The Grip of Grips

I oppose the death penalty. Other than vengeance, I see no purpose being served by the state sanctioning a killing as a response to another killing. “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” said the Lord, in both the Old and New Testament versions of himself. Just in case he means what he says, I think it’s ill advised for us to horn in on his territory.

I don’t think there’s a shred of evidence to support the theory that the threat of the death penalty serves to deter crime. The criminal mind doesn’t work that way, at least not in my mind. There’s too much need, greed, pain, sickness, anger or rage at work in those minds to weigh out the risk vs. benefit equation. I know that I’m much more likely to be deterred by the thought of spending a few decades dancing a role in the prison ballet, Bedtime with Bubba. And when the holidays come around, I don’t want to be anybody’s Sugar Plum Fairy.

The other obvious problem with state sanctioned killing is that we’re are not smart enough to get it right all the time, and this is an area that pretty much requires a perfect scorecard. Our judicial system is human through and through and that makes it susceptible to error through and through, error that can range from simple negligence to gross negligence to intentional misconduct on the part of defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges and juries. Just one fact is sufficient to make this case – since 1973 there have been more than 120 death row inmates not just reprieved from execution but freed from prison altogether as a result of evidence establishing their innocence, particularly DNA evidence. I’m confident that another 120 “dead man walking” candidates will walk out of prison in the future. What stops me dead in my tracks is the realization that it’s possible, if not probable, that 120 innocent men may have been executed in the past.

I could, however, find myself making one exception to my opposition – for heads of state who commit large-scale barbaric crimes against humanity. This is where I tee up Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia and the Republic of Yugoslavia. His gruesome role in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, culminating in the war in Kosovo in 1999, has been well documented. He brought the phrase “ethnic cleansing” into the English lexicon. It can easily be said that we need to be cleansed of anyone who engages in ethnic cleansing.

But this brings us back to where we started, with the word of God in biblical form. The above quote from Deuteronomy 32:35, along with its repetition in Hebrews 10:30 – 31, has more to say. Deuteronomy advises, “In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.” Hebrews concludes, “The Lord will judge his people. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Two days ago, Slobodan Milosevic fell into the hands of God, who executed judgment in his due time. God didn’t need our help in exacting vengeance in the form of a shortened life. If God elects to exact his vengeance in some form other than a shortened life, who are we to say, “That’s not right.”

We know that our lives are in God’s hands at all times; that’s where they should stay. So let it be written; so let it be done.