Introduction
Erik Owens
Justice. Retribution. Mercy. Vengeance. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. These are but a few of the crucial principles that inform and sustain the ongoing debate over capital punishment. The terms of this debate are of course ancient, but they have taken on new relevance in recent years as the death penalty has faced increasing scrutiny in the United States, particularly among its traditional supporters—political and religious conservatives. A brief survey of the political landscape will help to map the religious arguments and concepts that so thoroughly infuse the discourse.
Many observers point to the 1998 execution of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas as an important catalyst for reconsideration of capital punishment among religious conservatives. Tucker was convicted of brutally murdering two people with a pickaxe, but while in prison she experienced a religious conversion and, by all accounts, a personal transformation. As her execution date neared, both Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell—who had long expressed their support for capital punishment—unsuccessfully appealed for clemency on her behalf, and spoke publicly of their growing concerns about the justice of the death penalty as administered in the United States. Two years later George Ryan, the Republican Governor of Illinois, instituted the first (and still only) moratorium on state executions, pending review of the entire capital judicial process. His decision came after several death row prisoners were released—one just two days before his execution—when new evidence exonerated them of their capital crimes. “Until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection,” said Ryan, “no one will meet that fate."
Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II renewed his appeals to end the death penalty worldwide during the Jubilee Year 2000, personally appealing to U.S. state governors for clemency in advance of executions in their states. The Pope also unsuccessfully appealed to President Bush for clemency for Timothy McVeigh, who on June 11, 2001 became the first federal prisoner to be executed in nearly forty years. The next federal execution took place just seven days later, when Juan Raul Garza, convicted as a “drug kingpin” under federal statues, died by lethal injection for murdering and ordering the murders of three other drug traffickers. In part because of McVeigh’s complete lack of remorse for killing 168 people in Oklahoma City, his execution was broadly supported by the American public; but Garza’s execution went largely unnoticed, despite his contrition and desperate pleas for clemency.
The events of September 11 have transformed the American political landscape in many ways, and it remains to be seen how it will affect views on the death penalty, particularly for those convicted of terrorist activity. Earlier this summer, the terrorists convicted of plotting to bomb American embassies in Africa were given life sentences—not the death penalty—by a jury that later said they did not want to create “martyrs.” Given the President’s authorization of military tribunals for foreign nationals accused of terrorist activity, American juries may not have the opportunity to hear such cases in the future. But several member states of the European Union have refused to extradite suspected terrorists to the U.S. because the death penalty could be sought in their cases.
These and other recent developments demonstrate that the debate over the death penalty in America—like many other recent public debates—is increasingly influenced by religious beliefs, symbols, institutions, and leaders. Yet quite often in the debate, religious positions and theological perspectives are not fully mined beyond the occasional reference to “an eye for an eye” or a call to love your neighbor or forgive your enemy. To foster clear thinking and public discussion about the religious resources that have been or can be brought to bear on the questions surrounding capital punishment, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has convened a conference at the University of Chicago Divinity School entitled “A Call to Reckoning: Religion and the Death Penalty.” Participants in the conference bring a broad range of experience and perspectives to the issue; speakers include Jewish, Catholic, Muslim and Protestant theologians, political theorists and legal scholars, as well as prominent representatives (present and past) of the judicial, legislative and executive branches of the United States government. Together, conference speakers and the public in attendance will reckon with religion’s role in what is often called “the ultimate punishment.”
This Reader offers a variety of resources intended to serve as background material for the conference, including several essays from our conference speakers. We also think this Reader will be informative and thought-provoking for those who do not attend the conference. We hope these articles serve to clarify important concepts and key arguments that frame the debate. A brief collection like this cannot hope to resolve the tensions of conflicting arguments in the public debate. But, in keeping with the Pew Forum’s charge, this Reader aims to promote dialogue and an appreciation for the variety of perspectives that religious thinking affords for reflection upon pressing issues of public life. The inclusion of contrary opinions signals our recognition that people of good will and sincere faith often disagree on these issues. It is in this spirit of mutual respect and concern for rigorous public dialogue that we provide this Reader.
The Reader is compiled with two specific objectives in mind. First, its articles, essays and statistics sketch out some of the theological, historical, philosophical, and sociological context for the key ideas examined at the “Call to Reckoning” conference. Second, it brings together a diverse, interdisciplinary body of material that can be used as a discussion guide in classrooms, workshops and congregational settings. Please note that for brevity’s sake, the original articles have been edited and all footnotes have been omitted; the bibliography at the end of the Reader will direct you to the original sources and other recommended reading.
