death, faith & jurisprudence

As she so often does, Dawn has sparked off a terrific discussion on her blog (”Come for the Dawn Patrol, stay for the comments!”). The topic to jour (or yesterjour, to be strickly picky, is the death penalty. She kicked off the discussion with a comparison/contrast of two writers, one from the right (pro) and one from the left (anti).

And the commentors took it from there. What’s interesting to me is how the death penalty issue seems to cleave the pro-life alliance of catholics and conservative protestants. I’m not sure I understand the catholic rationale. Of course this is a simplification; Many of the commentors break these types, as in this comment from “Mary” (who I believe to be Catholic, because of her comments on previous Dawn Patrol posts). She answers another commentors criticism of the DP (other commentor’s words italicized):

for the death penalty is not in a line with other punishments. A five-year sentence and a twenty-year sentence, even a life sentence, are related as more or less severe forms of imprisonment. Execution belongs to another order of punishment.

By the same token, assault, rape, and robbery are all more or less severe forms of crime. Murder belongs to another order of crime.

And I wrangled valiantly with the intrepid “Steve G.” over the question of whether the New Testament provides a basis for the discontinuation of the use of the death penalty.

But most remarkable to me are the comments of recently (and righteously) dooced former Dayton, Ohio prosecutor Lance Salyers. Lately (or soon to be?) Soonerized Salyers posse’d up around 12:05am. Here’s an excerpt:

Good discussion here. For what it’s worth, here are the thoughts of this prosecu . . . er, um, former prosecutor.

As I have read these comments, various people have argued variations on the following themes:
1) capital punishment is about vengeance, which God claims for himself
2) in case of actual innocence, capital punishment is irrevocable
3) capital punishment doesn’t accomplish anything except the death of another human
4) capital punishment demeans the value of human life

There are other arguments, of course, but those are the four that jumped out at me. I’m not going to get between Joel and Steve G. on the issue of how Jesus’ teachings on personal morality affect society’s exercise of capital punishment. They seem to be doing just fine on their own there. As for the others . . .

1. The first is nonsense. Regardless of whether the Biblical cliche (as it is used, not as it was written) is talking about societal vengeance or purely individual bloodlust, one cannot rationally raise it vis a vis capital punishment while still accepting other forms of criminal punishment. Vengeance is not an act; it is a motivation to act. It is no less inherent in a prison sentence as it is a death sentence. Unless one is really advocating for removing the all forms of criminal sanction from the Government’s quiver, one cannot raise it against capital punishment and remain intellectually honest…

I was going to copy Lance’s comment wholesale, but I see he’s posted it to his blog. In the interest in saving you some valuable time, go read Lance’s comment on Ragged Edges (his blog) by clicking here.