Religious Conservatives and the Death Penalty

Thomas Berg

[In the first half of 2000], the administration of the death penalty, surprisingly, became a first-tier national issue. … The current questioning of the death penalty is distinctive because much of it comes from political conservatives like Robertson who support capital punishment in principle, but who now worry that innocent people may be executed because of among other things, incompetent representation by appointed counsel. The Republican governor of Illinois, a death penalty supporter, declared a moratorium in his state because thirteen men sentenced to death there in the last twenty years had been determined to be innocent. The Republican assembly in New Hampshire repealed the death penalty, although the Democratic governor vetoed the repeal. And columnist George Will painted out to his fellow conservatives that capital punishment “is a government program, a skepticism is in order.” These concerns have affected public opinion; in Gallup Polls in February and June 2000, support for the death penalty dropped to 66%, the lowest level in nineteen years and down from 80% in 1994. About 80% of Americans believe an innocent person has been executed in the last five years.

What conservatives think about capital punishment, therefore, has become a subject of considerable interest. This paper focuses on the ideas and views of one large segment of conservatives: theologically conservative Christians, often labeled as the “Religious Right.” According to conventional wisdom, conservative Christians are the most fervent supporters of capital punishment in America today. The anecdotal evidence is plentiful. Theologian Harvey Cox remembers watching a convention of the Christian Coalition on C-SPAN, where “the most thunderous applause anybody got was for saying, ‘We really have to get tough with the death penalty. We have to [use] capital punishment more and more.’” In a published collection of official religious statements on the death penalty, the mast theologically conservative bodies all approved the use of the death penalty, while the moderate to liberal mainline Protestant denominations all opposed it. Pat Robertson, in his symposium address at the College of William and Mary, continued to Support the death penalty in principle. In the summer of 2000, even as other conservatives voiced their doubts, the increasingly fundamentalist Southern Baptist Convention explicitly endorsed capital punishment for the first time as “a just and appropriate means of punishment.”

Yet the anecdotes and the statements of leaders and official bodies may not give a true picture of the opinion of rank-and-file Americans. Opinion surveys suggest that theologically conservative Christians do not support the death penalty, much more than do most other Americans, and that one set of theological conservatives— traditionalist Roman Catholics—supports it noticeably less. In the 1998 National Election Study (NES), 75% of Americans favored the death penalty, 56% strongly. By contrast, “Catholic traditionalists” supported the death penalty at a far lower rate; only 65% favored it, and 24% “strongly opposed” it. “Traditionalists” were defined as respondents who believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and who attend church regularly. That level of support is lower than for any major group in the survey except African-Americans (58% support, 25% strongly opposed). Catholic traditionalists were far more skeptical of capital punishment than were other Catholics, 76% of whom supported it and only 14% of whom were strongly opposed. Other polls confirm that the more conservative a Catholic is theologically—for example, the more she accepts the Bible as divinely inspired (and presumably also accepts the teaching authority of the Pope and bishops)—the more she is likely to oppose capital punishment.

Even the figures for “evangelical Protestants” differed very little front those of Americans overall; 80% supported capital punishment, 60% strongly. Nor did they differ much from the figures for “secularists,” 76% of whom indicated support, 64% strongly. Of course, many questions remain concerning these figures. Categories such as “evangelical” and “traditionalist” need to be carefully defined. Some parts of the sample have fairly high margins of error. Even if other Americans support the bare existence of the death penalty just as much as conservative Protestants do, the latter may be more willing to impose it regularly and with less concern for flaws in the process. Since overall support for the death penalty has fallen significantly even since 1998, it would be interesting to know if it has fallen proportionately among religious conservatives. But the figures at least suggest that theologically conservative Christians, who are unquestionably politically “conservative “ on matters such as gay rights and abortion, do not support the death penalty noticeably more than does the rest of America, and that some of them support it quite a bit less. …

