Logic Times

Hang 'Em High

Commentary by Aslan, 1/15/06, 10:06pm. Comments (9)

What is the rationale for capital punishment? Before deciding what capital punishment is, it is helpful to understand what it is not.

Capital punishment is not revenge, for revenge is "punitive action taken in return for an injury or offense," and clearly supporters of the victim are not taking any action whatsoever. Most victim’s family and friends are in fact abused by a system that dispenses justice at a glacial pace and fills the intervening years between crime and punishment with high-minded advocacy on behalf of the criminal and little regard for the victims (i.e., Tookie Williams).

Capital punishment is not hypocritical. In the words of intellectual lightweights like Mike Farrell, capital punishment does not "perpetuate a cycle of violence," hypocritically condemning killing by killing. This is the same twisted logic that does not differentiate between killing and murder, between innocence and guilt. If that rationale held true, then what hypocrisy that we punish kidnappers – criminals who have taken away someone's freedom – by incarcerating the criminal. Does this not perpetuate a cycle of bondage? And how can we levy fines on those that steal? This certainly perpetuates the idea of taking wealth by force. Executing a murderer no more promotes murder than fining a thief promotes thievery. The criminal act is in defiance of law and social order; the punishment upholds law and social order. The criminal act is malicious and harmful to the innocent; the punishment is dispassionate and harmful to the guilty.

For those who wish to consider the issue from a theological perspective, capital punishment is not anti-Christian. Certainly the Old Testament abounds with capital punishment, much of it imposed by God. For those who hold that the New Testament supplants the Old (not theologically accurate), Christ, who speaks at length on all aspects of morality, does not condemn it either. In fact, the central act of Christian theology is one of capital punishment. At the crucifixion, we learn in Luke 23:

40But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve." (emphasis added)

If ever Matthew, Mark, Luke or John wished to convey their Teacher’s opposition to capital punishment, certainly this was the time. In fact, the crucifixion is known as the Substitution, which is Christ taking upon Himself the legitimate (and necessary) capital punishment of mankind.

The key practical distinction in Christian theology is the difference between the individual and society, between sinful man and social justice. Each individual is a sinner and unfit to be a judge of their fellow man and thus counseled to love their enemy and not to pass judgment. Christ says in Matthew 5:

38"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles."

Christ is not suggesting that evil people be free from laws and punishment, He is presenting the new and liberating perspective of divine love on the personal level. Is He saying in Matthew above that there should be no laws against assault, thievery or kidnapping? Of course not; Christ advocated in Mark 12, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" when asked about paying taxes or, more broadly, the authority of the state. His moral instruction to individuals would be a recipe for anarchy at the state level and a rejection of the very idea of justice on which the whole of Christianity is based.

So capital punishment is not hypocritical revenge, it does not endorse violence and it is not opposed to Judeo-Christian theology. What then is it?

Capital punishment is a price tag, a very high price tag. A potential murderer shopping at this criminal justice Wal-Mart may likely think the price is too high in Texas, but not too high in Maine. This price tag shows how much society values life* and, conversely, frowns upon malicious taking of life. This price tag is the essence of deterrence.

(source)

In the hierarchy of value judgments, society declares murder, treason and desertion as the ultimate criminal behaviors to be condemned…and in this, society is wrong.

Murder, treason and desertion are deserving of capital punishment, but another crime is the most deserving of all: child molestation. No behavior is more reprehensible that an adult who sexually abuses a child. It is depravity beyond measure and a fit punishment that every child molester be executed without exception. One can envision legitimate mitigating circumstances for murderers and traitors – a crime of passion, a patriot on the wrong side of victory. No one anywhere can identify valid mitigating circumstances for a child molester. It is the one crime for which there is no conceivable excuse.

So, too, rehabilitation of murderers and traitors is within the realm of reason. Many who have murdered possess the potential to one day be trustworthy citizens again, and many have been so rehabilitated. On the other hand, recidivism rates on child molesters are astronomical, revealing a defective human being that is rightly ostracized and actively listed in databases to forever warn fellow citizens of their whereabouts, rehabilitated or not. For those opposed to executing child molesters, what life beyond their incarceration do you hope for them? None, of course – just a scarlet letter to identify and isolate the danger. This is because the job of punishment was left unfinished.

For those who have valued the Christian theology in this essay, Christ tells us in Matthew 18:

4[W]hoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."

Let society heed this advice.

But capital punishment for child molesters does one thing above all – it places a value on precious innocent life and it places the sexual abuse of children at the top of the list of horrific crimes that society will not tolerate. Those that argue that the child molester is mentally warped and immune to deterrence make a point, but it is a point that need only be made once. At last glance, there is no recidivism among executed molesters.

* Credit to Jim Quinn of the Warroom for this phraseology.

Comments

1: Paul

January 15, 2006 11:36pm EST

You covered quite a bit of ground in this essay, so let me hit just a couple of high points.

