Capital Punishment A Religious Debate Essay Research

Capital Punishment A Religious Debate Essay, Research Paper

Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is defined as the execution of criminals by the state, for committing crimes, regarded as so heinous that it is the only acceptable punishment; But is it acceptable both morally and religiously. In the past, people have invariably felt that if they had been wronged in some way, it was their own right to take it in to his or her own hands and have vengeance on the person that harmed them. The death penalty tie all the way back to biblical times. This mentality still exists today, only in a lesser form we call the judicial system. As a result of the law outlining some persons rights and developing punishments that conform to those rights, and yet allowing the retribution for their crime. However many people today feel that punishments given to criminals for crimes are to lax and easy and that because of this many people may take advantage of them. An example of which is organized crime. Knowing that the punishments for their crime, whether it is murder, theft or any number of criminal activities, will be worth it in the end may cause many to participate in these unlawful acts. Capital punishment creates a consequence that may alter people from committing these unlawful acts. The debate today involves the morality of capital punishment and much of that is coming from the churches and what the bible says about capital punishment. We need to understand the death penalty from a biblical perspective to truly grasp the idea of right and wrong.

I will begin by telling the story of convicted and executed John Wayne Gacy. Each day on death row, Gacy followed the same routine for fourteen years. Illinois has tried to execute him for these many years and finally did do so on May 10, 1994. (Podolasky, March 94 pg. 72). Gacy was convicted for the murder of thirty-three young men and boys that he had lured to his suburban ranch home, offering them jobs, money and or, drugs. After having sex with them he would drug them and proceed to strangling them or hanging them. Later he would bury the bodies in the crawl space of his home. In all twenty-seven bodies were found decomposing under his bathroom floor, the remainder of which were found in a river near his home. Although Gacy originally confessed later he took back his confession in stating that he was too large to fit into the crawl space. Gacy eluded his execution for fourteen years, during which he filed motions continuously to appeal his conviction (Podolasky, March 94 pg. 72). For the families of Gacy’s victims the death was long awaited. In biblical terms an example is God said to Cain, “What have you done. The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10). Justice was to be served quick and painless through lethal injection. Three chemicals were released into his blood stream intravenously. The first would knock him out and the following two would suppress his breathing and stop his heart. This is by far easier than the stoning which would occur in biblical times. The procedure was to take no more than five minutes but due to complications it would take Gacy eighteen minutes. Gacy snorted just before attendants pulled a curtain around him. Gacy had finally been executed…(Seidman, May 94 pg. 52).”Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man” (Gen. 9:5,6). Just as Gacy’s victims deaths were avenged as was Able’s. Is capital punishment so wrong if God himself was to do it not to compare mere human to God But as the scriptures state we were created by him in his own likeness.

Looking back through Gacy’s history a debate for and against capital punishment can be formulated. Gacy followed his same routine for fourteen years while on death row in the same grim confines (Podolasky, March 94 pg. 52). Perhaps this could be one of the most horrifying experiences held to death row inmates. Or Maby it is equal to that of his victims experiences they undergone in their final minutes.

“A moral indictment of the death penalty as a criminal sanction is the inevitability of the intense cruelty it perpetrates on those persons sentenced to be killed. The consequence is the agony of the death row usually keeping the convicted person caged and under the threat of death or anguished of reprieve from one year to more than a decade.” (Wahl, pg. 132)

Imagine for a moment the thoughts and nightmares a death row inmate would experience while awaiting execution. Could this be worse than the execution itself, living each day knowing that it would soon come to an end. In a situation such as this knowing when death will come is possibly worse than not knowing.

On the other side this is a person who has been fully tried and convicted to die, for what reason should society do anything but this. Maybe this itself will help act as a deterrent unlike s in most cases death is the only thing that in the eyes of many people that will account for retribution. I feel the most important reason for this is the idea a segregation. Not only does this remove criminals from the society so they cannot commit violent crimes again but it takes them out of the public eye