Use of death penalty sparingly encourages crime doers

Texas prosecutors filed capital-murder charges in cases last year, and gained capital convictions times, including by plea bargain and 74 by jury trial.

Accordingly, public debates about the death penalty and its use invariably invite considerations of what our religious traditions teach us about the morality of capital punishment Judaism, though grounded in a sacred text that clearly legitimated the use of capital punishment, has been far more skeptical of the use of the death penalty than a superficial read of the Torah might suggest Indeed, for centuries, Christians have seized on this notion of the civil magistrate as "the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer" as support for the notion that God has authorized the state to conduct executions Clergy, despite denominational statements in opposition to capital punishment, generally have not emphasized this issue with their members who, for the most part, support the death penalty Despite this recent abolitionist sentiment from an array of religious institutions, Professor Douglas notes a divergence of opinion between the "pulpit and the pew" as the laity continues to support the death penalty in large numbers.

Professor Douglas accounts for this divergence by noting the declining influence of religious organizations over the social policy choices of their members. He concludes that the fate of the death penalty in America will therefore "most likely be resolved in the realm of the secular rather than the sacred.

For the past two thousand years, two of the dominant Western religious traditions--christianity and Judaism--have debated the legitimacy of capital punishment in light of theological interpretations of their sacred texts and the traditions 2 grounded in those texts.

Not surprisingly, these interpretations have not been uniform over time. Particularly during this century, important theological shifts in both Catholicism and Protestantism have prompted a reconsideration of capital punishment.

During the past forty years, the Roman Catholic Church, most mainline Protestant denominations, and both Reform and Conservative Jewish groups have announced their formal opposition to capital punishment.

This dissonance derives, in part, from the declining influence of religious institutions over the social policy predilections of their members, n15 as well as from the failure of those religious institutions who favor abolition to emphasize this issue with their members.

The debate over the use of capital punishment in America is very much alive. A few early Christian writers did, however, address the issue of the death penalty. Most argued that killing was contrary to Christian ethics and that Christians must play no role in executions, although they conceded that the state did have the right to impose the death penalty.

Within a generation, Christianity evolved from a minority religion to the religion of the state. In short order, Emperor Constantine confronted an issue that would bedevil the Church for more than a thousand years: Constantine used the repressive system of Roman law to Christianize the empire, issuing decrees against both Christian heretics and pagans.

Those whose beliefs were found wanting were subject to execution. Lactantius, for example, had condemned capital punishment in the pre-constantinian era: And so there is no exception to this command of God. Killing a human being, whom God willed to be inviolable, is always wrong. Writing in the fourth century, John Chrysostom opposed the use of the death penalty to control heresy.

He does not forbid our checking heretics, and stopping their mouths, and taking away their freedom of speech, and breaking up their assemblies and confederacies, but [he does forbid] our killing and slaying them. Pope Gregory I commented that "since I fear God, I shrink from having anything whatsoever to do with the death of anyone.

Inchurch leaders in Rome issued a directive to the bishops of Gaul stating that those who "have handed down death penaltiesOut of the 50 states in America 34 still use the death penalty (Arizona included), meaning only 16 have completely abolished the death penalty.

Currently there are over 3, prisoners in about 32 different states who are on death row awaiting execution. Port Manteaux churns out silly new words when you feed it an idea or two.

Enter a word (or two) above and you'll get back a bunch of portmanteaux created by jamming together words that are conceptually related to your inputs.. For example, enter "giraffe" and you'll get . In England, murder as defined by the Homicide Act , s.

5, was a capital offence, but that section has been repealed by the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act As such, the punishment for murder today is life imprisonment. The death penalty actually upholds the value of life.

There is an inclination for some people to believe that the anti-death penalty position supports life. But it is truly more accurate to say that the death penalty for certain crimes (namely murder) actually respects the value of life more. The Advocate, Vol. 19, No. 6 (November ) Crime Control and the Death Penalty.

The execution of Harold McQueen on July 1, has revived the debate in Kentucky about the use . College of William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal December Wm. & Mary Bill of Rts. J. GOD AND THE EXECUTIONER: THE INFLUENCE OF WESTERN RELIGION ON .