January 2009
country summary
United States
US criminal justice policy continues to raise serious human rights concerns. 2008
saw the resumption of executions after a seven-month hiatus and continued growth
of the US prison population, already the world’s largest. Also in 2008, Human Rights
Watch confirmed that there are more than 2,500 US prisoners serving sentences of
life without possibility of parole for crimes committed when they were under 18; no
other country imposes this penalty on juvenile offenders.
In positive developments, the US Supreme Court struck down a law that barred
Guantanamo detainees from challenging the legality of their detention, and the
Department of Justice brought its first prosecution under a 1994 law allowing courts
to try torture committed abroad by US citizens or anyone present in the United States.
Death Penalty
From September 2007 until May 2008 there were no executions in the United States
while the Supreme Court considered whether lethal injection—the method used by
all US death penalty jurisdictions—constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. In
April 2008 the Court ruled in Baze v. Rees that it does not, and executions quickly
resumed. Between May and October 2008 there were 30 executions, half of which
were in Texas.
Nevertheless, courts and legislatures continue to narrow the scope of capital
punishment. In December 2007 New Jersey abolished the death penalty, becoming
the first state in more than 40 years to do so. In June 2008 in Kennedy v. Louisiana
the US Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty may not be imposed for any crime
against another person that does not result in death. US courts pronounced 110 new
death sentences in 2007, the lowest number since capital punishment was
reinstated in 1976.
Between January and October 2008, four prisoners were exonerated and released
from death row, bringing to 130 the number of death-sentenced prisoners released
since 1973 due to evidence of their innocence.
2008 saw a step backward for non-citizens sentenced to death without being
allowed to contact their consular officials as required by the Vienna Convention on
Consular Relations. On August 5, Texas executed Mexican national José Medellin
despite an International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision directing the United States to
reexamine such cases, and a directive from President George W. Bush that state
courts comply with the ICJ ruling.
Juvenile Life without Parole
In 2008 Human Rights Watch revised upward to 2,502 our estimate of the number of
persons in the United States sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for
crimes committed when they were under age 18. We also verified that there are no
juvenile offenders serving this sentence anywhere else in the world.
Efforts to end juvenile life without parole in the United States continue with reform
legislation pending in Congress and in state legislatures in California, Florida,
Louisiana, Michigan, and Nebraska. In 2008 the United Nations Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended that the United States, “in light of
the disproportionate imposition” of the sentence on racial minorities, discontinue its
use for crimes committed by individuals under 18 and review the status of people
already serving such sentences.
Incarceration
A June 2008 report by the US Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics found
that the incarcerated population had reached an all-time high of 2.3 million, or 762
per 100,000 residents. The United States continues to have both the largest
incarcerated population and the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world.
The burden of incarceration falls disproportionately on members of racial and ethnic
minorities. Black men are incarcerated at six times the rate of white men, and 10.7
percent of all black males age 30 to 34 are behind bars on any given day. A 2008
Human Rights Watch report, “Targeting Blacks,” found that racial disparities are
even worse for drug offenders, with a black man almost 12 times more likely than a
white man to enter prison with a new drug conviction, despite similar rates of drug
use among blacks and whites.
In March 2008 the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination expressed “concern with regard to the persistent racial disparities in
the criminal justice system … including the disproportionate number of persons
belonging to racial, ethnic and national minorities in the prison population,” and
urged the United States to “take all necessary steps to guarantee the right of
everyone to equal treatment before tribunals and all other organs administering
justice.”
One out of five state prisoners in the United States is incarcerated for a drug-related
offense. Many prisoners, particularly those convicted of drug possession or property
crimes, have histories of substance use and addiction. The prevalence of diseases
related to injection drug use such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C is significantly greater
among prisoners than in the general population. Yet US prisons and jails remain
resistant, even hostile, to evidence-based practices such as condom distribution or
methadone therapy, which have proven to reduce transmission of HIV, hepatitis C,
and sexually transmitted diseases and to treat drug addiction.
The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) of 1996 creates a variety of obstacles for
prisoners seeking to vindicate their rights in court. These restrictions—which apply
only to prisoners—have resulted in dismissal of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse and
other significant injuries. In November 2007 a bill was introduced in the House of
Representatives to amend or repeal some provisions of the PLRA.
Corporal Punishment in Public Schools
According to the US Department of Education, more than 200,000 public school
students received corporal punishment at least once during the 2006-2007 school
year. Corporal punishment—which typically takes the form of one or more blows on
the buttocks with a wooden paddle—is legal in public schools in 21 states. A 2008
Human Rights Watch report, “A Violent Education,” focuses on corporal punishment
in Texas and Mississippi, two of the states where it is most prevalent. The report
found that corporal punishment can result in serious injury and is used
disproportionately against black students and special education students.
Women’s Rights
Struggles to achieve pay equity for women continued in 2008, with members of
Congress working to overturn a 2007 Supreme Court decision that narrowly
construed the statute of limitations for pay discrimination lawsuits against
employers. Despite widespread mobilization by women’s rights groups, the Lilly
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act died in the Senate after passing the House of Representatives.
Nonetheless, the gender pay gap narrowed to its smallest size in history, with
women earning 78 cents for every dollar earned by men.
US international aid remains laden with restrictions that undermine the sexual and
reproductive rights of women. Congress in 2008 reauthorized the President's
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief for another five years, but continued to direct funding
toward abstinence-only programs and retained the requirement that organizations
pledge their opposition to sex work before receiving US funds. Similarly, the “global
gag rule” continues to prohibit foreign organizations receiving US funding from
providing abortions, counseling women about abortion, or engaging in advocacy for
abortion rights, even if no US funds would be used in those efforts.
Sexual Violence
In the United States, the crime of rape has one of the lowest arrest, prosecution, and
conviction rates among serious violent crimes. In 2008 Human Rights Watch began
an investigation into the failure of law enforcement authorities to preserve and test
evidence in rape cases. When reporting a sexually violent crime, a victim is asked to
submit to a four- to six-hour exam to collect DNA evidence that, if tested, may aid in
the criminal investigation. But the Justice Department estimates that up to 500,000
of these rape kits sit untested in crime labs and police storage facilities across the
United States. In Los Angeles alone there are over 7,300 untested rape kits, with the
backlog growing by about 30 a month.
Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
US law continues to offer no national protections against discrimination based on
sexual orientation or gender identity, in employment or other areas of life.
Rights of Non-Citizens
There are some 38 million non-citizens living in the United States, of whom nearly 12
million are undocumented. In 2008 this population faced human rights problems
largely similar to those in previous years.
As documented in our 2007 report, “Forced Apart,” legal immigrants who have lived
in the United States for decades, including lawful permanent residents, are
summarily deported under laws passed in 1996 if they have been convicted of a
crime, even a non-violent offense such as shoplifting or low-level drug possession.
During the deportation proceedings, judges are not permitted to balance the
seriousness of a non-citizen’s crime against his lawful presence in the US, family
relationships (including with a US citizen spouse and minor children), business
ownership, tax payments, service in the US military, or likelihood of persecution after
deportation. In 2006, the most recent year for which data are available, the number
of non-citizens deported increased yet again, to 95,752 from 90,426 in 2005,
bringing the total number of persons deported under these laws to 768,345.
In 2008 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement continued a pattern begun in
2007 of large-scale workplace raids in search of undocumented workers. In August
2008, in the largest such raid in US history; nearly 600 non-citizens were arrested in
Laurel, Mississippi.
Similarly, in May 2008 immigration agents rounded up 389 undocumented workers
at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. After the raids, Iowa’s attorney general
filed more than 9,300 criminal misdemeanor charges against the plant’s owners and
managers for labor law violations including child labor and long shifts without
overtime pay. Prosecutors, however, also threatened to charge workers—some of
whom had used false IDs to obtain work—with aggravated identity theft, a charge
that carries severe penalties and is aimed at persons committing theft by fraud
rather than undocumented immigrants seeking jobs.
The United States detains approximately 300,000 non-citizens each year at an
annual cost of US$1.8 billion, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE). Non-citizens are held in some 300 detention facilities: about two dozen are
directly under the control of ICE, although some are operated by private companies,
and the remainder are state and local prisons and jails that contract with ICE to
provide bed space for ICE detainees.
The large number of detained non-citizens in the United States raises multiple
human rights concerns. In a December 2007 report, “Chronic Indifference,” we found
that ICE fails to monitor adequately the medical care of detainees with HIV, and does
not comply with international or national guidelines for appropriate HIV treatment.
Research by Human Rights Watch into medical care for women in immigration
detention facilities similarly found inadequate provision of routine gynecological
care, cervical and breast cancer screenings and diagnosis, family planning services,
pre- and post-natal care, and services for survivors of sexual and gender-based
violence.
A series of articles published in the Washington Post in May 2008 revealed that 30
non-citizens died in detention between 2003 and 2008 as a result of actions taken
or not taken by medical staff.
In a positive step, Congress repealed the 15-year-old law barring HIV-positive noncitizens
from entering the United States. Although President Bush has signed the bill,
at this writing the administration had not yet passed regulations to fully implement
repeal of the travel ban.
Guantanamo Bay, Indefinite Detention, and Military Commissions
Although President Bush said he would like to see the detention facility at
Guantanamo Bay closed, 255 men remained there at this writing, and no steps to
close the facility were expected before the end of the administration. The vast
majority of these detainees have been held for nearly seven years without charge.