On the conservative Protestant side, in 1998 both Robertson and Jerry Falwell made unsuccessful efforts to stop the execution in Texas of Karla Faye Tucker, who was convicted of committing two brutal murders with a pickax, but who became a born-again Christian while in prison and appeared to have experienced a sincere transformation. The intervention of those leaders was quite surprising. About a year later, Robertson, in a speech in New York City, further voiced his discomfort with the death penalty and the “air of unseemly vengeance “ that accompanied Tucker’s execution. [H]e suggested that conservatives who oppose abortion and euthanasia “need to be pro-life across the board. “‘ Many commentators at the time suggested that Robertson’s concern extended to Karla Tucker only because of “her whiteness, her femaleness, her photogenic Christianness,” and would not extend to prisoners on death row in general. But others thought that the Tucker case might mark a “turning point “ in American attitudes toward the death penalty, because of “the challenge her execution posed to Christian conservatives who support the death penalty in principle. “Donald Tabak, a leading opponent of the death penalty, predicted that Falwell and Robertson’s stance on Karla Tucker would “make[] it seem legitimate for other social conservatives to rethink the death penalty.” Shortly after Tucker’s execution, the leading evangelical Protestant magazine in America, Christianity Today, published an editorial calling for the abolition of the death penalty on the ground that it had “outlived its usefulness.” Then at the William and Mary Symposium, Robertson restated his doubts about executions, although Falwell spoke with him in response and opposed the death penalty moratorium.

The purpose of this essay is to discuss whether these years might indeed represent a turning point in religious conservatives’ attitude toward the death penalty. … This essay analyzes how conservative religious believers have approached, and are likely to approach, the death penalty, and what arguments or developments might convince religious conservatives that it is indeed wrong in current circumstances. …

Theological Conservatives’ Approaches to the Death Penalty

I begin by examining some of the recent thinking about the death penalty among conservative Christians: conservative Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Before taking those two groups in order, I first say some brief words about a source of authority on which both of them rely: the Bible.

(A) Traditionalist Roman Catholic Approaches

For Roman Catholics, an important, perhaps crucial, role in interpreting the biblical message is played by the Pope and the bishops, the “magisterium” of the Church. This teaching authority is especially respected by theologically conservative or traditionalist Catholics. While “liberal” Catholics tend to give weight to personal experience as well as secular sources, one of the defining features of traditionalists is their deference to the magisterial teaching, which represents the ongoing authority of Christ. Pope John Paul II, in particular, has the respect of traditionalist Catholics because of his reaffirmation of traditional positions on controversial issues such as abortion, birth control, and women’s ordination.

For more than a millennium, the Church officially endorsed the death penalty. Some early Christian writers condemned it under the Fifth Commandment (“thou shalt not kill”), but after Christianity became intertwined with the Roman Empire, capital punishment became a “deeply entrenched” policy for the Church and the state, especially during the assaults on various heresies from the 1000s through the 1200s. Thomas Aquinas said that just as a physician “beneficially amputates a diseased organ if it threatens the corruption of the body,” so the ruler “executes pestiferous men justly and sinlessly [to protect] the peace of the state.” The 1566 Roman Catechism endorsed the death penalty as a “lawful slaying,” adding that its “just use,”

far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence.

This passage remained the central official teaching on the death penalty well into the twentieth century. It endorsed vengeance, as well as deterrence, as rationales for the death penalty, and authorities cited it as a blessing not only for the use of capital punishment, but for its widespread use. At the same time, however, there were always countering themes from Christian thinkers like Augustine, who defended the right of the state to kill in the abstract but always argued for clemency in each case.

Until recently, the longstanding teaching that the death penalty was legitimate led traditionalist Catholics to support it enthusiastically. Opposition to the death penalty, which was first voiced by Enlightenment intellectuals like Beccaria and Voltaire, came to be associated with other modernist attacks on religion’s historic doctrines and “traditional values.” A 1956 dissertation defending the death penalty on traditionalist grounds said that calls to abolish it were based on “the modern errors of individualism, rationalism, and sentimentalism.” Moreover, as Thomism became the authoritative philosophical framework for Catholic thinkers in the late 1800s, Aquinas’ views on particular matters, such as his strongly expressed support for the’ death penalty, became authoritative as well.

