Capital punishment

[sallybutler]

Why? After you earn your paycheck, having it taken for the benefit of criminals is OK? Are you altruistic toward human predators?

I don’t want my money used to kill someone. Also, it apparently costs less to keep them incarcerated than it does to execute them.

Money is not the reason I’m against it. The soul of the executioner is (or if you don’t believe in souls, the damage to their humanity). The possibility of killing someone who later is proven innocent is.

 

[Ender]

I don’t want my money used to kill someone. Also, it apparently costs less to keep them incarcerated than it does to execute them.

This may be true is some states, it is not true in others (e.g. Virginia).

Money is not the reason I’m against it. The soul of the executioner is (or if you don’t believe in souls, the damage to their humanity).

This is not a concern shared by the church.*Only evil people do violence against evil people. But this is quite different from those who must act because of their position in society. A judge must often condemn some to be executed even though he is not pleased with the necessity. As far as he can he avoids the shedding of blood, but at the same time he must protect the public order. To use violence in such instances is part of the duties of his profession. *(Augustine)

The possibility of killing someone who later is proven innocent is.

There is no risk free option; both employing and avoiding capital punishment include the possibility that innocent people will die as a direct result of that choice. In fact, if your concern is with the innocent, you should support the expanded use of capital punishment as the number of people executed since 1976 (when it was resumed) where there is even a suggestion of their innocence is smaller than the number of innocents killed every year by recidivist killers.

Ender

 

[nmgauss]

I don’t want my money used to kill someone. Also, it apparently costs less to keep them incarcerated than it does to execute them.

Money is not the reason I’m against it. The soul of the executioner is (or if you don’t believe in souls, the damage to their humanity). The possibility of killing someone who later is proven innocent is.

If Death Row incarceration were streamlined so that execution could take place promptly, this kind of expense could be no more than ordinary incarceration. Keeping somebody on Death Row for years is what costs so much.

The risk that an innocent person may be executed is an inherent aspect of our imperfect justice system. Perfection in our justice system is not achievable since it is being run by imperfect people. If we worried about risks, we would never do anything.

 

[sallybutler]

Since I could not be the executioner, I don’t feel right about asking someone else to do it.

 

[Ender]

Since I could not be the executioner, I don’t feel right about asking someone else to do it.

I could never be an undertaker, but that doesn’t prevent me from appreciating that there are people willing to take on these roles.

Ender

 

[sallybutler]

I could never be an undertaker, but that doesn’t prevent me from appreciating that there are people willing to take on these roles.

Ender

Why?

But you go to funerals. Would you be willing to watch someone be executed? Would you be willing to participate in the process? Would you be willing to pull the switch or put the drugs into the delivery process?

 

[Ender]

Why?

Because it is necessary.*What is more hideous than a hangman? What is more cruel and ferocious than his character? And yet he holds a necessary post in the very midst of laws, and he is incorporated into the order of a well-regulated state; himself criminal in character, he is nevertheless, by others’ arrangement, the penalty of evildoers. *(Augustine)
Ender

 

[sallybutler]

If it is necessary, than you should be open to the possibility of doing it.

I understand not wanting to be an undertaker because it is distasteful and gross. But I would have no problem doing it, especially if it was either the only job available to me or there was no one else available to do it. I have buried pet animals.

However, there are several professions that I have moral problems with that others think are necessary. These include prostitution, abortions, drug dealing, payday loan brokers, etc. Not all of those are illegal in all states, so it isn’t because of the legality of them that I wouldn’t do them.

 

[Ender]

If it is necessary, than you should be open to the possibility of doing it.

There is no logical reason why I should be willing to take on every job I find necessary. I could not be a policeman, for example. Nor does my willingness or unwillingness to enter a particular profession have anything to do with determining whether that profession is necessary or appropriate. What difference would it make if I said I would be willing to push the button that injected the lethal dose into a prisoner being executed? Would that change anything? Does that in any way address the morality of executions?

Could I push the button? Yes. Does it matter? No.