More than half are held in high-security facilities where they spend 22 hours a day in
small cells with no natural light or fresh air and few diversions.
In June 2008 the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush struck down a law that
denied Guantanamo detainees the right to bring federal habeas corpus challenges to
the legality of their detention. Nearly all of the detainees filed habeas petitions, but
these cases have been delayed by a host of procedural and legal questions such as
whether hearings can be conducted in secret.
More than two dozen detainees who were cleared for release cannot be returned to
their home countries due to the likelihood that they would face torture upon return.
In October 2008 a federal court ruled that the United States must release 17 Chinese
Uighurs detained at Guantanamo into the United States. The US government had
acknowledged that the men posed no threat but could not be returned to China
because they face persecution there. A federal appeals court issued a stay of that
order, and the fate of these men remained undecided at this writing.
The United States has continued to repatriate other Guantanamo detainees without
meaningful or independent assessment of the risk of torture or abuse they faced
upon return. While some detainees obtained court orders requiring advance notice
of any transfer, many detainees do not have such orders in place. The United States
has claimed that “diplomatic assurances”—promises of humane treatment—from
the receiving governments are sufficient protection against abuse, despite
compelling evidence to the contrary.
The US government continues to detain Qatari citizen Ali Saheh Kahlah al-Marri in
the United States as an “enemy combatant” without charge or trial. Al-Marri was first
declared an enemy combatant in 2003, just weeks before his scheduled trial for
financial fraud and giving false statements. In 2007 a federal appeals court panel
ruled that al-Marri’s detention was unlawful, but the full court overturned the
decision. Al-Marri has appealed that ruling to the US Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the administration continues to prosecute Guantanamo detainees
before military commissions that lack fundamental due process guarantees. In May
2008 the US government filed military commission charges seeking the death
penalty against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees accused of
responsibility for the September 11 attacks. All five were held in secret CIA prisons
before they were brought to Guantanamo, and were reportedly subject to years of
torture and other abuse. No trial date has been set. The United States is also
pursuing cases against 15 other detainees, including Omar Khadr and Mohammed
Jawad, who were juveniles when they were first brought to Guantanamo nearly seven
years ago.
Only three detainees had been convicted by military commissions at this writing.
Australian David Hicks was convicted by plea agreement in March 2007 and is now
free in Australia. The first military commission trial took place in July 2008 against
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver. Hamdan was acquitted of
conspiracy and convicted of providing material support to terrorism, and sentenced
to five-and-a-half years with credit for five years’ time served. As it has said with
respect to all Guantanamo detainees, the Bush administration contends that
Hamdan can be detained even after his sentence is completed. In November 2008
Ali Hamza al Bahlul was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to life in
prison.
Torture Policy
Over the past three years Congress and the courts have repudiated the Bush
administration’s reliance on torture as an interrogation technique. In September
2006 the Pentagon announced new rules applicable to all US military interrogations
and disavowed abusive techniques, such as waterboarding, forced nudity, and
induced hypothermia. In February 2008 Congress passed legislation mandating that
the CIA adhere to these same rules, but it was vetoed by President Bush.
Secret CIA Prisons
In April 2008 the Department of Defense announced the transfer to Guantanamo of a
detainee previously held in CIA custody, indicating that the CIA’s secret prisons were
still operational as of that time. Two to three dozen former CIA detainees remain
“disappeared,” their whereabouts unknown. Many of them are believed to have
been unlawfully rendered to countries such as Syria, Libya, Pakistan, and Algeria.
Denial of Refugee Protection
US law allows authorities to deny refugee protection to persons believed to have
associated with or provided “material support” to certain armed groups. The broad
terms of the law have led authorities to bar persons who qualify as refugees under
international law, including rape victims forced into domestic servitude by rebel
groups. In January 2008 Congress passed legislation that gave the administration
the power to waive these bars in deserving cases, but the exercise of this discretion
has been painstakingly slow.
Domestic Prosecution of Torture Abroad
In a positive development, the Department of Justice brought its first case under a
1994 law allowing courts to try torture committed abroad by US citizens or anyone
present in the US. A Miami jury in October 2008 convicted Charles "Chuckie" Taylor,
Jr., the son of the former Liberian president and a US citizen, on several counts of
torture for crimes committed by the elite military unit he headed in Liberia from 1997
to 2003.
Key International Actors
At the conclusion of his June 2008 visit, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial,
summary or arbitrary executions called on the United States to improve its military
justice system and to ensure that the death penalty is applied fairly and without
racial discrimination. The special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial
discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance expressed concern about
residential racial segregation and the poor state of public education after his visit in
mid-2008.
Although the European Union has called on the United States to close the
Guantanamo detention facility, it has not publicly criticized the military commissions
or made concrete proposals regarding trial or release of Guantanamo detainees. By
contrast, the EU and member states have intervened and attempted to halt
executions in a number of US death penalty cases.
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17 comments:
The Death Penalty: Not a Human Rights Violation
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
Some wrongly state that executions are a human rights violation. The human rights violation argument often comes from European leadership and human rights organizations.
The argument is as follows: Life is a fundamental human right. Therefore, taking it away is a fundamental violation of human rights.
Those who say that the death penalty is a human rights violation have no solid moral or philosophical foundation for making such a statement. What opponents of capital punishment really are saying is that they just don't approve of executions.
Certainly, both freedom and life are fundamental human rights. On this, there is virtually no disagreement. However, again, virtually all agree, that freedom may be taken away when there is a violation of the social contract. Freedom, a fundamental human right, may be taken away from those who violate society's laws. So to is the fundamental human right of life forfeit when the violation of the social contract is most grave.
No one disputes that taking freedom away is a different result than taking life away. However, the issue is the incorrect claim that taking away fundamental human rights -- be that freedom or life -- is a human rights violation. It is not. It depends specifically on the circumstances.
How do we know? Because those very same governments and human rights stalwarts, rightly, tell us so. Universally, both governments and human rights organizations approve and encourage taking away the fundamental human right of freedom, as a proper response to some criminal activity.
Why do governments and human rights organizations not condemn just incarceration of criminals as a fundamental human rights violation? Because they think incarceration is just fine.
Why do some of those same groups condemn execution as a human rights violation? Only because they don't like it. They have no moral or philosophical foundation for calling execution a human rights violation.
In the context of criminals violating the social contract, those criminals have voluntarily subjected themselves to the laws of the state. And they have knowingly placed themselves in a position where their fundamental human rights of freedom and life are subject to being forfeit by their actions.
Opinion is only worth the value of its foundation. Those who call execution a human rights violation have no credible foundation for that claim. What they are really saying is "We just don't like it."
copyright 2005-2009 Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
www.dpinfo.com
www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
www.coastda.com/archives.html
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www.prodeathpenalty.com
yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html
Kennedy, child rape & the Supremes
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
In Kennedy v Louisiana, SCOTUS makes this blunder: "the court rested its condemnation of executing the rapists of children largely on what it described as a trend away from the use of death to punish such crimes both here and abroad."
Just the opposite is true.
The state laws imposing the death penalty option on child rape cases were relatively new and a number of states were actively considering passing such laws in their states, as well.
In other words, we were seeing a new trend to pass such laws, instead of a trend away from them.
By outlawing such new laws, it was SCOTUS that was, wrongly and intentionally, stopping a new trend. This is a horrible precedent - to use SCOTUS-speak, SCOTUS was, knowingly, stopping new laws which may become the evolving standard and, quite possibly, preventing a national consensus towards having the death penalty for child rapists.
Is the newest "constitutional" guide for SCOTUS preemptive trend stopping? Maybe.
SCOTUS' evolving standards doctrine and the national consensus "standards" are both prone to this type of constitutional perversion - the alchemy of highly strained legal arguments derived from personal opinion.
In fact, the national consensus was for the death penalty for child rape cases.
See Jim Lindgren's, A “National Consensus” in Favor of the Death Penalty for Child Rapists"
http://volokh.com/posts/1214447764.shtml
And a July, 2008 National Poll
By a 55 - 38 percent margin, voters favor the death penalty for a person convicted of raping a child. Women and men are consistent in their support.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1194
Another excellent example of this type of phony consensus and evolving standards doctrine improperly used by SCOTUS is this,
A phony 'consensus' on youthful killers
by Jeff Jacoby in a Boston Globe op/ed
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/03/06/a_phony_consensus_on_youthful_killers/
As a firm adherent to the reality that incentives matter to most people, including criminals, I was concerned that if the sanction options were equal for child rape and child murder that some rapists would be more prone to murder their victims. Therefore, I was not a proponent of the death penalty for child rape.
copyright 1998-2008 Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
www.dpinfo.com
www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
www.coastda.com/archives.html
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www.prodeathpenalty.com
yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html
The ICJ amd Consular Notification
A Review of the Vienna Convention and US detention of foreign nationals
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
RE: The International Court of Justice's (hereinafter ICJ) decision in the case of US violations of the Vienna Convention (hereinafter VC), in a case brought by Mexico re: 52 Mexican nationals on US death row. http://212.153.43.18/icjwww/idocket/imus/imusframe.htm
1. The ICJ decision violates the specific, unequivocal directive of the Vienna Convention that the Convention in:
"Realizing that the purpose of such privileges and immunities is not to benefit individuals but to ensure the efficient performance of functions by consular posts on behalf of their respective States"
2. This directive is given specific, additional support, within the subject Article 36 of the VC: within the opening and dominant directive of Paragraph 1:
"With a view to facilitating the exercise of consular functions relating to nationals of the sending State" http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/consul.htm
3. The ICJ completely dismisses this unequivocal directive of the VC. Put bluntly, the ICJ has no respect for the spirit and specific directives of the VC, in this regard. Had the ICJ honored the specific directives of the VC, this case would have been dismissed.