All this has changed quite dramatically in the last thirty years. The Pope and the American bishops have taken a vigorous position against the death penalty. The bishops issued a series of statements beginning in 1980, when they asserted that “In the conditions of contemporary American society, the legitimate purposes of punishment do not justify the imposition of the death penalty,” and began to intercede to ask that particular executions be cancelled. In 1983, Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago included opposition to the death penalty along with life to abortion and euthanasia among his so-called “seamless web” of propositions, the “consistent ethic of life.” The effect of the bishops’ activities, though, was somewhat limited. Many conservatives thought that the bishops’ conference was too receptive to liberal political ideology, and that the “consistent ethic of life” would dilute the strength of the Church’s campaign against abortion. As Bernardin put it: “Some of the people ... accused me of down-playing abortion, just making it one issue among many.” However, when Pope John Paul II weighed in strongly against capital punishment in the 1990s, the matter Was different. The Pope had more credibility with conservatives because of his office, his record of challenging Communism (especially in his native Poland), and his reaffirmation of traditional teachings on family and sexual ethics.

The Pope’s critique of capital punishment crystallized in the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), demands close attention. ... Nevertheless, there is something unsatisfying in the way Evangelium Vitae ends up reducing its analysis of capital punishment to considerations of incapacitation and deterrence. The key paragraph points in a different direction when it states that “[t]he primary purpose” of punishment “is ‘to redress the disorder caused by the offence.’” But the Pope fails to pursue this idea, instead turning quickly to the prevention of harm. Thus, he does not confront the criticism that the only adequate way to address and correct the disorder caused by murder is to take the murderer’s life; only execution can embody and symbolize the seriousness with which society views the intentional taking of innocent life. As natural law ethicist Russell Hittinger has argued, this “medicinal” purpose of punishment, the healing of society, also figures prominently in historic Catholic teaching.

However, there is a strong conservative rejoinder that the death penalty, as actually practiced in modern times, fails miserably to serve the medicinal purpose of restoring society’s health and order, and instead degrades society further. The argument rests on the Pope’s general warning in Evangelium Vitae about a “culture of death” in which the taking of life, through means such as abortion and euthanasia, is common and is defended as legitimate. In such a society, as one conservative who agrees with the Pope put it, “the imposition of the death penalty ends up demonstrating . . . that yet more life is valueless, yet more life can be thrown away.” “[I]n that kind of society, to continue to exact the death penalty is not medicinal but poisonous.” There are many reasons to think that the death penalty as practiced cheapens the value of life rather than upholds its sanctity. For example, the presentation of victim impact statements to the jury naturally implies that some victims’ lives are worth more than others, and it calls on the duty to measure even the murderer’s life in a flawed way. Likewise, when the application of the death penalty systematically values white victims more than black victims, and white murderers more than black murderers—and when the public realizes that this is so—the message undermines the inherent value of life rather than affirming it. And when innocent people are sentenced to death, often because of inadequate, underfunded legal representation, the message could hardly be clearer that some human life is cheap.

... Critics give several reasons why the Pope’s condemnations of the death penalty might have only persuasive rather than binding force. First, he himself presents them more as arguments than as authoritative declarations. Evangelium Vitae’s extremely strong pronouncements against abortion and euthanasia are accompanied by verbal formulas that signal claims to finality “approaching that of infallible definitions,” in the words of one leading theologian. “[B]y the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops, “ the Pope declares abortion and euthanasia to be “grave” wrongs, on the basis of “natural law…, the written Word of God…, the Church’s Tradition and… the ordinary and universal Magisterium.” The statements condemning the death penalty, though strongly felt and closely reasoned, are less emphatic and formal. Second and related, the condemnation of capital punishment, as we have seen, does not reflect a long tradition of teaching. As many scholars of Catholicism have emphasized, the concept of papal infallibility rests not simply on the authority of one man, but on the idea that in such instances he is endowed with the protection against error that Jesus gave to the Church. This suggests that teaching should be propounded or widely accepted for some time before it attains authoritative status. Cardinal Ratzinger’s comments on the encyclical indicate that the doctrine concerning capital punishment is “undergoing development,” not that it has reached a settled state where opposition to the practice is binding on all Catholics.

Nevertheless, for the reasons given earlier, the magisterial statements on capital punishment will be taken as non-binding by many Catholics, even by many traditionalists committed in principle to papal authority. The Pope seems aware that the debate is in a relatively early stage and therefore presents his claims as arguments rather than as declarations of the Church’s mind. The effects of his claims will rest significantly, as Father Dulles puts it, “in their persuasiveness to the audience he is addressing—not merely Catholics, but all persons of good will.” In other words, for the magisterial teaching to turn many Americans against the death penalty, it will have to be reinforced by and intertwined with non-theological arguments as well. Americans, including Catholics, will have to come to believe that innocent people are likely to be executed, or that racial bias and other arbitrary factors too greatly affect whether a defendant is put to death.