Ender

 

[sallybutler]

I respect your position since you would be willing to be an executioner. I hope you understand that I do not feel right putting you in that position as long as non lethal methods of punishment exist. And, if I understand Church teaching, we should only resort to lethal punishment when there are no non lethal punishments available.

 

[nmgauss]

I respect your position since you would be willing to be an executioner. I hope you understand that I do not feel right putting you in that position as long as non lethal methods of punishment exist. And, if I understand Church teaching, we should only resort to lethal punishment when there are no non lethal punishments available.

Is punishment the major goal in handling criminals? I thought ridding society of these parasites is more to-the-point.

 

[Ender]

… if I understand Church teaching, we should only resort to lethal punishment when there are no non lethal punishments available.

What is at question here is your (and other’s) understanding of church teaching. What I have been emphasizing is that a simple reading of CCC 2267 does not provide an adequate understanding of church doctrine.

Ender

 

[sallybutler]

Is punishment the major goal in handling criminals? I thought ridding society of these parasites is more to-the-point.

Based on that logic, maybe we should just kill ALL criminals and let God sort them out.

Yes, punishment is the major goal. That is why we have different sentences, depending on what we determine to be the severity of the crime. It is why we say someone has paid their debt to society after they have completed their sentence.

 

[Ender]

Yes, punishment is the major goal. That is why we have different sentences, depending on what we determine to be the severity of the crime.

This is true, but now apply this concept to your understanding of 2267. If we are obligated as a matter of justice to apply a punishment that fits the crime, how are we to interpret the fact that 2267 ignores this requirement and focuses solely on protection from future crimes?

Ender

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Based on that logic, maybe we should just kill ALL criminals and let God sort them out.

Yes, punishment is the major goal. That is why we have different sentences, depending on what we determine to be the severity of the crime. It is why we say someone has paid their debt to society after they have completed their sentence.

What about total reprobates that are beyond rehabilitation?

 

[loveandlight]

I believe that all life is a precious gift from god no matter how much Man’s Sin has abused or used that life to follow the path of the Devil and not the Lord. We should remember that God’s mercy is beyond even our own limits of understanding and that while we should condemn the Sin we should not condemn the life the gift that God has given to this world. From conception to the day we leave this Earth God’s path is there for us all no matter how far we stray all should have the opportunity to embrace the Lord in their life until their last breathe.

I have done case work for people who have committed some of the most heinous of crimes on death row but to extinguish Gods gift of life from this earth is to stray from God himself. We should show the mercy and the compassion God has in his hearts for all of us. The law should be there to protect all of us from danger but our faith should be there to help spread the word and mercy of the Lord to all.

xx

 

[CrossofChrist]

Where is this asserted?

Which part?

Anyway, here’s what Romano Amerio has to say: From St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas to Taperelli d’Azeglio, the traditional teaching is that the decision as to the necessity and legitimacy of capital punishment depends on historical circumstances, that is, on the urgency of the need to hold society together in the face of the disruptive behavior of individuals who attack the common good. (Iota Unum 187)

This has nothing to do with punishment in general, however, and it is not correct to imply that punishment is determined solely or even mostly by historical context.

The way punishment is applied does. The greater good must always be achieved.

As to the justness of a punishment, that is dependent on whether its severity is appropriate to the severity of the crime; it must be neither too lenient nor too severe. Since the severity of (at least) the crime of murder cannot change with time, if capital punishment for such a crime was ever just then it is always just, even if it is frequently unwise to use it in specific instances. You cannot use a prudential objection (it won’t benefit modern societies) to a doctrinal definition (the severity of the punishment must be commensurate with the severity of the crime). That something is just but unwise does not make it unjust.

I didn’t say capital punishment is unjust.

The problem with this (unsupported) assertion is that it addresses only one of the four objectives of punishment while totally ignoring the other three. This is the problem with 2267, which essentially does the same thing. I’ll point out, again, that defense is merely a secondary objective of punishment. Why should not a concern with the primary objective be more important?