4. The ICJ circumvents their own precedents. Go to Separate opinion of Judge Vereshchetin (PDF 30 Kb)
As well as other comments.
-------------------------------------------
Practicalities of The Vienna Convention
1. The primary violation of the VC, from which all others are dependent, is that the US did not inform arrested foreign nationals of their right to contact their own consulate.
The police didn't say:
"You have the right to contact your consulate, if you want to."
That's it.
2. It is very important to point out that
a. all detainees could have contacted their consulates whenever they wanted to, absent that notification and
b. all 52 detainees had attorneys who all knew they could contact the consular offices, at any time, had they believed such contact could have been helpful. They didn't.
c. No one prevented anyone from contacting their embassy
The main issue of this ICJ court case was not the violation of notification, which both parties had conceded to for some time, but one of the remedy for such violation.
Ignoring the fact that the VC states that the VC has nothing to do with individual rights, and the fact that the ICJ doesn't care what the VC says on that issue, the ICJ stated that the US must provide new hearings in these cases.
In the US, hearings are based upon meeting a threshold of evidence which can support the call for a hearing. If that threshold is not met, then the appellate courts will rule against a hearing. Overwhelmingly, the VC issues have been reviewed by courts and the claims have been dismissed.
They have been barred because of time limitations on originating the appeal or not preserving it at trial, properly, or that the VC issue resulted in harmless error, meaning that neither the sentence nor the verdict would have changed, had the VC been properly administered.
Many appellate claims for US citizens are denied in US courts for the exact same reasons.
It is important to note that THE ICJ DIRECTIVE IS ASKING FOR A SPECIAL HEARING OVER AND ABOVE THAT WHICH US CITIZEN DETAINEES ARE GRANTED WITHIN THE US.
FURTHERMORE, THERE IS NO PROVISION WITHIN THE VC WHICH REQUIRES OR DIRECTS THAT THE TAKING AUTHORITY MUST VIOLATE THEIR OWN LAWS AND PRECEDENTS IN ORDER TO ENFORCE THE VC.
Paragraph 2, article 36 states:
"2. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State, subject to the proviso, however, that the said laws and regulations must enable full effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights accorded under this Article are intended. "
The appeals, as reviewed above, have, already, fulfilled this requirement. The notification issued had been reviewed by both state and federal courts.
In Reuters, 1/19/09: "The United States accepts that the original 2004 ruling places on it a binding legal obligation, said John Bellinger, legal adviser at the U.S. Department of State, adding it was disappointing the court had held that Medellin's execution violated international law. 'Mr. Medellin has had numerous reviews of his case ... It is worth noting that his absence of consular notification was in fact specifically reviewed by a number of state and federal courts,' Bellinger said. "
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE50I44I20090119
I think it is important to note that the US never ratified the Vienna Convention, yet, in the minds of many, the US stuck to both the letter and intent of the Vienna Convention and the ICJ exceeded their authority.
In the overwhelming majority of the 52 Mexican detainee cases, there is little doubt that the detainees received super due process and other protections within their cases.
Looking specifically at the dates of when these 52 detainees were originally arrested, and the history of Mexico's interest in Mexican nationals arrested in the US at such times, there is very little or no supportive evidence that Mexico would have provided any additional assistance, at all, or an additional assistance which would have impacted the end result in these cases, had their consulates been notified at that time.
------------------------------------------------
RE Mexico:
1. Former Mexican President Fox states that this is about International laws and rights. Nonsense. Mexico's claim is about the popularity of US bashing and about Fox wanting to be an international player in the anti death penalty movement.
2. Had this been about international rights, then
a) Mexico's claim would have been about all Mexican National detainees within the US, who had not been told about their right to contact their own consulate. It wasn't.
It was only about death row cases. Although the ICJ expanded Mexico's claim to all cases, Mexico didn't do that. It was specific to death row; and
b) Mexico would have, long ago, produced their own study as to how the VC enforcement had failed within Mexico since 1963 and what was being done to remedy that within Mexico. That has not occurred; and
c) Why didn't Mexico bring similar claims against all other countries that had detained Mexican Nationals, where such countries had not immediately informed the Mexican detainees of their rights under the VC? Because President Fox knows that US bashing is popular within Mexico.
3. Is there any evidence that Mexico has done a better job of enforcing the VC within their own borders? No.
4. President Fox has repeatedly stated that his opposition to the death penalty is based upon it being a human rights violation. He cannot defend that position any more than the European Union can.
The invalid argument goes like this. The right to life is a fundamental human right. To take it away is a human rights violation. Nonsense, again. All countries agree that they can take life away under certain circumstances -- a just war and self defense issues, etc. This is undisputed.
Furthermore, President Fox, the EU and all human rights organizations also state that freedom is a fundamental human right. However, they all also say that freedom may be taken away from persons who violate the laws. Therefore all agree that fundamental human rights may be taken away by due process when there is a violation of the law.
That reasoning works equally with both incarceration and execution.
Execution does not violate a fundamental human right to life anymore that incarceration violates the fundamental human right to freedom. Both of those rights are not absolute but are conditional upon abiding by the law.
Violations of the law may cause a loss of certain rights by the criminal. That is the nature of law and violations of it.
5. Instead, of ONLY concentrating on protecting horrendous Mexican national murderers, possibly President Fox should consider reimbursing all the murder victims families for all their cost related to the murders, including pain and suffering. as well as individual contact to express his sorrow and that of Mexico's sorrow over the murders,
President Fox would have done this long, ago, had human rights been a major issue for him. He seems to have forgotten that it was the innocent murder victims who truly did have their human rights violated
President Fox should see that Mexico reimburses all US jurisdictions for their costs related to these cases and make contributions to all victim compensation agencies within the various jurisdictions.
That would truly show a dedication to human rights.
copyright 1997-2009 Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
www.dpinfo.comwww.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
www.coastda.com/archives.html
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www.prodeathpenalty.com
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
What about innocent people who are convicted on faulty evidence, on the biases of prejudiced juries, or on limited due process of law?
Ultimately, the question of a convicted's innocence is the key issue with regard to human rights and the death penalty.
Moreover, ok, yes, there are criminals out there, guilty, who cannot go without some sort of punishment.
But what of restorative justice? What are the ways in which legal system is so skewed that innocent people are being killed?
The Death Penalty Provides More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
To state the blatantly clear, living murderers, in prison, after release or escape, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.
Although an obvious truism, it is surprising how often folks overlook the enhanced incapacitation benefits of the death penalty over incarceration.
No knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law.
Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
That is. logically, conclusive.
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty deterrence.
A surprise? No.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 16 studies. They don't. Studies which don't find for deterrence don't say no one is deterred, but that they couldn't measure those deterred.
What prospect of a negative outcome doesn't deter some? There isn't one . . . although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one.
However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. Yet, the evidence is compelling and un refuted that death is feared more than life.
Some death penalty opponents argue against death penalty deterrence, stating that it's a harsher penalty to be locked up without any possibility of getting out.
Reality paints a very different picture.
What percentage of capital murderers seek a plea bargain to a death sentence? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of convicted capital murderers argue for execution in the penalty phase of their capital trial? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of death row inmates waive their appeals and speed up the execution process? Nearly zero. They prefer long term imprisonment.
This is not, even remotely, in dispute.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Furthermore, history tells us that lifers have many ways to get out: Pardon, commutation, escape, clerical error, change in the law, etc.
In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to spare murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocent lives.
Furthermore, possibly we have sentenced 25 actually innocent people to death since 1973, or 0.3% of those so sentenced. Those have all been released upon post conviction review. The anti death penalty claims, that the numbers are significantly higher, are a fraud, easily discoverable by fact checking.
The innocents deception of death penalty opponents has been getting exposure for many years. Even the behemoth of anti death penalty newspapers, The New York Times, has recognized that deception.
To be sure, 30 or 40 categorically innocent people have been released from death row . . . (1) This when death penalty opponents were claiming the release of 119 "innocents" from death row. Death penalty opponents never required actual innocence in order for cases to be added to their "exonerated" or "innocents" list. They simply invented their own definitions for exonerated and innocent and deceptively shoe horned large numbers of inmates into those definitions - something easily discovered with fact checking.
There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.
If we accept that the best predictor of future performance is past performance, we can, reasonably, conclude that the DNA cases will be excluded prior to trial, and that for the next 8000 death sentences, that we will experience a 99.8% accuracy rate in actual guilt convictions. This improved accuracy rate does not include the many additional safeguards that have been added to the system, over and above DNA testing.
Of all the government programs in the world, that put innocents at risk, is there one with a safer record and with greater protections than the US death penalty?
Unlikely.
Full report -All Innocence Issues: The Death Penalty, upon request.