(B) Evangelical Protestant Approaches

Turning to discuss how Protestant conservatives approach the death penalty, we first run into a problem of definition. There is a wide range of features that might define a Protestant as being theologically conservative or “traditionalist.” For example, one common term for conservative Protestants, “evangelicals,” encompasses a dizzying range of groups from pacifist Mennonites to Religious-Right fundamentalists to African-American Pentecostals. “However, there are at least three themes common to most of these groups, themes that make them part of an “extended family” of traditionalist Protestants. The first common feature has already been noted above: “biblicism,” an emphasis on the Bible, divinely inspired, as a direct, specific guide for belief and practice; we have briefly discussed the biblical passages and the difficulties in drawing specific guidance from them without putting them in some historical or theological context. Thus, it is worth moving on to other features common among evangelical Protestants.

A second common theme is evangelicals’ emphasis on “personal redemption”: that the individual person can receive salvation from sin through God’s forgiveness and grace, followed by personal transformation and a direct relationship with God. This focus, embodied most dramatically in the many waves of Christian “revivals” throughout American history, is especially concerned with “the personal appropriation of [God’s] grace—with the conversion and the ‘new life’ that follows the ‘new birth.’” A leading evangelical theologian calls this “the Gospel of reconciliation and redemption” running from God to human beings.

In addition to these key themes of biblical authority and personal spiritual redemption, leading evangelical scholar Mark Noll has identified two other key features of how evangelicals think about social and political issues in particular. Noll emphasizes the “moral activism “ of evangelicals, their willingness at certain times to raise a political position to the level of a moral crusade, tirelessly pursued. In the last 150 years in America, movements to abolish slavery, do away with the gold standard, prohibit liquor, and limit the teaching of Darwinism in schools were all mounted primarily by evangelical Protestants. And while evangelicals withdrew from social and political activism during some periods (for example, during the two decades after the famous Scopes evolution trial of 1925) they have been intensely active in the last twenty years in the form of the Religious Right. This capacity for moral activism and fervor is one reason why it is worth asking whether evangelicals could be moved against the death penalty. If such fervor turned to the abolition or reform of capital punishment, it could have significant power. Indeed, perhaps only individuals with such religious energy could have the stamina to overcome the public attitudes and inertia that combine to undergird the death penalty.

Finally, Professor Noll remarks on evangelicals’ tendency to rely on “populism [and] intuition” in approaching politics.” This factor raises important questions about authority and cohesion among evangelicals, and I will now address its relation to the death penalty debate. After that, I will discuss how the remaining factor identified above—the evangelical emphasis on “personal redemption”—might also affect their views on the death penalty.

Evangelicalism as a “Democratic” Movement: Populism and “Common Sense” Intuition

Unlike Roman Catholics, evangelicals do not have a single institutional body speaking theologically for their community, let alone an individual like the Pope, who so speaks. Instead, American evangelicalism is a complex “mosaic” of many different groups with different leaders who enjoy influence not because of an institutional position, but because of their ability to appeal to the rank-and-file of believers. … Evangelicals have refused to give much weight to the statements of institutional religious leaders; instead, they have insisted that the average individual can understand and apply the Bible and Christian principles by his or her own common sense. As Noll puts it, the political positions that evangelicals have taken over the years have often rested on “intuitive conceptions of justice.” Evangelicals in general have trusted their sanctified common sense more than formal theology, systematic study of history, or deliverances from academically trained ethicists.

