Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Faith Leaders and Capital Punishment

    The first Faith Leaders Advocacy Day, organized by Jabari Paul, brought clergy and other leaders together to meet with legislators on a number of issues.  I attended along with others representing Tallahassee Interfaith Clergy and the Tallahassee Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. 
    Unitarian Universalists have supported an end to the death penalty since 1961, following resolutions adopted by the General Assembly in that year. I prepared the talking points below for presentation to the lawmakers faith leaders visited today, it was distributed under the title Capital Punishment Reform.  


If we seek to promote a higher moral path, we should be willing to take that moral path ourselves. State sanctioned capital punishment has the effect of lowering the value of human life, which lowers the moral fabric of society for all, whatever their beliefs. A Quaker group suggests that It "violates our belief in the human capacity for change....[It] powerfully reinforces the idea that killing can be a proper way of responding to those who have wronged us. We do not believe that reinforcement of that idea can lead to healthier and safer communities." 

If we affirm value of every human life, the death penalty denies the sacredness of human life. Life is so precious that nobody should ever be killed or murdered, even by the state. 

The disparity in representation on death row calls into question our ability to live up to the moral principle of affirming every human life.  The following statements are from the Rev. Emory Hingst:
  1. “Persons of color are a considerably higher percentage of the Florida Caucasian population and has been since statistics have been kept. This discrepancy has continued for decades despite the Civil Rights Reforms of the 1960’s and 70’s. 
  2. Persons of lower economic income means in our culture constitute virtually the entire population of Florida’s Death Row as the accused, without adequate financial resources do not receive adequate investigative and legal assistance for trial. The American Bar Association has proposed changes to ameliorate this lack of fairness in several approaches for many years with minimal change to date.
Our attitudes toward capital punishment have evolved in the crucible of American freedoms. Since the Bible was written, society has changed its attitudes toward what deserves the death penalty. “We eliminated the death penalty for pre-marital sex, adultery, practicing a different religion, engaging in prostitution, homosexual behavior, blasphemy, rebellion by teenagers, etc. We should eliminate it for murder as well.”

Can any of us escape the need for mercy?  In John 8 Jesus turns aside a verdict of death by stoning. The river that runs through us all carries love and hate, and inspiration for wonderful acts of mercy as well as the capacity for murder.  When we accept our own faults, we have room to offer compassion to those who have committed crimes, as well as their victims.
“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ ...When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” 

As human beings, we have limitations and our judgements delivered through the court system are liable to grievous error.  Innocent men and women have been executed by the state.  In Florida, thirteen people formerly on death row, have been exonerated with DNA evidence. Those thirteen served 259 years in prison for crimes they did not commit, and they stood to lose their lives for crimes they did not commit. Just as murder victims cannot be brought back to life, so too, an innocent person, once executed, cannot be brought back to life.

There are effective, moral alternatives to capital punishment.  When Cain murdered his brother Abel, God set several punishments around him, and made him a wanderer; and he also put a mark on him that would protect him from the murderous intent of others.  In our day, one alternative to capital punishment is life imprisonment which creates a painful isolation from society.  In addition, life imprisonment is less costly to the state than nearly endless cycles of appeal.  

There is no evidence that the state can protect people from crime with capital punishment. The sentence of life imprisonment appears to be at least as effective as capital punishment in deterring crime. Florida is second only to California in the number of people awaiting the death penalty.  There are 411 men and women on death row in Florida.
  Lest, we think that Florida is more murderous than almost every other state in the union, note that Florida ranks seventeenth in murders.

Coupled with all the concerns above - especially the disparity in sentencing - it is hard to escape a conclusion that the state’s continued use of capital punishment continues a long and devastating history of racial bias in our country.  As people of faith we seek to extend love and compassion to all, without bias.