Full report - The Death Penalty as a Deterrent, upon request
(1) The Death of Innocents: A Reasonable Doubt,
New York Times Book Review, p 29, 1/23/05, Adam Liptak,
national legal correspondent for The NY Times
copyright 2007-2009, Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
www.dpinfo.comwww.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
www.coastda.com/archives.html
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www.prodeathpenalty.com
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden) www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html
Wow, Mr. Sharp, you do make a very compelling case for the death penalty. I am not being facetious or sarcastic when I say that.
I am not surprised at the statistics and I think it makes sense that death would naturally be feared over life imprisonment.
It is also natural that an executed murderer would commit less harm than a murderer released from death row or from prison altogether.
I don't deny that freedoms should be taken away when someone violates a social contract.
Yet the question still remains: What are we doing to restore the individual's sense of and commitment to fulfilling the social contract?
Statistics argue that the death penalty does nothing to deter crime. Indeed, the number of murders in the United States is relatively high compared to other countries in the world and we execute the most.
So what about the ideal of restorative justice? The legal system, while, as you rightly argue, allows super due process for those on death row, does not do anything to actually remedy the social ills it prosecutes. Rather, it is a more of a reactionary force that perpetuates some of those ills. Look at the number of minorities that crowd already crowded prisons, some of which are privatized and therefore less likely to undergo the regulations and oversight of their federal counterparts.
What we are ultimately left with in our legal system is the short-sighted punitive measures of retributive justice.
As for the aims of this organization I moderate--they are founded on a Christian ethic of love. Granted, there is an argument for tough love in this system and modern theology even legitimates just cause for killing another. However, it must be noted that even justified killings are a last resort in this ethic--one that is more about proactive transformation than it is about mere reaction.
That sounds terribly utopian and all-too unrealistic. But then again, such a moral code aims to root itself in the very reality of crime, to critically examine why it exists and the ways it keeps on existing.
Bottom-line: the death penalty hasn't stopped crime.
Bro Peach writes: Yet the question still remains: What are we doing to restore the individual's sense of and commitment to fulfilling the social contract?
Reply: sanction is their due for violating the social contract. Fulfilling their role in the social contract requires them to serve their sanction. After that, it is up to them to not violate the social contract, again.
you write: Statistics argue that the death penalty does nothing to deter crime. Indeed, the number of murders in the United States is relatively high compared to other countries in the world and we execute the most.
Reply: You wrongly interpret deterrence, as many do.
Please read: Death Penalty and Deterrence: Let's be clear, to folow
you ask: So what about the ideal of restorative justice? The legal system, while, as you rightly argue, allows super due process for those on death row, does not do anything to actually remedy the social ills it prosecutes. Rather, it is a more of a reactionary force that perpetuates some of those ills. Look at the number of minorities that crowd already crowded prisons, some of which are privatized and therefore less likely to undergo the regulations and oversight of their federal counterparts.
REPLY: In murder cases, there is no restoring the victim. Just sanction is a part of the restorative process. Holding people as responsible agents for their conduct is the beginning of a realization of their place in the world and that to become a responsible citizen, you will be held responsible. With that integration, I am not opposed to elements common to a general model of restorative justice.
you write: What we are ultimately left with in our legal system is the short-sighted punitive measures of retributive justice.
Reply: It is not short sighted if we consider the importance of criminals as moral agents and that sanction is integral to self realization of the moral agent. I encourage anything that combines holding moral agents fully responsible and aids in the effort to reduce recidivism, inclusive of the general restorative model.
you write: As for the aims of this organization I moderate--they are founded on a Christian ethic of love. Granted, there is an argument for tough love in this system and modern theology even legitimates just cause for killing another. However, it must be noted that even justified killings are a last resort in this ethic--one that is more about proactive transformation than it is about mere reaction.
Reply: I am not sure you can make an argument for last resort. It is an issue of the most just resort, in accordance with the crimes.
you write: Bottom-line: the death penalty hasn't stopped crime.
Reply: That is a vacuous line, not a bottom line. No sanction and no restorative model will ever stop crime. I think we, as all folks, know that. We both know that execution will always prevent a criminal from ever harming again and we both know restorative justice cannot make that claim. The real issue is, what sanctions represent holding the moral agent fully responsible for their crimes and what models, in concert with sanction, will lower crime and recidivism.
Death Penalty and Deterrence: Let's be clear
by Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, 0104
In their story, "States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates", The New York Times did their best to illustrate that the death penalty was not a deterrent, by showing that the average murder rate in death penalty states was higher than the average rate in non death penalty states and, it is. (1)
What the Times failed to observe is that their own study confirmed that you can't simply compare those averages to make that determination regarding deterrence.
As one observer stated: "The Times story does nothing more than repeat the dumbest of all dumb mistakes — taking the murder rate in a traditionally high-homicide state with capital punishment (like Texas) and comparing it to a traditionally low-homicide state with no death penalty (like North Dakota) and concluding that the death penalty doesn't work at all. Even this comparison doesn't work so well. The Times own graph shows Texas, where murder rates were 40 percent above Michigan's in 1991, has now fallen below Michigan . . .". (2)
Within the Times article, Michigan Governor John Engler states, "I think Michigan made a wise decision 150 years ago," referring to the state's abolition of the death penalty in 1846. "We're pretty proud of the fact that we don't have the death penalty."(3)
Even though easily observed on the Times' own graphics, they failed to mention the obvious. Michigan's murder rate is near or above that of 31 of the US's 38 death penalty states. And then, it should be recognized that Washington, DC (not found within the Times study) and Detroit, Michigan, two non death penalty jurisdictions, have been perennial leaders in murder and violent crime rates for the past 30 years. Delaware, a jurisdiction similar in size to them, leads the nation in executions per murder, but has significantly lower rates of murders and violent crime than do either DC or Detroit, during that same period.
Obviously, the Times study and any other simple comparison of jurisdictions with and without the death penalty, means little, with regard to deterrence.
Also revealed within the Times study, but not pointed out by them,: "One-third of the nation's executions take place in Texas—and the steepest decline in homicides has occurred in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, which together account for nearly half the nation's executions." (4)
And, the Times also failed to mention that the major US jurisdiction with the most executions is Harris County (Houston, Texas), which has seen a 73% decrease in murder rates since resuming executions in 1982 -- possibly the largest reduction for a major metropolitan area since that time.
Also omitted from the Times review, although they had the data, is that during a virtual cessation of executions, from 1966-1980, that murders more than doubled in the US. Any other rise and fall in murders, after that time, has been only a fraction of that change, indicating a strong and direct correlation between the lack of executions and the dramatic increase in murders, if that is specifically what you are looking for.
If deterrence was measured by direct correlation's between execution, or the lack thereof, and murder rates, as implied by the Times article, and as wrongly assumed by those blindly accepting that model, then there would be no debate, only more confusion. Which may have been the Times' goal.
Let's take a look at the science.
Some non death penalty jurisdictions, such as South Africa and Mexico lead the world in murder and violent crime rates. But then some non death penalty jurisdictions, such as Sweden, have quite low rates. Then there are such death penalty jurisdictions as Japan and Singapore which have low rates of such crime. But then other death penalty jurisdictions, such as Rwanda and Louisiana, that have high rates.
To which an astute observer will respond: But socially, culturally, geographically, legally, historically and many other ways, all of those jurisdictions are very different. Exactly, a simple comparison of only execution rates and murder rates cannot tell the tale of deterrence. And within the US, between states, there exist many variables which will effect the rates of homicides.
See REVIEW, below
And, as so well illustrated by the Times graphics, a non death penalty state, such as Michigan has high murder rates and another non death penalty state, such as North Dakota, has low murder rates and then there are death penalty states, such as Louisiana, with high murder rates and death penalty states, such South Dakota, with low rates. Apparently, unbeknownst to the Times, but quite obvious to any neutral observer, there are other factors at play here, not just the presence or absence of the death penalty. Most thinking folks already knew that.
As Economics Professor Ehrlich stated in the Times piece and, as accepted by all knowledgeable parties, there are many factors involved in such evaluations. That is why there is a wide variation of crime rates both within and between some death penalty and non death penalty jurisdictions, and small variations within and between others. Any direct comparison of only execution rates and only murder rates, to determine deterrence, would reflect either ignorance or deception.
Ehrlich called the Times study "a throwback to the vintage 1960s statistical analyses done by criminologists who compared murder rates in neighboring states where capital punishment was either legal or illegal." "The statistics involved in such comparisons have long been recognized as devoid of scientific merit." He called the Times story a "one sided affair" devoid of merit. Most interesting is that Ehrlich was interviewed by the Time's writer, Fessenden, who asked Ehrlich to comment on the results before the story was published. Somehow Ehrlich's overwhelming criticisms were left out of the article.
Ehrlich also referred Fessenden to some professors who produced the recently released Emory study. Emory Economics department head, Prof. Deshbakhsh "says he was contacted by Fessenden, and he indicated to the Times reporter that the study suggested a very strong deterrent effect of capital punishment." Somehow,
Fessenden's left that out of the Times story, as well. (5).
There is a constant within all jurisdictions -- negative consequences will always have an effect on behavior.
Maybe the Times will be a bit more thoughtful, next time.
