things. It is easy to rationalize that executing all drunk drivers would save the future lives of people who they would kill in the future. Realists could be executed for leading Christians away from Jesus to a path of eternal damnation.
Once you accept that some execution is justified, then the issue is what are the rules. Can governments be trusted never to abuse those rules and start executing people who don't deserve it? So far, history tells us the answer is no, we can't. Based on our history, it is clear that nations can't be trusted with that level of responsibility. Humanity hasn't yet evolved to the point where it can be trusted to be wise enough to have the power of execution. And if we evolve to where we are wise enough to have the power of execution, will we then need it? Perhaps not.
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Different nation-states have different death penalties. Iran, for example, allows women to be stoned to death for improper sex. This is barbaric behavior. Most of the civilized world with the exception of the United States has denounced the death penalty.
Of the nations that still practice the death penalty, much of the intellectual justification to the community of nations is that "America is doing it - so it must be acceptable." America can be seen as a justification for other countries to kill people for religious transgressions. It raises the question if America's death penalty is an indirect cause for unjust executions in other nations, and if America renounces the death penalty, that other nations could be pressured into stopping their unjust executions as well. The world would be a better place if America set an example of wisdom rather than an example of revenge.
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The Death Penalty