These tendencies toward populism and “common sense” intuition have two implications relevant to the current reexamination of the death penalty. First, even if some evangelical leaders such as Pat Robertson were to become deeply and actively opposed to the death penalty, they will be limited in their ability to bring others along with them. Even such a prominent figure as Robertson represents only a small part of evangelicalism. And although many conservative evangelicals admire Pope John Paul II for his traditionalist stands on some moral issues, they are not likely to treat his condemnation of capital punishment as binding on them. …

This brings us to the second implication of evangelical populism approach for the death penalty debate. The reliance on “common sense intuition has advantages, especially in keeping Christian faith vital among average people rather than just among the committed few. But it also means that evangelicals’ religious attitudes can be strikingly shaped by the culture surrounding them rather than by the distinctiveness of the Christian message. What seems to be simply common sense is typically the product of cultural assumptions so natural that one does not even see that they exist, like the air we breathe. A prime example in modern politics is how so many southern white Protestants failed to overcome the racial prejudices of their region during the civil rights era, notwithstanding the New Testament teaching that “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek.” …

With respect to the death penalty, then, we should expect white evangelicals’ attitudes to fall in line with the general attitudes of their regions. Southern evangelicals will be more pro-death penalty. They will tend to harmonize their religious attitudes with the greater acceptance of state violence in this region. They will achieve that harmonization by emphasizing the biblical passages that endorse or assume capital punishment, rather than the themes that undercut it or severely limit it.

The populist and intuitive orientation of white evangelicals thus suggests that efforts to turn them against the death penalty cannot rely predominantly on theological arguments from religious leaders. Criticisms also will have to rely heavily on arguments that appeal simply to individuals’ intuitive “common sense.” In other words, conservative Protestants, like other Americans, will probably be as much or more influenced by factors such as the threat of executing innocent people, the inadequacy of representation of capital defendants, and the racial and other arbitrary disparities in sentencing. …

At the same time, there are also biblical and theological grounds, as well as “common sense” grounds, for condemning the flaws in the current system. As has already been mentioned, the historic Jewish practice in capital cases required a “certainty of guilt” and showed great “reluctance” to execute, for example, by requiring two eyewitnesses in order to convict and requiring that the witnesses themselves carry out the execution. The biblical practice also showed concern for equal justice, stipulating that neither rich nor poor should have an advantage in legal proceedings. As evangelical scholar Daniel van Ness has argued, the current practice fails to provide such safeguards. … [W]hile simple common sense can identify some of the flaws in the current administration of the capital system, the common-sense criticisms might be significantly bolstered among evangelical Protestants by specific appeals to standards found in the Bible.

Theological Challenges to the Death Penalty: Grace and Personal Redemption

So far, the argument concerning evangelicals has been largely negative: they cannot be turned against the death penalty by theological arguments alone, but must be convinced on a practical level as well, and the practical arguments primarily challenge the administration of the death penalty rather than challenging its basic morality. Nevertheless, theology is still relevant. One central theological theme in evangelical religion can join with practical arguments to challenge the very existence of capital punishment, or at least severely limit it. This theme is what I have called “personal redemption”: the evangelical emphasis on divine mercy and grace, and the idea that God can forgive and redeem even the worst sinner. This emphasis stems from the classical Protestant doctrine that one is saved not by one’s goodness or merit (“works”), but by accepting (in “faith”) God’s gift of forgiveness, made possible because Jesus died to take the punishment for human sins. The theme of redemption by grace runs throughout the history of American evangelicalism, especially in the tradition of “revival” services continuing from nineteenth-century camp meetings to the sophisticated modern campaigns and the television shows of Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and the Promise Keepers.

One has to be careful, of course, in suggesting that concepts of grace and forgiveness apply to the sphere of law and politics without qualification. In mainstream Christian doctrine, grace is unmerited: God forgives us in his mercy, even though we deserve condemnation, no matter what our sins. Of course, the very existence of law and punishment must rest on some notion that the offender receives a sanction he deserves, and that he must in fact receive that sanction in order to vindicate the law and deter others from misconduct. Nevertheless, concepts of grace and forgiveness can apply, not to abrogate punishment altogether, but to prescribe imprisonment instead of execution. Two points stand out.

