How do we know if cap punishment is a good deterrent? After 20 years of appeals, et. al, it's no worse than just prison.
I agree. We should try to prevent stuff like this from happening. It's called parenting.
It is a deterrent. Can you name just one instance where someone has died via capital punishment and returned to life to kill again?
YHWH told us to set up legal systems.
YHWH's Word actually protects three ways of killing as being legitimate under certain circumstances.
The first legitimate way of killing a person is legal capital punishment for gross and heinous crimes committed against other people. In Genesis 9:6, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man." Immediately after Noahs Flood, God authorized people to establish governments that would bring order and justice to society. Part of the authority given to a government is to execute its worse criminals with the death penalty.
Whether we like it or not, the Bible allows for the death penalty for certain crimes. Leviticus 24:17 says, "If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death."
YHWH authorizes governments to use the death penalty on hard-core criminals. Numbers 35:16-21 affirms it. The Bible says the execution of a quick penalty serves as a deterrent to crime (Deuteronomy 13:11; Ecclesiastes 8:11). This same principle carries into the New Testament. In Romans 13:4, Paul says a policeman "is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."
Paul said in Acts 25:11, "If I am guilty of doing anything deserving of death, I do not refuse to die." This shows that Paul believed in the legitimacy of capital punishment.