Posted on 04/20/2015 1:46:14 PM PDT by Kaslin
Countless souls have made the spectral walk to the gallows, have heard the dusty rasp of death’s mournful eulogy whispered odiously from his pale throat, “dead man walking.” The condemned have been hung by the neck until dead, shot, poisoned, decapitated, stoned, or clapped in an iron skull cap while 10 thousand volts of electricity boil the life from flesh and bone. But, this is justice, when delivered by legitimate authority. This is the only atonement that can be made to expunge a crime so black and abhorrent that its presence distorts and tortures nature and its order. Capital punishment is the final expression of retributive justice and it is the natural and inevitable conclusion of the grand aphorism, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” (Exodus 21:24; Deuteronomy 19:21)
Recently, well known actor Kelsey Grammer recently gave an interview to Mr. John Hilpern of Vanity Fair Magazine. Mr Grammer has suffered several profound tragedies during his lifetime, including the brutal rape and murder of his beloved sister Karen. Karen Grammer was abducted in 1975 by Freddie Glenn and Michael Corbett. These two soulless beasts began a killing spree by accosting Daniel Van Lone, a twenty nine year old cook. Glenn and Corbett originally planned to rob Van Lone but Glenn, moved by inhuman brutality, decided to shoot Van Lone in the head. Glenn then robbed the corpse of the sum total in his pocket—.50 cents. The next victim of this demented partnership was Winfred Proffitt, a young man of nineteen. Corbett had been training with bayonets in the Army and wanted to see what it would be like to bayonet a real person. So, with no regard for the laws of nature or of nature’s God, Corbett stabbed Proffitt with a bayonet.
On July 1, 1975, the loathsome Glenn and Corbett abducted Karen Grammer, who was then only eighteen years old, from the parking lot of a Red Lobster where she worked. They took her back to their apartment and repeatedly raped her. Glenn then promised Grammer that they would take her home. The pair drove Grammer to a nearby mobile home park and a placed a cloth cover over her head. As the petite Grammer exited the car, she was attacked by Glenn, who stabbed her in the throat, back, and hand. In a desperate effort to save her own life, Grammer ran toward a well lit porch but collapsed in front of the door, leaving a bloody hand print just below the door bell. Karen’s body remained unidentified for a week, until her shattered brother arrived to identify her pallid and brutalized remains.
Freddie Glenn was sentenced to death by gas chamber. However, the Colorado Supreme Court, in their infinite wisdom, overturned the state’s death penalty; therefore, Glenn’s death sentence was commuted to life with the possibility of parole. Freddie Glenn should have died in 1975, poisoned to death in the gas chamber. Instead, Kelsey Grammer has been denied the justice demanded by nature and by nature’s God, “but life shall go for life.” (Deuteronomy 19:21) He must confront the monster that threw away his sister’s life, like trash, each time Glenn is up for parole. Where is justice in that?
During Kelsey Grammer’s interview with Vanity Fair, he said that his sister’s death nearly destroyed him. He cites the murder and his feelings of helplessness as directly related to his former struggles with substance abuse. However, Mr. Grammer has come to terms with this horrendous event and found it possible to find forgiveness. But, even in forgiveness, Grammer instinctively gropes after the promise of natural law’s justice:
“But I believe the gift of life and freedom he took from my sister precludes him from ever being allowed to enjoy that gift for himself. He took her future from her with no regard for her whatsoever. He assumed he had a right to do so. He assumed she was his property, and that the precious gift God gave her was his to take.”
These few sentences, pregnant with anguish and hope, turn on the crux of death penalty jurisprudence. The argument for state sanctioned killing cannot be based on notions of deterrence, economics, or any other artifice. We are only intrinsically valuable if we are the creations of God, made in His image. If not, then we are merely bags of meat, and any death penalty discussion becomes moot. However, if we are made in the image of God, then we are of inestimable value, and murder becomes horrendous beyond all compensatory satisfaction. As is true of every fundamental tenet of American government and of jurisprudence, our foundations are built on principles drawn directly from the Bible. Without Biblical truth, we cease to be the land of the free and the home of the brave and this is why liberalism, progressivism, and marxists the world over seek to destroy Christianity and the Bible—the fount of liberty.