REVIEW
"The List: Murder Capitals of the World", 09/08, Foreign Policy Magazine
Capital punishment (cp) or not (ncp)
murder rates/100,000 population
4 out of the top 5 do not have the death penalty
1. Caracas (ncp), Venezuela 130-160
Bad policing.
2. New Orleans (cp), La, USA 69-95
Variable because of different counts in surging population. Drug related.
Nos 2 & 3 in US, Detroit (ncp), 46 and Baltimore (cp), 45.
3. Cape Town (ncp), South Africa 62
Most crimes with people who know each other.
4. Port Mores (ncp), Papua New Guinea 54
Chinese gangs, corrupt policing
5. Moscow (ncp), Russia 9.6
various
Of the Top 10 Countries With Lowest Murder Rates (1), 7 have the death penalty
O f the Top 10 Countries With Highest Murder Rates (2), 5 have the death penalty
Top 10 Countries With Lowest Murder Rates
Iceland 0.00 ncp
Senegal 0.33 ncp
Burkina Faso 0.38 cp
Cameroon 0.38 cp
Finland 0.71 ncp
Gambia 0.71 cp
Mali 0.71 cp
Saudi Arabia 0.71 cp
Mauritania 0.76 cp
Oman cp
Top 10 Countries With Highest Murder Rates
Honduras 154.02 ncp
South Africa 121.91 ncp
Swaziland 93.32 cp
Colombia 69.98 ncp
Lesotho 50.41 cp
Rwanda 45.08 ncp
Jamaica 37.21 cp
El. Salvador 36.88 cp
Venezuela 33.20 ncp
Bolivia 31.98 cp
(1) http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-lowest-murder-rates.html no date
(2) http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-highest-murder-rates.html no date
FOOTNOTES
1) "States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates", The New
York Times 9/22/00 located at
www (dot) nytimes.com/2000/09/22/national/22STUD.html and www (dot) nytimes.com/2000/09/22/national/22DEAT.html
2) “Don't Know Much About Calculus: The (New York) Times flunks high-school
math in death-penalty piece", William Tucker, National Review, 9/22/00, located
at www (dot) nationalreview.com/comment/comment092200c.shtml
3) ibid, see footnote 11
4) "The Death Penalty Saves Lives", AIM Report, August 2000, located atwww (dot) aim.org/publications/aim_report/2000/08a.html
5) "NEW YORK TIMES UNDER FIRE AGAIN", Accuracy in Media, 10/16/00, go to www (dot) aim.org/
copyright 2000-2008 Dudley Sharp: Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
www.dpinfo.com
www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
www.coastda.com/archives.html
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www.prodeathpenalty.com
yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html
You say my bottom line is a vacuous line. Based on your article regarding deterrence, I think you have a point in saying that.
But then wait: Murder still happens. Crime still happens.
Ok, so let's keep the death penalty in place. It's not going to solve the problem. Regardless of your convincing argument to keep it in place, I just don't see it as an effective way of reducing crime.
I think your points on the moral agency of individuals to realize the gravity of their crime is moot.
I've visited the Allegheny County prison here in Pittsburgh on two occasions with student groups from the high school where I teach. On both occasions there have been testimonials given by inmates. There is no doubt that the reality of their sanctioned predicament wakes them up and even transforms their mentality. It's reassuring to hear their heart-felt accounts, yet their reality shock and awakening is not the end of their stories. They still have to learn to readjust to society.
Based on what I've heard about many of them, their stay in prison has not stayed them from falling into the cycle of recidivism that affects many convicts released from jail.
Moreover, the prison system is essentially a dehumanizing model that, while it provides and enforces necessary sanctions, only further legitimates crime as a way to keep the business of power in practice. The prison-industrial complex is essentially that: a big corporate business.
Manewhile, Foucault was on to something when he critiqued the French penal system following the revolution.
The penal system is historically paradigmatic of the power apparatuses at work in any society as its doctrine of surveillance, labeling, and correction is a means of social control that is characteristic of the capitalistic police state in which we live.
The vast arena of power, situated against the backdrop of a highly technologized and surveillanced society, contains within itself a network of mechanisms reflective of prison philosophy—a systemic paradigm that purports a discursive regime of social control and perpetuates a seemingly Hegelian master-slave dynamic of subjection, subservience, punishment, correction, and discipline.
Where is the actual correction? The discipline is there. The punishment is there. I am not arguing against the need for such. But again, where is the actual correction, especially in prisons where the guards are former prisoners and where there is a lot of corrupt dealings with prisoners that involve drugs and sex.
Lastly, you say that the people who claim the death penalty is a human rights violation have "no solid moral or philosophical foundation for making sucha statement." That, indeed, is vacuous.
If that is the case, then Christianity must be an absolute farce. The Gospel must be the silly imaginings of a people tripping on the illusion of their false ideals. And Christ, well, he was a straight-up criminal. His punishment by penalty of deah...that was simply justice at work for a man who got his due sanction.
Bro. Peach, writes: Regardless of your convincing argument to keep it in place, I just don't see it as an effective way of reducing crime.
No one disputes that executed murderers can never harm again. Not even you. In that regard, of course, it is a better protector of innocents. An important effect.
Furthermore, the 16 recent studies finding for deterrence, vary in their findings, in that they find from 4-28 innocents are saved, per execution. Let's say there are 30 executins per year and 4/execution are deterrened, or 120 innocent lives spared. In the US, with 16000 executions per year, that is less than 1%, so it may not even show up in reduced murder rates.
So, you can justly say "I just don't see it as an effective way of reducing crime."
I would respond, however, the innocent lives saved is huge.
The moral agency is never moot. On that we,certainly, disagree.
I never suggested the realization of moral agency was the end of the story. Quite the opposite, as was clear in my response.
Furthermore, it has been clear, for millenia, that what criminals tell us, regarding their self awareness or the holding of themselves responsible and of a changed morality has as much accuracy as the average lotto pick. It is not what they say or express that matters. What matters are their actions in prison and after release.
That, I think, we agree upon.
The problems with the prison system, I agree with.
We may have agreements and disagreements, re Foucault. I thought he was a nut on some issues.
Bro. Peach, writes: "The penal system is historically paradigmatic of the power apparatuses at work in any society as its doctrine of surveillance, labeling, and correction is a means of social control that is characteristic of the capitalistic police state in which we live."
Oh goodness, another anti capitalist anti USer. The most corrupt police states in history were likely Communist USSR, the Kmer Rouge's Cambodia and Mao's China. Police excesses can be found within all political and economic systems.
Possibly, the NGO that control governments may now merit the most concern, ie drug corruptions of Mexico and some South America countries, who often must extradict drug kingpins, because they can't or won't be prosecuted in their own countries.
However, you and I will not get into much disagreement on the problems with the prison system. The only thing worse is how victims are treated within the system.
Bro. Peach, writes: "Lastly, you say that the people who claim the death penalty is a human rights violation have "no solid moral or philosophical foundation for making sucha statement." That, indeed, is vacuous."
Show me. Use my essay on human rights and the death penalty. Happy to discuss it.
Bro. Peach, writes: If that is the case, then Christianity must be an absolute farce. The Gospel must be the silly imaginings of a people tripping on the illusion of their false ideals. And Christ, well, he was a straight-up criminal. His punishment by penalty of deah...that was simply justice at work for a man who got his due sanction.
You can't be that confused. The human rights argument is very weak indeed. In no way does that reflect on the Christian faith.
Christianity states that God/Jesus/ The Christ chose His own punishment, because it was the perfect sacrifice for the sins of man. Instead of man receiving his just execution, Jesus substituted for man.
Obviously, Jesus' execution was not a human rights violation. Perfect sacrifice by God can be nothing other than perfect. Do you disagree?
I get where you are coming from. I really do. It's obvious that your arguments are valid, credible, and damn-well backed up. But I'm sorry man, it just doesn't mesh well with me. It's an ideological difference, for sure.
But I gotta say: the human rights argument is a reflection of the major tenets of the Christian faith in its Roman Catholic expression. I subscribe to that ideology despite disagreements I have with some of the Church's teachings, I think its stance on the death penalty is grounded in more than mere reason, which is all you use to present your valid claims.
That said, your comment does do injustice to a religious system founded upon the teachings of a man who said we must "turn the other cheek" and "love our enemies."
Christ did not choose his punishment. He allowed it to happen because the people chose his punishment. Yes, it was part of a salvific plan that had Christ following God's will for him despite doubts up to the last minute and even while he was on the cross. That said, self-sacrifice is a central component of all the world's religions, but that does not mean a person's willingness to die precludes the fact that his freedom is compromised and his being is inflicted with undue harm and pain.
Thus Christ's execution was very much a human rights violation. This is where we disagree.
His willingness to sacrifice himself showed clearly the absurdity and inhumanity of the torture he underwent. He was wrongfully accused of treason--that is the historical reality of the crucifixion. Essentially a political threat to the reigning church and state institutions of his time, Christ, like any political prisoner who has undergone torture and death, gave of himself to a cause that involved imperfect man's inspired move towards perfection.
Again, his decision was a direct protest against the violations inflicted against him and his rights, as well as the society that prescribed to Hammurabi's code of justice.
I'm sure this all sounds flighty and absurd to you since you're operating from some hefty empirical evidence to argue that the death penalty is effective.
I'm just going to put it this way: violence begets violence. I don't deny the overall benevolence of this country at its human level. I'm no US hater, so don't cast me off like that hot-aired, fraudulant O'Reilly would.
