The Bible requires the death penalty for a wide variety of crimes, including sex before marriage, adultery, homosexual behavior, doing work on Saturday and murder. It even calls for some criminals (e.g. prostitutes who are the daughters of priests) to be tortured to death by being burned alive. Most Christians, with the exception of those in the Reconstructionist movement, feel that many of these grounds for the death penalty no longer apply to Christian societies. U.S. However, Bible passages are still used to promote the retention of capital punishment for murderers; some advocate that homosexuals also be executed.
Justice/Vengeance Many people feel that killing convicted murderers will satisfy their need for justice and/or vengeance. They feel that certain crimes are so heinous that executing the criminal is the only reasonable response.
Deterrence Many people feel that the death penalty will deter criminals from killing. This does not seem to be confirmed by an analysis of the available data. However, it feels intuitively correct for many people. 1 to 6
Value of human life: "It is by exacting the highest penalty for the taking of human life that we affirm the highest value of human life." (Edward Koch).
Cost: Once a convicted murder is executed and buried, there are no further maintenance costs to the state.
Safety: Once a convicted murderer is executed, there is no chance that he will break out of jail and kill or injure someone.
AGAINST
The Bible: Some Christians feel that they are no longer bound by the legal codes of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that the death penalty is no longer required. Since the Bible was written, as society became more tolerant, we eliminated the death penalty for pre-marital sex, practicing a different religion, engaging in prostitution, homosexual behaviour, blasphemy, rebellion by teenagers, etc. We should eliminate it for murder as well. Abolitionists quote Jesus' treatment of the adulteress in the Gospel of John as support for their position. (That passage, John 8:7, was probably not written by the author(s) of John)
Effect on society: Some feel that permitting premeditated murder is totally unacceptable, even if done by the state. Capital punishment lowers the value of human life as seen by the general population and brutalizes society. It is based on a need for revenge. It "violates our belief in the human capacity for change....[It] powerfully reinforces the idea that killing can be a proper way of responding to those who have wronged us. We do not believe that reinforcement of that idea can lead to healthier and safer communities." 7
Lack of Deterrence: The death penalty has not been shown to be effective in the reduction of the homicide rate. There are some indications that executions actually increase the murder rate. 1 to 6
Cost: The costs to the state of funding appeals by convicted murderers would more than pay for their permanent incarceration.
Value of human life: Human life has intrinsic value, even if a person has murdered another individual. The death penalty denies the sacredness of human life. Live is so precious that nobody should ever be killed, even by the state.
Unfairness: The mentally ill, poor, males, and racial minorities are over-represented among those executed. One pilot study of over 2 dozen convicted criminals on death row found that all had been so seriously abused during childhood that they probably all suffered from brain damage. Women convicted of murder are almost never executed; that is a penalty that is almost entirely reserved for men. A 1986 study in Georgia showed that persons who killed "whites were four times more likely to be sentenced to death than convicted killers of non-whites." 8,9,10 The Texas Civil Rights Project issued a report in 2000-SEP which was critical of the justice system in Texas. They made six criticisms which could probably apply to most of the states in the U.S. which still execute prisoners: The defence lawyers are often incompetent. Judges sometimes appoint friends or political associates. Other times, no competent lawyer is willing to accept the case because of the poor compensation paid.
District attorney is given "unrestricted discretion" in deciding whether to seek the death penalty. Poor people and members of minority groups are more likely to be targeted because of prejudice and bigotry.
Jurors who may support the death penalty, but have reservation about its use, are eliminated from jury duty.
Jurors are often not given the option of a life-without-parole sentence in murder cases.The appeal process has "burdensome, if not impossible, procedures." The process seems designed to speed cases along rather than grant justice.
The rules appear to be in flux: the highest appeals court in the state reversed about one out of every three capital sentences prior to 1995. Since 1995, this has reduced to less than 3%.