Mr. Grammer feels the influence of natural law as we all do; it is written in our DNA. You can hear it in how he describes his sister’s life, “that precious gift God gave her.” Whenever natural law is violated, a dissonance is created and we naturally seek to resolve it into a harmony. This is the science of common law. Historically, jurisprudes sought to discover God’s order in the chaos created by human sin and dysfunction. Cases involving real people, and their very real problems, were considered and compared. In the chaos of human dysfunction, barristers sought to discover God’s truth and equity where it was not revealed directly. We all seek to do the same thing when we observe circumstances that we just “know” aren’t right, and set about to make things right in the light that God has given us. The law that is written in our hearts teaches us that the only way to rebalance the scales of justice, in the matter of murder, is to demand that the murder’s life be forfeit.
Kelsey Grammer feels the invisible scales of justice distorted and, in his own way, attempts to rebalance them. In this poignant statement, “But I believe the gift of life and freedom he took from my sister precludes him from ever being allowed to enjoy that gift for himself,” he comes very near to agreeing with God.
The Bible speaks directly to the issue of murder, an unlawful killing, and provides the civil authority with only one remedy. The book of Genesis records the events leading up to a global, catastrophic flood that nearly extinguishes all life on the earth. Noah, as instructed by God, built an ark and, sealed inside by God himself, survived the great flood. When the waters ebbed and Noah and his family were finally able to leave the ark, God covenanted with Noah and issued a command which has been applied to civil government through the aeons: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” (Genesis 9:6) The Bible also records a long litany of ceremonial, dietary, ecclesiastic, and civil ordinances given specifically to the Israelites owing to their special relationship to God as His people and His representatives. Among those are commands dealing with familial affairs which demand that death be imposed on disobedient children. Some suppose that these passages preclude anyone from making a death penalty argument based on the Bible. However, this assertion is based on a lack of understanding of covenant in the Bible and of how God interacts with people and nations differently, but consistently, through the ages to bring to completion HIs plan of redemption. Simply, those things given specifically to Israel as a nation do not apply to us today as individuals or to the civil authority. And, these specific commands in no way abrogate the clearly defined principles that are found throughout the Bible, specifically with reference to the death penalty.
So, the Bible speaks in the Old Testament about civil authority possessing the power of imposing death, and the Bible speaks in the New Testament about legitimate civil authority possessing the same authority. Romans 13:4 states, “For he [the civil authority] is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” The power of the sword is the power of life and death, and the Bible clearly gives lawful civil authority the right to act as a “revenger” and to “execute wrath.” The only argument that can be made for the death penalty is a Biblical argument. Either the civil authority has the right to impose death by specific command of God or there is no basis for the death penalty at all.
Kelsey Grammer has felt the brutal reality of murder close at hand. He has experienced the near madness caused by justice denied, as nature itself echoes the voice of God, “What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” (Genesis 4:10) Though Mr. Grammer has found a measure of personal peace in finding forgiveness, there is still a ponderous weight tipping the scales of justice and blighting the ground with unrequited blood. It is true that God is supremely merciful, but He is also supremely holy. There is always a consequence to be paid for sin. Consider this, Christ’s death on the cross was a death penalty execution. He sacrificed Himself as a lamb without blemish, and as a sheep dumb before the shearers. Through all the indignities, beatings, and tortuous scourging, He never denied the right of the civil authority to execute a sentence of death; He never denied that the power of the sword belonged to Pontius Pilate. Though the Roman governor was about to execute an innocent man, Christ never excoriated him for having usurped a power not his to command. Without His submission to the death penalty, the salvation of mankind would have never been possible. It’s hard to argue against the death penalty when The Savior Himself submitted to it, transforming it into the only propitiation for the sin of mankind.
[ The difference between the death penalty and abortion is the child did nothing wrong to anyone. In fact the child is being wrongly accused and executed without even the benefit of a trial. ]
We believe in only killing someone who has taken another’s life after it is proven that have done so for no good reason, ie. self defense. We also believe in protecting innocent lives.
The Left believes in taking lives that are inconvenient and sparing the lives of those who take other’s lives in cold blood.
Agree.
