Another Look At Capital Punishment

Capital punishment—the very phrase spells controversy. It points to a crime pronounced worthy of death. Civil laws in the various states and by the Federal government allow the death penalty for a wide variety of crimes:

• Murder
• Treason
• Aggravated kidnapping
• Drug trafficking
• Aircraft hijacking
• Placing a bomb near a bus terminal
• Espionage
• Aggravated assault by incarcerated, persistent felons or murderers
• Killing or attempts to kill any officer, juror or witness in cases involving a continuing criminal enterprise
• Sexual battery or attempted battery with injury to a child under 12
• Rape of a child less than 10 (some laws say 12, others 14)
• Second conviction for sexual intercourse without consent accompanied by serious bodily injury

The death penalty in the United States is used almost exclusively for the crime of murder. Although state and federal statutes contain various capital crimes other than those involving the death of the victim, only two people were on death row for a non-murder offense (Patrick Kennedy and Richard Davis in Louisiana) when the U.S. Supreme Court addressed this issue in 2008. No one has been executed for such a crime since the death penalty was re-instated in 1976. In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, held that the death penalty for the rape of an adult was "grossly disproportionate" and an "excessive punishment," and hence was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. The Court looked at the relatively few states that allowed the death penalty for rape and the few death sentences that had been handed down.  

Some states passed new laws allowing the death penalty for the rape of a child. In 2007, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for Patrick Kennedy for the rape of his step-daughter, STATE OF LOUISIANA v. PATRICK KENNEDY (No. 05-KA-1981, May 22, 2007). Kennedy was convicted in 2003. However, Louisiana's law was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 25, 2008. See Kennedy v. Louisiana for more information. This decision also held that the death penalty would be disproportionate for any offense against an individual that did not involve death of the victim.

So far the United States. What about the Bible and Jewish civil laws in the days of the New Testament? We come across the following in John 8.

Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" - Jhn 8:2-5 ESV

What laws were those? And why? Here's what we read in the Old Testament about crimes deserving the death penalty:

• Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death. 

• Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. - Lev 24:16-17 ESV 

• For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

• If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.  

• If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. 

• If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 

• If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. 

• If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. 

• If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. - Lev 20:9-16 ESV

What kind of laws were those? Death for cursing your parents? Death for adultery? Death for homosexuality? Death for perverted sex with an animal? Death for blasphemy? We need to take a serious look at these laws and ask ourselves as Christians how to view them. What, if anything, does the Holy Spirit teach us in our day?

More on this next time.