Is Capital Punishment Justified?

Crime has permeated society ever since the beginning of time. History's first murderer, Cain, committed the first homicide after killing his brother. Along with crime comes punishment and deciding on the forms of punishments to be meted has been one of the most long-standing arguments humanity has faced. Several questions must be asked before condemning an accused murderer. Most important of all these is Has the accused earned the penalty?

As a Christian, turning to the Bible is imperative to know exactly on what grounds we stand. What does God say about capital punishment? Leviticus has been called the lawbook of the Bible, describing in minute detail all the procedures Israelites must follow as His chosen nation. Among these we see God's list of crimes punishable by death: adultery, prostitution, desecration of holy ground, child abuse, spiriticism, and cursing. Some may point out that in the rare instances where the punishment was death, it was God who killed them not man. How can one state that man has no right to kill another man in return for taking someone's life when God Himself gave the command to carry out the death penalty for apparently petty felonies as cursing etc? In comparison to modern day justice system, Israel's divinely-instituted judicial system was far more harsher and stricter. Even today, in Mid-Eastern countries, crime rates are very low, due mainly to the severe punishment the lawbreaker receives. So as far as arguing that we have not the right to take a life when one has been previously taken, it is built on precarious grounds and ultimately undefendable.

Both I Peter and Romans3 contain God's instruction to believers to obey and submit to authorities in position over them. God does, however, state that whenever a ruler goes against His wishes, it is our duty to obey God rather than man. This is the only exception and as servants of God, we are also servants of the government, which was set up by God. This, however, does not imply that governments are faultless and impeccable. On the contrary, due to man's evilness and perverseness, corruption and dishonesty predominate in this day and age. But why should the imperfect administration of justice persuade us to abandon any attempt to attain it? It is like throwing out the baby with the bath water. Discrimination and disproportionality may be present in the contemporary judicial systems, but the death penalty must be carried out to those who have been required to pay a just penalty for their atrocious crimes.

Life imprisonment has been presented as a reasonable alternative but it fails when it comes to adequately protecting society, whereas capital punishment, when properly and efficiently applied, does so with certainty. Countless murderers are paroled from their life imprisonment, free to do as they wish, which as proven before, might end up in other murders. How insane can society get? It's like disarming a criminal, and ten minutes later, returning his gun, loaded and ready to fire. Clearly, sentencing criminals to life in prison is not the solution.

Others may cite the unconstitutionality of the death penalty, claiming that it violates the law against cruel and unusual punishment. This can be easily countered by the fact that executions nowadays are relatively painless. But so what if it wasn't? The criminal convicted to die has brutally murdered people, sometimes mutilating and torturing his victims horribly. Don't tell me we ought to execute them painlessly, with so much dignity, you'd think we were sorry for him and were wanting forgiveness. Losing the anger or indignation can be destructive to a society, causing them to be too tolerant of evil. Right and wrong has mixed into one big area called Relativism. They become so blended you can't tell black from white; everything is gray. This is the ultimate downfall of a society. They will be numbed to wrong and accept acts of violence and immorality as just another fact of life, no more condemnable than stepping on an ant.

Numerous persons argue that the death penalty only doubles the murder statistics, yet it must not be left out that in return, it prevents additional homicides from occurring again. Capital punishment is not murder but rather an act of self-defense. Defending society from being tormented by more of these heinous crimes is the duty of the state and if death must be administered in the process, then do it. Death is final; from it there is no return. After a citizen has been killed, nothing can bring him back to those he loves. Curing is beyond the question. What must be considered now is preventing it from happening again. "It is sharp medicine," said Sir Walter Raleigh as he tested the keen edge of the ax while awaiting execution.

Today, we may have changed the medicine prescribed for society's illness, but it is a contested point whether we are any farther on the road to cure those diseases for which our antecedents administered the sharpest medication in the legal pharmacopoeia.