If you act like a rabid animal and destroy life, then you should be put down like a rabid animal.
Have to give Kelsey Grammar credit: He shows up and makes damn' sure the filthy swine will never see a free day the rest of his life. The strength that must require is beyond my comprehension.
The link that you posted shows “86 wrongful convictions” of persons
who WERE on death row and later evidence determined they were
not guilty, but in most cases, kept them in prison on lesser charges.
It does NOT show anyone who was executed and then later found to be innocent.
It is also unclear what time period is covered for those cases.
I spent about twenty minutes searching for any details about anyone
who had been executed and later found to be “not guilty”.
I found two possible cases, one of them was from the 1800s.
I’m not calling you out on this,
but I seriously can not find any documentation of it.
For those who advocate life in prison as a fit punishment should review the tapes made by mass murderer Richard Speck. Speck tortured, raped, and murdered eight student nurses in 1966 and was condemned to death. His death sentence was overturned and he was sentenced to life in prison. In 1996, video tapes featuring Speck were released showing explicit scenes of sex, drug use, and money being passed around by prisoners, who seemingly had no fear of being caught; in the center was Speck, performing oral sex on another inmate sharing a huge pile of cocaine with an inmate, parading in silk panties, sporting female-like breasts (allegedly grown using smuggled hormone treatments), and boasting, "If they only knew how much fun I was having, they'd turn me loose. Speck died in prison, but obviously had no remorse for his crimes nor really was being punished for them.
Here’s a recent case where the man was executed based on arson evidence that now looks suspicious:
http://camerontoddwillingham.com/
Wiki has a page dedicated to the topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution
how can God let this happen to anybody?
“Now, not being very religious, how can God let this happen to anybody?”
From God’s point of view nothing happened to her. That is: nothing these savages did un-did what God had wrought. With their acts they signified their own evil, that is all. The same might be said of Hitler. Men can only sin, they CANNOT destroy anything.
True.
This sort of thing needs to be viewed in terms of large numbers. Of course some few would not be deterred, this we know by the laws of probability. But when perps make the direct and immediate association between their potential crime and the death penalty, then vast numbers of them choose to turn from that crime.
if the punishment is swift and brutal. Like Vlad the Impaler :)
And how can God let billions of souls burn in hell also right?
You’re pointing the finger at the wrong supernatural being.
How many times have I heard of Grammer’s substance abuse? Ten, twenty, fifty...?
Now I hear the rest of the story.
For some reason I’ve always wanted to like the guy.
There is something wrong with a society that tells us of Grammer’s errors over and over, but never tells us of what a terrible thing happened to his sister and him.
Now he has to go confront this man over and over and over again. That’s justice?
Folks talk about how much it costs to put someone on death row.
I don’t care how much that costs. This costs more.
If God prevents the wages of sin from being revealed, how can man ever know what the depravity of sin will cause?
Sin was allowed to remain for a reason. One day it will no longer exist. And when it no longer does, we’ll know every reason why.
Praise be to God.
Jesus died to redeem this woman.
I remember back in the 1970s, when several men broke out of the Canon City prison in Colorado and went on a killing spree.
Several of the people they murdered on this spree were members of the jury that had found them guilty.
I am not sure capital punishment is a “deterrent”, but it a ABSOLUTLY guarantee they will not do it again.
It protects society from these creatures
Also, I believe his parents passed on when he was very young, and maybe tragically (IIRC). He and his sister were raised by his grand parents, I think.
I would support the death penalty if the justice system was far more accurate and not tainted by ignorant or biased jurors. I’m happy if it deters even one single murder, but how many have been sentenced and executed and later found to be innocent?
If even one innocent soul is executed, the system is flawed. Yes, the death penalty is appropriate, the system not up to it.
Flaming is understandable, but it is a tough issue.
Perhaps naked upside-down crucifixions on TV once a week at halftime on the Monday Night Football game?
I just read about the money laundering charges against he bank!! he was ahead of his time :)
cant listen to the video because pain in the blank fiancé is watching the VOICE (i.e., 2 hours in hell)
The idea “capital punishment is not a deterrent” is a classic progressivist talking point. And like all such talking points, the only reason so many people believe it is because it’s been repeated so often.
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