First, by ending the offender’s life, capital punishment logically reduces his life to the act he has committed, and it denies the possibility of redemption. Capital punishment not only reduces the time in which remorse and rehabilitation are possible. In addition, the lack of possible rehabilitation serves as a key aggravating factor under many capital statutes. This logical feature of capital punishment conflicts with the Christian assertion that redemption is always possible. Thus, evangelicals who question the death penalty point out that however brutal the crime, “we must never forget the power of grace and mercy,” and that “[t]aking the life of the offender only removes the possibility of remorse, repentance, and penance.” Jesus’ reaction to the adulterous woman may not be a “proof text” in itself against capital punishment, but it does generally support the argument that “[r]ather than demanding vengeful punishment, we are to show forgiveness, compassion, and the opportunity for repentance.” …

For this reason, the execution of Karla Faye Tucker posed a challenge to many evangelical Protestants such as Pat Robertson. As Sister Helen Prejean put it, Tucker, with her conversion and prison activities, “embodie[d]” the principle of redemption, that even a murderer could be “transformed.” But evangelicals cannot coherently limit their desire for clemency to someone like Tucker, for the power of the evangelical message lies in the claim that the redemptive power of Jesus can extend to any human being, no matter how depraved. In Sister Prejean’s words, Tucker’s case forced evangelicals to consider the “possibility that perhaps every human being is more than the worst act of their lives, and that they can be open to redemption.” Robertson’s address at this symposium dramatized the difficulty. He continued to support the death penalty in principle, but reaffirmed his opposition to applying it to someone such as Tucker who truly had transformed. Then came the obvious question from the audience: given the unlimited power of God, how do you know that any given death-row convict, no matter how unrepentant now, would not be similarly transformed in the future? Robertson candidly admitted that he had no answer to that question.

Second, the Christian doctrine of grace asserts that forgiveness has a healing power that no other approach to evil has. It therefore challenges the claim undergirding capital punishment: that ending the murderer’s life is the only way to bring peace to the survivors and to society. On this score, the testimony of Debbie Morris is striking. Morris was kidnapped and raped, and her boyfriend shot and seriously wounded, during a crime spree by Robert Lee Willie, whose execution for a murder committed during that spree became the subject of the book and movie Dead Man Walking. In her own book, Forgiving the Dead Man Walking, Morris describes the long process of recovery from the emotional trauma she suffered, and how the news that Willie had been executed left her “numb:” “I’d finally realized that no punishment—not even the ultimate punishment, the ultimate justice—could ever heal all the wounds.” Real healing only began later when Morris, who by then had become an evangelical Christian, began to forgive first Willie, then God (for allowing the terrible events to happen), and finally herself (for the things she had done wrong in the intervening years). “[My] refusal to forgive [Willie],” Morris writes, “always meant that I held on to all my Robert Willie-related stuff-my pain, my shame, my self-pity.” In the book itself, issued by a major evangelical publisher, Morris remains ambivalent about whether executing Willie was morally right, but she is adamant that it did not bring her peace: “Justice didn’t do a thing to heal me. Forgiveness did.”

Morris’ argument concerning forgiveness was echoed by Christianity Today in its editorial against the death penalty, calling for churches to provide help to survivors and victims’ families rather than supporting executions of killers: “Christian compassion can comfort the afflicted. More executions cannot.” The editorial bemoaned the fact that executions seem to appeal to our “carnal appetite for revenge,” and it argued that

Jesus’ counsel of nonresistance has as its goal not only crushing the spirit of vendetta, but also reconciliation (a goal embodied in victim-offender reconciliation programs that have proved effective where tried). ... While murderers clearly deserve to die, Christians know that we all deserve death, and the ethic of Jesus drives us to spend most of our limited energies in the relationally complex and costly task of reconciliation.

Morris’ is only one story about the effect of capital punishment on survivors; other people strongly disagree. However, there are good reasons to believe that execution is a very flawed way to seek such peace. Review of a death penalty case is inevitably longer and more complicated than review of a prison sentence, thus dredging up the crime repeatedly. The defense at the sentencing hearing and various appeals will try to humanize the defendant and evoke sympathy for him, and both of these subjects—the horror of the crime and the sympathy for the condemned murderer—become the focus of attention again at the time of the execution itself.

These arguments do not necessarily show that the state lacks authority ever to execute someone. Rather, the arguments, like those of the Pope, caution that if such authority exists, it should only be exercised extremely sparingly and in cases of absolute necessity. Again, Augustine’s reluctance to execute in order to preserve the possibility of repentance provides a model: “One may endlessly defend the right of the state to execute wrongdoers when absolutely necessary, but in the last analysis, the Augustinian position was that that right, no matter how valid or well founded, ideally should never actually be exercised.”

Thomas C. Berg is Professor of Law at St. Thomas University School of Law.

Originally published in William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 9:1 (December 2000): 31-60. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.