I'm simply trying to uphold an ideal of democracy upon which this country was founded--a democracy that has been hijaked far too often by the people in power. We have the Bush Doctrine to see how much we fail to live by the things to which we pledge ourselves.
I think the legitimizing the death penalty only serves to keep an ultimately flawed system in place.
On this issue, we are simply going to have to agree to disagree.
It's a heart-thing for me, bro. Maybe that would change if I had a close family member brutally murdered by a criminal. But, then, what would I do with all this forgiveness talk in the Gospels?
Is punishment necessary? Yes. Is execution the end all and be all solution? Something tells me it isn't. You won't convince me otherwise despite how commendable I think your work is. It's evident that you are passionate about upholding justice for the common good. Amen, bro. I just see the means to reaching that common good differently than you.
Peace.
USCCB, 1980 statement on abolishing the death penalty
Introduction
In 1974, out of a commitment to the value and dignity of human life, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, by a substantial majority, voted to declare its opposition to capital punishment. As a former president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops pointed out in 1977, the issue of capital punishment involves both "profound legal and political questions" as well as "important moral and religious issues."1 And so we find that this issue continues to provoke public controversy and to raise moral questions that trouble many. This is particularly true in the aftermath of widely publicized executions in Utah and Florida and as a result of public realization that there are now over 5()0 persons awaiting execution in various prisons in our country.
The resumption of capital punishment after a long moratorium, which began in 1967, is the result of a series of decisions by the United States Supreme Court. In the first of these decisions, Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Court held that the death penalty as then administered did constitute cruel and unusual punishment and so was contrary to the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Subsequently in 1976 the Court upheld death sentences imposed under state statutes which had been revised by state legislatures in the hope of meeting the Court's requirement that the death penalty not be imposed arbitrarily. These cases and the ensuing revision of state and federal statutes gave rise to extended public debate over the necessity and advisability of retaining the death penalty. We should note that much of this debate was carried on in a time of intense public concern over crime and violence. For instance, in 1976 alone, over 18,000 people were murder ed in the United States. Criticism of the inadequacies of the criminal justice system has been widespread, even while spectacular crimes have spread fear and alarm, particularly in urban areas. All these factors make it particularly necessary that Christians form their views on this difficult matter in a prayerful and reflective way and that they show a respect and concern for the rights of all.
We should acknowledge that in the public debate over capital punishment we are dealing with values of the highest importance: respect for the sanctity of human life, the protection of human life, the preservation of order in society, and the achievement of justice through law. In confronting the problem of serious and violent crime in our society, we want to protect the lives and the sense of security both of those members of society who may become the victims of crime and of those in the police and in the law enforcement system who run greater risks. In doing this, however, we must bear in mind that crime is both a manifestation of the great mysteries of evil and human freedom and an aspect of the very complex reality that is contemporary society. We should not expect simple or easy solutions to what is a profound evil, and even less should we rely on capital punishment to provide such a solution. Rather, we must look to the claims of justice as these are understood in the current debate and to the example and teaching of Jesus whom we acknowledge as the Justice of God.
I. Purposes of Punishment
Allowing for the fact that Catholic teaching has accepted the principle that the state has the right to take the life of a person guilty of an extremely serious crime, and that the state may take appropriate measures to protect itself and its citizens from grave harm, nevertheless, the question for judgment and decision today is whether capital punishment is justifiable under present circumstances. Punishment, since it involves the deliberate infliction of evil on another, is always in need of justification. This has normally taken the form of indicating some good which is to be obtained through punishment or an evil which is to be warded off. The three justifications traditionally advanced for punishment in general are retribution, deterrence, and reform.
Reform or rehabilitation of the criminal cannot serve as a justification for capital punishment, which necessarily deprives the criminal of the opportunity to develop a new way of life that conforms to the norms of society and that contributes to the common good. It may be granted that the imminence of capital punishment may induce repentance in the criminal, but we should certainly not think that this threat is somehow necessary for God's grace to touch and to transform human hearts.
The deterrence of actual or potential criminals from future deeds of violence by the threat of death is also advanced as a justifying objective of punishment. While it is certain that capital punishment prevents the individual from committing further crimes, it is far from certain that it actually prevents others from doing so. Empirical studies in this area have not given conclusive evidence that would justify the imposition of the death penalty on a few individuals as a means of preventing others from committing crimes. There are strong reasons to doubt that many crimes of violence are undertaken in a spirit of rational calculation which would be influenced by a remote threat of death. The small number of death sentences in relation to the number of murders also makes it seem highly unlikely that the threat will be carried out and so undercuts the effectiveness of the deterrent.
The protection of society and its members from violence, to which the deterrent effect of punishment is supposed to contribute, is a value of central and abiding importance; and we urge the need for prudent firmness in ensuring the safety of innocent citizens. It is important to remember that the preservation of order in times of civil disturbance does not depend on the institution of capital punishment, the imposition of which rightly requires a lengthy and complex process in our legal system. Moreover, both in its nature as legal penalty and in its practical consequences, capital punishment is different from the taking of life in legitimate self-defense or in defense of society.
The third justifying purpose for punishment is retribution or the restoration of the order of justice which has been violated by the action of the criminal. We grant that the need for retribution does indeed justify punishment. For the practice of punishment both presupposes a previous transgression against the law and involves the involuntary deprivation of certain goods. But we maintain that this need does not require nor does it justify taking the life of the criminal, even in cases of murder. We must not remain unmindful of the example of Jesus who urges upon us a teaching of forbearance in the face of evil (Matthew, 5:38-42) and forgiveness of injuries (Matthew, 18:21-35). It is morally unsatisfactory and socially destructive for criminals to go unpunished, but the forms and limits of punishment must be determined by moral objectives which go beyond the mere inflicting of injury on the guilty. Thus we would regard it as barbarous and inhumane for a criminal who had tortured or maimed a victim to be tortured or maimed in return. Such a punishment might satisfy certain vindictive desires that we or the victim might feel, but the satisfaction of such desires is not and cannot be an objective of a humane and Christian approach to punishment. We believe that the forms of punishment must be determined with a view to the protection of society and its members and to the reformation of the criminal and his reintegration into society (which may not be possible in certain cases). This position accords With the general norm for punishment proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas when he wrote: "In this life, however, penalties are not sought for their own sake, because this is not the era of retribution; rather, they are meant to be corrective by being conducive either to the reform of the sinner or the good of society, which becomes more peaceful through the punishment of sinners."2
We believe that in the conditions of contemporary American society, the legitimate purposes of punishment do not justify the imposition of the death penalty. Furthermore, we believe that there are serious considerations which should prompt Christians and all Americans to support the abolition of capital punishment. Some of these reasons have to do with evils that are present in the practice of capital punishment itself, while others involve important values that would be promoted by abolition of this practice.
II. Christian Values in the Abolition of Capital Punishment
We maintain that abolition of the death penalty would promote values that are important to us as citizens and as Christians. First, abolition sends a message that we can break the cycle of violence, that we need not take life for life, that we can envisage more humane and more hopeful and effective responses to the growth of violent crime. It is a manifestation of our freedom as moral persons striving for a just society. It is also a challenge to us as a people to find ways of dealing with criminals that manifest intelligence and compassion rather than power and vengeance. We should feel such confidence in our civic order that we use no more force against those who violate it than is actually required.
Second, abolition of capital punishment is also a manifestation of our belief in the unique worth and dignity of each person from the moment of conception, a creature made in the image and likeness of God. It is particularly important in the context of our times that this belief be affirmed with regard to those who have failed or whose lives have been distorted by suffering or hatred, even in the case of those who by their actions have failed to respect the dignity and rights of others. It is the recognition of the dignity of all human beings that has impelled the Church to minister to the needs of the outcast and the rejected and that should make us unwilling to treat the lives of even those who have taken human life as expendable or as a means to some further end.
Third, abolition of the death penalty is further testimony to our conviction, a conviction which we share with the Judaic and Islamic traditions, that God is indeed the Lord of life. lt is a testimony which removes a certain ambiguity which might otherwise affect the witness that we wish to give to the sanctity of human life in all its stages. We do not wish to equate the situation of criminals convicted of capital offenses with the condition of the innocent unborn or of the defenseless aged or infirm, but we do believe that the defense of life is strengthened by eliminating exercise of a judicial authorization to take human life.
Fourth, we believe that abolition of the death penalty is most consonant with the example of Jesus, who both taught and practiced the forgiveness of injustice and who came "to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45) In this regar d we may point to the reluctance which those early Christians who accepted capital punishment as a legitimate practice in civil society felt about the participation of Christians in such an institution and to the unwillingness of the Church to accept into the ranks of its ministers those who had been involved in the infliction of capital punishment.4 There is and has been a certain sense that even in those cases where serious justifications can be offered for the necessity of taking life, those who are identified in a special way with Christ should refrain from taking life. We believe that this should be taken as an indication of the deeper desires of the Church as it responds to the story of God's redemptive and for giving love as manifest in the life of his Son
III. Difficulties Inherent in Capital Punishment
With respect to the difficulties inherent in capital punishment, we note first that infliction of the death penalty extinguishes possibilities for reform and rehabilitation for the person executed as well as the opportunity for the criminal to make some creative compensation for the evil he or she has done. It also cuts off the possibility for a new beginning and of moral growth in a human life which has been seriously deformed.
