Hang 'Em High

What is the rationale for capital punishment? Before deciding what capital punishment is, it is helpful to understand what it is not.

Capital punishment is not revenge, for revenge is "punitive action taken in return for an injury or offense," and clearly supporters of the victim are not taking any action whatsoever. Most victim’s family and friends are in fact abused by a system that dispenses justice at a glacial pace and fills the intervening years between crime and punishment with high-minded advocacy on behalf of the criminal and little regard for the victims (i.e., Tookie Williams).

Capital punishment is not hypocritical. In the words of intellectual lightweights like Mike Farrell, capital punishment does not "perpetuate a cycle of violence," hypocritically condemning killing by killing. This is the same twisted logic that does not differentiate between killing and murder, between innocence and guilt. If that rationale held true, then what hypocrisy that we punish kidnappers – criminals who have taken away someone's freedom – by incarcerating the criminal. Does this not perpetuate a cycle of bondage? And how can we levy fines on those that steal? This certainly perpetuates the idea of taking wealth by force. Executing a murderer no more promotes murder than fining a thief promotes thievery. The criminal act is in defiance of law and social order; the punishment upholds law and social order. The criminal act is malicious and harmful to the innocent; the punishment is dispassionate and harmful to the guilty.

For those who wish to consider the issue from a theological perspective, capital punishment is not anti-Christian. Certainly the Old Testament abounds with capital punishment, much of it imposed by God. For those who hold that the New Testament supplants the Old (not theologically accurate), Christ, who speaks at length on all aspects of morality, does not condemn it either. In fact, the central act of Christian theology is one of capital punishment. At the crucifixion, we learn in Luke 23:

40But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve." (emphasis added)

If ever Matthew, Mark, Luke or John wished to convey their Teacher’s opposition to capital punishment, certainly this was the time. In fact, the crucifixion is known as the Substitution, which is Christ taking upon Himself the legitimate (and necessary) capital punishment of mankind.

The key practical distinction in Christian theology is the difference between the individual and society, between sinful man and social justice. Each individual is a sinner and unfit to be a judge of their fellow man and thus counseled to love their enemy and not to pass judgment. Christ says in Matthew 5:

38"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles."

Christ is not suggesting that evil people be free from laws and punishment, He is presenting the new and liberating perspective of divine love on the personal level. Is He saying in Matthew above that there should be no laws against assault, thievery or kidnapping? Of course not; Christ advocated in Mark 12, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" when asked about paying taxes or, more broadly, the authority of the state. His moral instruction to individuals would be a recipe for anarchy at the state level and a rejection of the very idea of justice on which the whole of Christianity is based.

So capital punishment is not hypocritical revenge, it does not endorse violence and it is not opposed to Judeo-Christian theology. What then is it?

Capital punishment is a price tag, a very high price tag. A potential murderer shopping at this criminal justice Wal-Mart may likely think the price is too high in Texas, but not too high in Maine. This price tag shows how much society values life* and, conversely, frowns upon malicious taking of life. This price tag is the essence of deterrence.

In the hierarchy of value judgments, society declares murder, treason and desertion as the ultimate criminal behaviors to be condemned…and in this, society is wrong.

Murder, treason and desertion are deserving of capital punishment, but another crime is the most deserving of all: child molestation. No behavior is more reprehensible that an adult who sexually abuses a child. It is depravity beyond measure and a fit punishment that every child molester be executed without exception. One can envision legitimate mitigating circumstances for murderers and traitors – a crime of passion, a patriot on the wrong side of victory. No one anywhere can identify valid mitigating circumstances for a child molester. It is the one crime for which there is no conceivable excuse.

So, too, rehabilitation of murderers and traitors is within the realm of reason. Many who have murdered possess the potential to one day be trustworthy citizens again, and many have been so rehabilitated. On the other hand, recidivism rates on child molesters are astronomical, revealing a defective human being that is rightly ostracized and actively listed in databases to forever warn fellow citizens of their whereabouts, rehabilitated or not. For those opposed to executing child molesters, what life beyond their incarceration do you hope for them? None, of course – just a scarlet letter to identify and isolate the danger. This is because the job of punishment was left unfinished.

For those who have valued the Christian theology in this essay, Christ tells us in Matthew 18:

4[W]hoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."

But capital punishment for child molesters does one thing above all – it places a value on precious innocent life and it places the sexual abuse of children at the top of the list of horrific crimes that society will not tolerate. Those that argue that the child molester is mentally warped and immune to deterrence make a point, but it is a point that need only be made once. At last glance, there is no recidivism among executed molesters.

The scripture tells us that the blood of the innocent cries out to God from the ground it is spilled in. It also tells us that eventually when that Blood gets to a certain level God will wipe out a nation. It also tells us that taking the life of those who shed innocent blood is one way to get rid of the sin of shedding innocent blood in a nation.

We can either allow the shedding of blood till our society gets saturated and then we get judged from a just God; or, we can shed the blood of the murders and make them pay for the shedding of innocent blood. If we do not make them pay for that then we will all pay.

God says he hates the hands that shed innocent blood. We always try to be kinder or nicer than God. All we do when we go that route is to bring a worse thing on all of us.

We need to kill those that have murdered in our midst. They need to be punished for the shedding of blood by having their own blood shed. That is justice.

"What then is it?"

It is the basis for all laws governing man. When Noah and his family exited the ark, this was the first law given to Noah by God regarding governing man on earth. As Noah was the leader of the only living humans, capitol punishment is therefore the foundation of all laws governing man.

Gen 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

Interesting that the death penalty was given to Noah after the Flood and that the reason God sent the Flood was because violence filled the earth. The death penalty was to prevent that from happening again.

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