My understanding is that more than just physical defense is meant when 2267 uses “defense” in the first sentence. I think Evangelium Vitae shows quite nicely that a proper sentence will obtain all four objectives of punishment.

Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfils the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people’s safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behaviour and be rehabilitated. (Evangelium Vitae 56)

CCC 2265 says the following: The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

And Evangelium Vitae 55-56 again: *Moreover, **“legitimate defence **can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life, the common good of the family or of the State”.44 Unfortunately it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life. In this case, the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose action brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason. 45

1. This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty.*

This is the point where words start to lose their meanings. 2267 asserts something that seems demonstrably unsupported by history and, in order to overcome that problem, you have had to introduce concepts that have nowhere been advanced by any Church document, and reshape the actual words into something you find more reasonable. As much as anything else I think this shows the tenuousness of your position.

I don’t think so. Clearly the traditional way of explaining capital punishment breaks up “defense” into retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and (physical) defense against the criminal. But it seems to me that the Catechism has chosen to explain it more broadly under the title of defense.

• In fact, however, the Pope says nothing against the traditional doctrine…It is at least plausible to think, with Professor Steven Long, that when the Pope speaks of the protection of society as grounds for using the death penalty, he may have more in mind than mere physical defense against the individual criminal.* - Avery Dulles, SJ

 

[nmgauss]

I believe that all life is a precious gift from god no matter how much Man’s Sin has abused or used that life to follow the path of the Devil and not the Lord. From conception to the day we leave this Earth God’s path is there for us all no matter how far we stray all should have the opportunity to embrace the Lord in their life until their last breathe.
xx

To create a sick baby is not a gift but a condemnation of a person to a potential miserable existence. If a baby is born with a defective brain or without any brain or with fetal alcohol syndrome or an addiction to narcotics or develops epilepsy or schizophrenia, is this to be interpreted as a gift? My brother has suffered from schizophrenia most of his life and is essentially a ward of the state living in a mental hospital. What kind of gift is that?

Does the precious gift of life extend to non-humans? Does it make sense for 99% of all baby crabs to be eaten by non-humans before they have a chance to reproduce? What kind of gift is that?

In Jesus day, 50% of human babies died before they were five years old. And the remains of these babies have revealed often miserable living conditions with concomitant starvation, pain, and suffering. What kind of gift results in a miserable life?

 

[loveandlight]

In Jesus day, 50% of human babies died before they were five years old. And the remains of these babies have revealed often miserable living conditions with concomitant starvation, pain, and suffering. What kind of gift results in a miserable life?

I’m adopted I was from an unwanted pregnancy of a young couple who kindly decided to put me up for adoption instead of having an abortion. Sadly I ended up in a broken home with abusive Dad and step mum after my adoptive parents got divorced. Despite a childhood that left me miserable and mentally impacted on I am still very grateful for God’s gift of life and to be here and not terminated in the womb.

Life is the most precious of all gifts on Earth and like a gift from a loved one and in this case the most loved one of all it should be treasured and protected.

 

[nmgauss]

I’m adopted I was from an unwanted pregnancy of a young couple who kindly decided to put me up for adoption instead of having an abortion. Sadly I ended up in a broken home with abusive Dad and step mum after my adoptive parents got divorced. Despite a childhood that left me miserable and mentally impacted on I am still very grateful for God’s gift of life and to be here and not terminated in the womb.

Life is the most precious of all gifts on Earth and like a gift from a loved one and in this case the most loved one of all it should be treasured and protected.

How does your own personal experience cause you to conclude that life is the most precious of all gifts?

My life can be characterized as having been heavily burdened with the task of pleasing my mother. As a child, my life was her project, and often it did not please me. So, was my life a gift to me or to my mother? My mother told me that I owed it to my father to contribute to the support of the family. At the age of twelve, I had a newspaper route, and my earnings were taken away from me. So, again, was life a gift to me, or was it a gift to my family?