Second, the imposition of capital punishment involves the possibility of mistake. In this respect, it is not different from other legal processes; and it must be granted our legal system shows considerable care for the rights of defendants in capital cases. But the possibility of mistake cannot be eliminated from the system. Because death terminates the possibilities of conversion and growth and support that we can share with each other, we regard a mistaken infliction of the death penalty with a special horror, even while we retain our trust in God's loving mercy.
Third, the legal imposition of capital punishment in our society involves long and unavoidable delays. This is in large part a consequence of the safeguards and the opportunities for appeal which the law provides for defendants; but it also creates a long period of anxiety and uncertainty both about the possibility of life and about the necessity of reorienting one's life. Delay also diminishes the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent, for it makes the death penalty uncertain and remote. Death Row can be the scene of conversion and spiritual growth, but it also produces aimlessness, fear, and despair.
Fourth, we believe that the actual carrying out of the death penalty brings with it great and avoidable anguish for the criminal, for his family and loved ones, and for those who are called on to perform or to witness the execution. Great writers such as Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky in the past and Camus and Orwell in our time have given us vivid pictures of the terrors of execution not merely for the victim but also for bystanders.5
Fifth, in the present situation of dispute over the justifiability of the death penalty and at a time when executions have been rare, executions attract enormous publicity, much of it unhealthy, and stir considerable acrimony in public discussion. On the other hand, if a substantial proportion of the more than five hundred persons now under sentence of death are executed, a great public outcry can safely be predicted. In neither case is the American public likely to develop a sense that the work of justice is being done with fairness and rationality.
Sixth, there is a widespread belief that many convicted criminals are sentenced to death in an unfair and discriminatory manner. This belief can be affirmed with certain justifications. There is a certain presumption that if specific evidence of bias or discrimination in sentencing can be provided for particular cases, then higher courts will not uphold sentences of death in these cases. But we must also reckon with a legal system which, while it does provide counsel for indigent defendants, permits those who are well off to obtain the resources and the talent to present their case in as convincing a light as possible. The legal system and the criminal justice system both work in a society which bears in its psychological, social, and economic patterns the marks of racism. These marks remain long after the demolition of segregation as a legal institution. The end result of all this is a situation in which those condemned to die are nearly always poor and are disproportionately black.6 Thus 47% of the inmates on Death Row are black, whereas only 11% of the American population is black. Abolition of the death penalty will not eliminate racism and its effects, an evil which we are called onto combat in many different ways. But it is a reasonable judgment that racist attitudes and the social consequences of racism have some influence in determining who is sentenced to die in our society. This we do not regard as acceptable.
IV. Conclusions
We do not propose the abolition of capital punishment as a simple solution to the problems of crime and violence. As we observed earlier, we do not believe that any simple and comprehensive solution is possible. We affirm that there is a special need to offer sympathy and support for the victims of violent crime and their families. Our society should not flinch from contemplating the suffering that violent crime brings to so many when it destroys lives, shatters families, and crushes the hopes of the innocent. Recognition of this suffering should not lead to demands for vengeance but to a firm resolution that help be given to the victims of crime and that justice be done fairly and swiftly. The care and the support that we give to the victims of crime should be both compassionate and practical. The public response to crime should include the relief of financial distress caused by crime and the provision of medical and psychological treatment to the extent that these are required and helpful. It is the special responsibility of the Church to provide a community of faith and trust in which God's grace can heal the personal and spiritual wounds caused by crime and in which we can all grow by sharing one another's burdens and sorrows.
We insist that important changes are necessary in the correctional system in order to make it truly conducive to the reform and rehabilitation of convicted criminals and their reintegration into society.7 We also grant that special precautions should be taken to ensure the safety of those who guard convicts who are too dangerous to return to society. We call on governments to cooperate in vigorous measures against terrorists who threaten the safety of the general public and who take the lives of the innocent. We acknowledge that there is a pressing need to deal with those social conditions of poverty and injustice which often provide the breeding grounds for serious crime. We urge particularly the importance of restricting the easy availability of guns and other weapons of violence. We oppose the glamorizing of violence in entertainment, and we deplore the effect of this on children. We affirm the need for education to promote respect for the human dignity of all people. All of these things should form part of a comprehensive community response to the very real and pressing problems presented by the prevalence of crime and violence in many parts of our society.
We recognize that many citizens may believe that capital punishment should be maintained as an integral part of our society's response to the evils of crime, nor is this position incompatible with Catholic tradition. We acknowledge the depth and the sincerity of their concern. We urge them to review the considerations we have offered which show both the evils associated with capital punishment and the harmony of the abolition of capital punishment with the values of the Gospel. We urge them to bear in mind that public decisions in this area affect the lives, the hopes and the fears of men and women who share both the misery and the grandeur of human life with us and who, like us, are among those sinners whom the Son of Man came to save.
We urge our brothers and sisters in Christ to remember the teaching of Jesus who called us to be reconciled with those who have injured us (Matthew 5:43-45) and to pray for forgiveness for our sins "as we forgive those who have sinned against us. " (Matthew 6: 12) We call on you to contemplate the crucified Christ who set us the supreme example of forgiveness and of the triumph of compassionate love.
Notes
Statement on Capital Punishment, Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin, President United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, January 26, 1977. Cf. Community and Crime, Statement of the Committee on Social Development and World Peace, United States Catholic Conference, February 15, 1978, p. 8.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 11-11, 68, 1; tr. Marcus Lefebure, O.P. (London, Blackfriars, 1975).
Tertullian, De Idolatria, c. 17.
Code of Canon Law, Canon 984.
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act 11, Scene 1; Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot; George Orwell, "A Hanging'; Albert Camus, "Reflections on the Guillotine."
Cf. Charles Black, Jr., Capital Punishment (New York: Norton, 1974), pp. 8491.
Cf. The Reform of Correctional Institutions in the 1970s, Statement of the United States Catholic Conference, November 1973.
ro. writes: But I gotta say: the human rights argument is a reflection of the major tenets of the Christian faith in its Roman Catholic expression. I subscribe to that ideology despite disagreements I have with some of the Church's teachings, I think its stance on the death penalty is grounded in more than mere reason, which is all you use to present your valid claims.
Not, it is just only what I have sent. The Catholic stance on the death penalty, is, in no way, atttached to the human rights arguement, except humanistically or socially. Even then, my arguements against the "human rights violation" error are the same.
Catholic Scholars: Support for the Death Penalty
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
There are thoughtful writings on both sides of this debate, but the pro death penalty position is much stronger.
Recently deceased Avery Cardinal Dulles, in one of his final interviews, states that he thought the Church may return to a "more traditional posture" on the death penalty. "Recent popes, Dulles conceded, beginning with John XXIIII, seem to have taken quasi-abolitionist positions on both matters. Yet used sparingly and with safeguards to protect the interests of justice, Dulles argued, both the death penalty and war have, over the centuries, been recognized by the church as legitimate, sometimes even obligatory, exercises of state power. The momentum of "internal solidification," he said, may lead to some reconsideration of these social teachings." ("An unpublished interview with Avery Dulles", All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr., NCRcafe.org, Posted on Dec 19, 2008, at http://ncrcafe.org/node/2340)
Based upon the strength of the Catholic biblical, theological and traditional support for the death penalty as, partially, revealed, below, I think the Church will have to.
Even today, a Catholic in good standing can call for more executions, if their prudential judgements finds for that.
(1) "Capital Punishment: New Testament Teaching", 1998, Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., considered one of the most prominent Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century. See bottom.
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Sacred_Scripture/Sacred_Scripture_014.htm
"There are certain moral norms that have always and everywhere been held by the successors of the Apostles in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Although never formally defined, they are irreversibly binding on the followers of Christ until the end of the world." "Such moral truths are the grave sinfulness of contraception and direct abortion. Such, too, is the Catholic doctrine which defends the imposition of the death penalty."
"Most of the Church's teaching, especially in the moral order, is infallible doctrine because it belongs to what we call her ordinary universal magisterium."