In this passage, Ecc 8:11 "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil," we find a large part of the deterrent that is missing in our judicial system. Not only does there need to be capital punishment, it also needs to be carried out quickly. The thoughts of languishing on death row for decades is no deterrent.

While I agree there should be some means of stopping the abominable practice of child molestation, we might do well to consider the definition of a child. Part of the need for a definition resides in my grandmother when she married at the age of 16. Another part resides in the Bar Mitzvah and the degree of maturity presumed at that age.

"The only Jewish "age of accountability" in traditional Jewish law is that of Bar/Bat Mitzvah: 13 years plus one day for boys, 12 plus a day for girls. The rabbis regarded evaluations concerning maturity as too subjective, although it was clear that physical maturity and accompanying signs also carried significance. Louis Jacobs notes that

strictly speaking, the signs of puberty are what count, but that the rabbis only made such a presumption of the presence of those signs at this specific age. There were some authorities which held people fully responsible only at the age of 20, but this was a decided minority. To the best of my knowledge, the age of 21 never had legal significance in Judaism."

There is a wide gap between physical maturity and mental maturity in our young people and our society is largely to blame. Without going into great detail, the absence of corporal punishment in the public school system and in American homes is probably one of the greatest contributors to the blame. Another area is the permissive society we have.

{Aslan: Paul, that passage from Ecclesiastes is amazing; I did not recall it. Very nice and, passage or no passage, the point is well taken – the death penalty today is miserably administered, yet it has shown some deterrent effect. Imagine how a death penalty swiftly administered (after automatic, expedited appeal) would impact deterrence!

As for your comments about child molestation, definitions would be everything. The last person my comments are intended to target is an 18 year old dating a mature 15 year old or some other teen misrepresentation. My focus is small children, where the crime moves from teen mischief to what I consider the greatest abomination. I did not think it productive to dive into definitions in the essay (and I am hardly qualified to do so), but you are nonetheless right: definitions are critical.}

2: Kruelhunter

January 16, 2006 10:18am EST

To my mind the one salient fact regarding capital punishment that must always be kept in mind is that the individual executed for an act that society deems worthy of death will never, ever, ever commit that act again. If capital punishment prevents others from committing such acts so much the better. If not, well, perhaps the proclivity to commit the act in question is genetic in nature in which case that trait may well eventually be expunged from the human gene pool.

{Aslan: An intriguing point, Kruel. Deterrence actually does not matter from this perspective; recidivism is the issue. If you know you are going to get 100 assaults from the typical child sex offender, just think of the impact of capital punishment on so many lives. I like it.}

3: David Ozenne

January 16, 2006 12:12pm EST

Show me the EVIDENCE!

"Recidivism rates on child molesters are astronomical." This is a statement in need of some statistics to back it up. It is certainly the conventional wisdom, but that does not make it true.

Recidivism rates among shoplifters are astronomical. Car thieves and burglars have high recidivism rates. Relatively speaking, those among murderers and rapists are low. Child molesters appear to have low short-term recidivism and somewhat higher long-term recidivism. Those who molest related children actually have quite low recidivism.

I don't have time to put together the references right now, but I'm sure you can find some if you look.

{Aslan: I accept your criticism because the value of the Blogosphere is that we usually provide the evidence for our assertions, and I did not. That was lazy. And, as you suggest, it was because I did accept it as conventional wisdom…that happens to be true. Jack Levin is a well respected authority on child sexual crimes and states that "The typical child sex offender attacks more than 100 children" (here). These are the people I want executed after one attack. As Paul said, it is all about definitions, but, damn it, let’s accept the premise – that serial abusers of small children should be executed – and worry about the details afterwards.}

4: Howard N

January 17, 2006 10:24pm EST

Well said. And to put it in simple schoolyard terms, "If you choose not to play by the rules of the game (of LIFE), expect to be banished from the field, or to be put in detention for severe misbehavior."

{Aslan: Yes, and can anyone describe for me a worse violation of rules that the sexually abuse a small child. I cannot.

}

5: David Ozenne

January 18, 2006 11:37am EST

One more point:

The penalty for crimes other than murder must always be less than the penalty for murder, and child molestation is no exception. Imposing the death penalty for molestation makes killing the witness a good idea.

{Aslan: I can and do respect brilliant observations, such as this one, even when I disagree with them. This point never came into my calculus in support of the death penalty for child molesters. However, I think your point holds true only if murder is punished less than another crime. As long as the two are equal, your point doesn't stand. However, they are not equal in today's society, as the death penalty is ineptly applied in a small fraction of murder cases. I concede a point – as capital punishment is currently applied, introducing into this system wholesale capital punishment for child molestation would produce the result you describe.

Theoretically, with capital punishment being applied to the murder of children 100% of the time, I stand by the moral imperative that capital punishment also be applied to molesters of children 100% of the time.

Good comment!}

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