Disagreement over the death penalty in the contemporary debate is often couched in terms of “abolitionist” and “retentionist” positions; the former seek to abolish the death penalty, while the latter seek to retain it. The reasons for seeking abolition or retention vary widely, of course, and this Reader presents perspectives across the full spectrum of the debate, though all are informed by or related to religion in some way. Indeed the majority of texts reprinted here make explicitly theological arguments. In addition to scriptural passages from the Torah, New Testament and Qur’an, you will find in these pages a selection from the classic writings of Thomas Aquinas (a “retentionist,” to use the contemporary term), as well as an account of Augustine’s influential and evolving views on capital punishment, written by James Megivern. References to these “primary texts” are plentiful throughout the Reader, so we commend them to you as a helpful starting point.
The most important statement of contemporary Roman Catholic teaching on the death penalty is Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, which places the Church’s opposition to the death penalty as one component of a consistent “ethic of life.” Portions of the encyclical are reprinted here, along with two commentaries on its theological and philosophical implications. In the first, Avery Cardinal Dulles challenges recent Catholic interpretations of the death penalty as “a right to life issue” analogous to abortion and euthanasia. The second, by Thomas Rourke, argues that the theological anthropology detailed in Evangelium Vitae requires a more nuanced conception of retribution, justice and mercy than commonly expressed, and that retribution is not by itself a sufficient warrant for the use of the death penalty.
David Novak’s article in this Reader surveys the rich and varied teachings about capital punishment in Jewish legal and theological thought. The essay by Marshall Dayan, a practicing defense lawyer in capital cases, draws upon the traditions and texts examined by Novak to make the case against the death penalty on theological grounds. William Schabas examines capital punishment as prescribed in Islamic legal doctrine, as well as the use of religious arguments by Islamic states in the international debates over the death penalty.
Rounding out the Reader’s collection of theological arguments are three cogent accounts of Protestant retentionist positions by Keith Pavlischek, Daryl Charles and J. Budziszewski. Evangelical and “orthodox” Christian positions often figure prominently in advancing the retentionist position; in recent years, however, many “religious conservatives” have begun rethinking this stance. This development is taken up in Thomas Berg’s article in which he explores several key turning points in conservatives’ debates on the death penalty (e.g. papal pleas for commutations of American executions, concern among evangelicals about Karla Faye Tucker’s execution, and conservative Illinois Governor George Ryan’s moratorium on the death penalty).
Several of the articles published in this Reader offer first-person accounts of how capital crimes have affected their lives. Jeanne Bishop, whose pregnant sister and brother-in-law were murdered in 1990, explores in her essay the nature of grief and forgiveness, and explains her calling to work for the abolition of the death penalty. An essay by Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, recounts her experience as “spiritual advisor” to several death row inmates awaiting execution. Scattered throughout the Reader you will find reprinted the last words spoken by several inmates minutes before their execution. And in the Reader’s final selection, former Montana Governor Marc Racicot thoughtfully examines the relationship between his personal faith as a Catholic and his duty as the executor of his state’s laws, which include the death penalty.
In one sense Brian Smith’s article stands apart from the other selections in the Reader, in that it does not offer or analyze normative arguments either for or against capital punishment. Smith instead examines similarities between the contemporary “secular” practice of capital punishment in the United States and traditional “religious” rituals involving human sacrifice. Yet, by coming to the conclusion that the interpretation of capital punishment as “sacrifice” inevitably brings moral evaluations to the fore, Smith joins the rest of this Reader’s contributors in recognizing the complex ways in which religion and morality pervade our beliefs about the death penalty.
Two selections in this Reader (and portions of several others) take up the legal dimensions of religious talk about capital punishment in the United States. John Blume and Sheri Lynn Johnson contend that religious arguments in the courtroom ought to be restricted in capital cases, but that the defense should be given broader leeway than the prosecution in this regard. You may wish to consider whether or how this line of reasoning applies to prosecutor Beth Wilkinson’s closing arguments, excerpted here, at Timothy McVeigh’s sentencing trial in 1997.
Despite widespread approval of McVeigh’s execution in particular—Gallup polls showed support from 80% of Americans, 23% of whom said they generally opposed the death penalty—there is considerably less agreement about the fairness of the capital trial system in general. Many of these practical and legal concerns, shared by abolitionists and retentionists alike, are taken up in the report of the “blue ribbon” committee (which Beth Wilkinson co-chaired) convened by the Constitution Project in May 2000; the executive summary of the committee’s recommendations for reform are excerpted in the pages that follow.
Individually, the various articles in this Reader present most penetrating and provocative arguments and insights about religion and the death penalty. Collectively, they issue a call to each of us to reckon with the death penalty in light of the religious resources that inform our conceptions of justice, retribution, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Erik Owens is a doctoral student in ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and a project staff associate of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