The operation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles in Texas is severely flawed. They do not meet as a group to study evidence and discuss a case. Individual members are sent stacks of documents, and make their decisions via telephone or fax. 11
Chance of Error: Many convicted murderers are later found innocent, and have been pardoned. It is impossible to pardon a corpse. In 1987, a study was published by the Stanford Law Review. They found some evidence that suggested that at least 350 people between 1900 and 1985 in America might have been innocent of the crime for which they were convicted, and could have been sentenced to death. 139 "were sentenced to death and as many as 23 were executed."
Horror: Some consider capital punishment to be cruel and unusual punishment.
Sending a person to Hell: Some Christians believe that an individual who dies without being "saved" will go to Hell for eternal punishment. By killing the person before the time when they would have naturally died, we are eliminating any chance that they might have for salvation.
The family of the prisoner is victimized and punished by having their loved one murdered by the state. Yet the family is usually innocent of any crime.
Lack of convictions: Some jury members are reluctant to convict in murder trials because of the possibility of executing an innocent person. Thus, many killers go free and are never punished.
ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
The Abolition Movement
Rare and short-lived experiments with abolition occurred in ancient and medieval times, but an effective movement can be said to date from the time of Becerra’s "Essay on Crimes and Punishments" (1764). Thirteen of the jurisdictions that had abolished capital punishment by 1960 had previously ceased to apply it for peacetime offences in the 19th century, and 20 more since 1900. Sporadic returns to the penalty had occurred in some of these states after an earlier experiment with abolition, just as sporadic experiments with abolition had occurred in several jurisdictions that had the penalty in 1960. Restoration was usually due to alarm over some brutal crime or an increase in criminality; its beneficial effects have never been demonstrated.
March 1957. As a half measure, Parliament passed the 1957 Homicide Act. This limited the death sentence to five categories of murder and was generally seen as a fiasco.
These were :
Murder committed in the course or furtherance of theft.
Murder by shooting or explosion
Murder whilst resisting arrest or during an escape.
Murder of a police or prison officer.
Two murders committed on different occasions.
23rd July 1957. John Vickers becomes the first to be executed under the provisions of the new Act.
15th August 1963. The last hanging in Scotland was that of 21-year-old Henry Burnett who was executed at Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan.
13th August 1964. Peter Anthony Allen (at Walton Prison Liverpool) and Gwynne Owen Evans - real name John Robson Walby, (at Strangeways Prison Manchester) become the last to be hanged. The executions taking place simultaneously at 8.00 a.m.
9th November 1965. Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act passed which suspended capital punishment for 5 years. Treason, piracy with violence and arson in Royal Dockyards remained capital crimes.
December 1969. Parliament confirmed abolition of capital punishment for murder.
7th July 1986. Kevin Barlow (along with Australian Brian Chambers) were hanged in Malaysia's Pudu prison in Kuala Lumpur for drug trafficking. The first Briton to die for this offence.
21st July 1989. Derek Gregory becomes the second and to date, last Briton to die for drug trafficking, also in Malaysia.
10th July 1992. Tony Teare became the last person to be sentenced to death in the UK for a contract killing in the Isle of Man. The sentence was commuted to life in 1994.
1994. The last vote on re-introduction of the death penalty was defeated by 403 votes to 159.
April 16th 1996. John Martin Scripps becomes the last Briton to hang, for murder in Singapore.
1998. Death penalty abolished for crimes committed under military jurisdiction.
20th May 1998. On a free vote during a debate on the Human Rights Bill, MPs decided by 294 to 136, a 158 majority, to adopt provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights outlawing capital punishment for murder except "in times of war or imminent threat of war". The Bill incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into British law.
27th January 1999. The Home Secretary (Jack Straw) formally signed the 6th protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights in Strasbourg, on behalf of the British government formally abolishing the death penalty in the UK. It had been still theoretically available for treason and piracy up to then but it was extremely unlikely that even if anyone had been convicted of these crimes over the preceding 30 years that they would have actually been executed. Successive Home Secretaries had always reprieved persons sentenced to death in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man where the death sentence for murder could still be passed and the Royal Prerogative was observed.
