Killing the Death Penalty and Losing Our Moral Nerve

"When a murder occurs, the community is obliged, regardless how unpleasant, to clear its throat as it were and declare a communal response. Yale professor of computer science David Gelernter, who was letter-bombed in June 1993 and nearly lost his life, has put the matter clearly. We execute convicted murderers in order to make a communal proclamation: namely, that murder, an evil so terrible and so utterly defiling to a community, is intolerable. An execution forces the community “to assume forever the burden of moral certainty; it is a form of absolute speech that allows no waffling or equivocation. Deliberate murder, the community announces, is absolutely evil and absolutely intolerable, period.”

But there is a fundamental problem here—a problem that eclipses the deep and contentious philosophical debates surrounding the death penalty. The problem is our culture’s unwillingness to pass moral judgments. Morally speaking, we have grown accustomed to equivocating, and in so doing we have cut ourselves off at the knees. American society’s moral evasiveness begins with its indifference to the moral marker “Thou shalt not murder.” The Torah, it must be remembered, does not forbid taking the life of a human being; rather, it forbids murder. Indeed, Jewish and Christian moral traditions concur in acknowledging justifiable forms of homicide, such as self-defense, civilian protection, resisting insurrection, and just war. In a morally courageous society, this list would be extended to include executing those who commit the ultimate in human crime.

Harry Weller, Senior Assistant State’s Attorney for the state of Connecticut, who represented the state’s interests in the appeal of Connecticut’s first death sentence in 30 years, argues that “when society convicts someone of murder it cannot ‘turn away its eyes’ but must impose the sentence required by law.” In this regard he cites the contemporary relevance of the eleventh-century Jewish commentator Rashi, who warns that one cannot act in a cowardly manner by transforming the victimizer into a victim. For Rashi and for Weller, it is morally inexcusable for society to say, “One citizen is already dead. Why should we take the life of another?”Despite the potential for error and the complexities surrounding capital punishment, the state has not only the right but a duty to deter and punish violent criminals while protecting its law-abiding citizenry. Any potential victim of a murderer deserves nothing short of the highest protection, which only the existence of the death penalty offers."

--J. Daryl Charles, Capital Crime and Punishment: Reflections on Violating Human Sanctity