"Equally important is the Pope's (Pius XII) insistence that capital punishment is morally defensible in every age and culture of Christianity." " . . . the Church's teaching on 'the coercive power of legitimate human authority' is based on 'the sources of revelation and traditional doctrine.' It is wrong, therefore 'to say that these sources only contain ideas which are conditioned by historical circumstances.' On the contrary, they have 'a general and abiding validity.' (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1955, pp 81-2)."
about Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
http://www.mariancatechist.com/html/general/stjohnhardon.htm
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/archives.htm
http://www.mariancatechist.com/html/general/fatherhardon.htm
http://www.saintphilomena.com/newpage4.htm
http://credo.stormloader.com/Saints/hardon.htm
(2) "The Death Penalty", by Romano Amerio, a faithful Catholic Vatican insider, scholar, professor at the Academy of Lugano, consultant to the Preparatory Commission of Vatican II, and a peritus (expert theologian) at the Council.
http://www.domid.blogspot.com/2007/05/amerio-on-capital-punishment.html
"Amerio has the great gift of going to the heart of a subject in a few lines and very neatly distinguishes genuine Catholicism from imitations and aberrations." "What makes Amerio's analysis unique is that he restricts himself to official and semi-official pronouncements by popes, cardinals, bishops, episcopal conferences and articles in L'Osservatore Romano, from the time of Pope John XXIII to 1985 when the book was originally written." (1)
titled "Amerio on capital punishment ", Chapter XXVI, 187. The death penalty, from the book Iota Unum, May 25, 2007
About Romano Amerio
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/176565?eng=y
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2006/02/romano-amerio-and-pope-benedict.html
http://www.latin-mass-society.org/2007/romanoamerio.html
http://www.angeluspress.org/oscatalog/item/6700/iota-unum
(3) "Christian Scholars & Saints: Support for the Death Penalty", at
http://www.homicidesurvivors.com/2006/10/12/catholic-and-other-christian-references-support-for-the-death-penalty.aspx
(4) "Capital Punishment: A Catholic Perspective",
by Br. Augustine (Emmanuel Valenza)
http://www.sspx.org/against_the_sound_bites/capital_punishment.htm
(5) "Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice", Prof. J. Budziszewski, First Things, August / September 2004 http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles4/BudziszewskiPunishment.shtml
(6) "The Death Penalty", by Solange Strong Hertz at
http://www.ourworld.compuserve.com/HOMEPAGES/REMNANT/death2.htm
(7) "A Seamless Garment In a Sinful World" by John R. Connery, S. J., America, 7/14/84, p 5-8).
(8) "God’s Justice and Ours" by US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, First Things, 5/2002
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2022
(9) Forgotten Truths: "Is The Church Against Abortion and The Death Penalty"
by Luiz Sergio Solimeo, Crusade Magazine, p14-16, May/June 2007
http://www.tfp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=957
(10) "The Purpose of Punishment (in the Catholic tradition)",
by R. Michael Dunningan, J.D., J.C.L., CHRISTIFIDELIS, Vol.21,No.4, sept 14, 2003
http://www.st-joseph-foundation.org/newsletter/lead.php?document=2003/21-4
(11) "MOST CATHOLICS OPPOSE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?",
KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER, Catholic Answers, March 2, 2004
http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040302.asp
(12) "THOUGHTS ON THE BISHOPS' MEETING: NOWADAYS, VOTERS IGNORE BISHOPS",
KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER, Catholic Answers,, Nov. 22, 2005
http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_051122.asp
Christian, non Catholic Scholars
(13) Chapter V:The Sanctity of Life, "Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics" By John Murray
http://books.google.com/books?id=phoqAAaGMpUC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA114&ots=mFvByHqGSy&dq=Murray+%22It+is+the+sanctity+of+human+life+that+underlies+the+sixth+commandment.%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html&sig=ACfU3U1b0mdM3BfpNSXnhrwFYXaE_9Ij9A
(14) "Capital Punishment: What the Bible Says", Dr. Lloyd R. Bailey, Abingdon Press, 1987. The definitive biblical review of the death penalty.
(15) "Why I Support Capital Punishment", by Andrew Tallman
sections 7-11 biblical review, sections 1-6 secular review
http://andrewtallmanshowarticles.blogspot.com/search?q=Capital+punishment
----------
Religious positions in favor of capital punishment are neither necessary not needed to justify that sanction. However, the biblical and theological record is very supportive of the death penalty.
Many of the current religious campaigns against the death penalty reflect a fairly standard anti death penalty message, routed in secular arguments. When they do address religious issues, they often neglect solid theological foundations, choosing, instead, select biblical sound bites which do not impact the solid basis of death penalty support.
Footnotes:
(1) Books: 'Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church', by Romano Amerio, Fr Peter Joseph (reviewer)
IOTA UNUM: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the 20th Century
by Romano Amerio (English translation by Fr John Parsons)
(Sarto House, USA, 786 pp)
Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 9 No 8 (September 1996), p. 14
---------------------
70% of Catholics supported the death penalty as of May, 2oo5, Gallup Poll, Moral Values and Beliefs. The May 2-5, 2005 poll also found that 74% of Americans favor the death penalty for murderers, while 23% oppose.
copyright 1999-2009 Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Bro Peach said: "your comment does do injustice to a religious system founded upon the teachings of a man who said we must "turn the other cheek" and "love our enemies."
No, I don't think they do.
"If Jesus elsewhere opposes capital punishment, then He is not only contradicting the Father but even His own words. "
"Typically, (the anti death penalty) view is that the harsh and mean God the Father of the Old Testament established execution, but the loving and kind God the Son of the New Testament abolished it."
"I’m pretty sure such people don’t realize they’re denying the Trinity when they say this."
"The doctrine of the Trinity affirms the eternal unity of all three persons of the Godhead, but such a fundamental disagreement between the Son and the Father would rupture this unity. In fact, if Jesus had contradicted any of the Father’s principles, let alone such a well-established one, that very disagreement would have immediately disproved His claims to be the divine Son."
"This was exactly the heresy the Pharisees were hoping to trap Him into when they brought the woman caught in adultery to Jesus. Even His enemies knew that He absolutely had to affirm capital punishment in order to prove Himself not a false prophet. "
"How truly strange, then, that those who claim to love Him assert that He did exactly what His enemies failed to trick Him into doing! Far from opposing capital punishment, Jesus actually advocated it, as His unity with the Father required."
"Matthew 5:17-18 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished.”
"Just a few verses later, He extends the prohibition against murder to hatred and condemns haters to “the hell of fire” in verse 22, which is very strange talk for someone who opposes capital punishment. It’s very hard to dismiss these verses because they occur smack in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, which is so often mistakenly offered as the repudiation of Old Testament justice."
"Later, Jesus scolds the Pharisees and scribes for teaching leniency toward rebellious children by quoting the Old Testament, “For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’” (Matthew 15:4)"
"Subsequently, when the Romans come to arrest Jesus, Peter rather ineptly tries to defend Him by killing Malchus, but only succeeds in slicing off his ear. Jesus rebukes him with the warning, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.” Far from advocating pacifism, as this passage is often misused to do, Jesus here teaches Peter that using the sword (for murder) will only get the sword used against him (for execution)."
"Shortly thereafter, Jesus tells Pilate in John 19:11, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above…” This authority to put Jesus to death would be odd if it didn’t entail the general power to execute criminals."
"Finally, when He is dying of crucifixion, Jesus accepts the repentance of the thief on the cross, who says to his reviling companion, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds….” (Luke 23:40-41)"
"Had Jesus disagreed with this statement, responding to it with the promise of eternal salvation was a rather obtuse way to express the correction."
"Beyond all this evidence that Jesus affirms the consistent Biblical principle of capital punishment, there is yet one more vital concept to grasp. Christians believe that Christ died on the cross to pay for the sins of us all."
"Although His sinlessness merited eternal life, He endured the death we deserved to extend that gift to us. As Prof. Michael Pakaluk so perfectly expressed the point, “If no crime deserves the death penalty, then it is hard to see why it was fitting that Christ be put to death for our sins….” If we didn’t deserve the death penalty ourselves, then why would Christ need to suffer it on our behalf in order to satisfy the justice of God? Denying the death penalty directly assaults the justice of the Father, Who required His own Son to pay precisely that price in our stead."
"What about the rest of the New Testament?"
"Since both Jesus’s teaching and His death affirm the capital punishment, it should come as no surprise that the rest of the New Testament reinforces this view."
"When confronting Governor Festus, Paul says in Acts 25:11, “If I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of these things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. He both affirms capital statutes and accepts them as binding on him if he has broken one."
"Later, in the New Testament’s most famous passage on the nature of government, Paul explains, “But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for [the government] does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.” (Romans 13:4)"
"Finally, the same Bible which begins in Genesis 9:6 with the establishment of capital punishment, then carries the theme consistently throughout the text, and ends by reiterating it in Revelation 13:10, “If any one is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if any one kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.”
"Literally from beginning to end, the Bible teaches that capital punishment is authorized and required by God."
From:
"Why I Support Capital Punishment", by Andrew Tallman
sections 7-11 biblical review, sections 1-6 secular review
http://andrewtallmanshowarticles.blogspot.com/search?q=Capital+punishment
also published at TOWHALL.com
http://townhall.com/columnists/AndrewTallman/2008/05/09/difficult_bible_passages_and_the_penalty_of_death
Bro Peach writes: "(Christ's" willingness to sacrifice himself showed clearly the absurdity and inhumanity of the torture he underwent. He was wrongfully accused of treason--that is the historical reality of the crucifixion. Essentially a political threat to the reigning church and state institutions of his time, Christ, like any political prisoner who has undergone torture and death, gave of himself to a cause that involved imperfect man's inspired move towards perfection."
Unture, no Catholic can rightly compare Christ's situation to an other.
Pope Benedict XIV "If to save us the Son of God had to suffer and die crucified, it certainly was not because of a cruel design of the heavenly Father. The cause of it is the gravity of the sickness of which he must cure us: an evil so serious and deadly that it will require all of his blood. In fact, it is with his death and resurrection that Jesus defeated sin and death, reestablishing the lordship of God." ("It Is Not 'Optional' for Christians to Take Up the Cross", 8/31/2008) http://www.zenit.org/article-23515?l=english
Bro. Peach writes: I'm just going to put it this way: violence begets violence.
In reality, some violence ends violence. That is not in dispute.
You are a very thoughtful person.
Thank you.
Peace to you, as well, most sincerely Dudley
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