Death Penalty - Hammer Style

I was reading the February 14th issue of National Review and was inspired by a William F. Buckley article to put out my position on the death penalty. As I grew up Catholic, my entire family on one side is Catholic (at least nominally), and my father-in-law is as well, but I am a Protestant convert (let out of the bag in my recent job-search post), I think that I have different influences on my position than most, and have thoughfully processed the issue. Of course, that doesn't make me right, but here we go.

I support the death penalty.

This puts me in direct opposition to Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who has ordered his parishoners to sign a petition asking for a repeal of the death penalty. OK, he can't order anyone, but he made it clear that good Catholics would do so. Why? Because for the first time in 44 years, a man in Connecticut is about to be executed - a Michael Ross, who has been convicted of murdering eight women, most of whom he raped first. The bishop mentions that the Pope disapproved of the death penalty in his Evangelium Vitae as evidence that 'good Catholics' should oppose it.

However, Bishop Lori fails to mention the Pontiff's qualifying statement - not that the death penalty should never be used, but that it be exercised only in certain cases of "extreme gravity". I am of the opinion that His Holiness used a vague term for a reason - you simply can't laundry list that sort of thing. I am of the opinion that the government is given the power to punish, and that the government (for which Christ never gave rules!) has the power to give out punishment for crimes as it deems necessary. Hammertime approves of the death penalty for murderers, and in cases of heinous crimes that do not result in a permanently ended life - maiming, torture, rape - done with the intent to cause (or awareness of the high likelihood of) life-ending physical and emotional trauma.

Many oppose the death penalty for excellent reasons - but I would give them these numbers. Texas has executed its 337th prisoner. That's 337 state sanctioned executions in Texas since its inception (1976). However, there were over 38,000 people murdered by murderers from 1976-1998. That's less than 1 murderer executed per 100 victims of murderers. Should the murderer be given the rights they denied to their victims? Our university had a presentation by some actor who gave the stories of several murderers on death row and asked the audience at the end to sentence him to death or life. Of course the audience chose life. Why? Because they never got to hear the testimony of the murder victims, or their families. How quaint.

My support of the death penalty is not that it would prevent murders - depite the research of professor Stephen Layson of UNC, which concluded that "increases in the probablility of execution reduces the homicide rate", and that "we can conclude that the death penalty has deterred roughly 125,000 murders in the country in the 20th century." As a Psychology guy, I think that punishment is only effective if it has a very high contingency rate, and as (obviously) few murderers in this country are given the death penalty, we know that isn't happening. I also don't buy that enough of these murderers can be rehabilitated, considering the high (over 50%) rate of prisoners returning to prison.

I have one reason for supporting the death penalty - justice. While someone's daughter, or wife, or mother, or son, or dear friend, is forever removed from this world, we should spend over $1,000,000 for 20 years to give the murderer video games, cable TV, weight rooms, his PhD from correspondence courses, and simply the chance to breathe in air and talk to other people? I think not. If you intentionally kill someone else, your life is forfeit.

Thankfully, God has provided an escape from eternal justice. I am deserving of the same eternal destination as the murderer (as are we all), but He has already paid the price.