God Save Us All

Despite the protests of Catholic bishops in Florida and Massachusetts and a direct appeal for clemency from Pope John Paul II, Robert Sullivan was executed in Florida's electric chair on November 30, 1983. Florida's Governor Robert Graham, a United Church of Christ layperson who has signed more than 50 death warrants since 1979, refused to stop the execution.

"There are no stays," Graham reportedly said. "God save us all."

The death penalty is increasingly being used in the United States in an attempt to prevent murder and other violent crimes. In the months since Sullivan's death, 10 more people have been executed, and no earthly salvation is in sight for the more than 1,300 inmates waiting on death rows across the country.

Public opinion and legislative and judicial actions have created the momentum for more frequent use of the ultimate punishment. Polls continue to show that two-thirds of the U.S. public favors the death penalty for convicted murderers. In February 1984 the Senate voted to restore the federal death penalty for crimes such as espionage, aircraft hijacking, and attempted assassination of the president.

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down several decisions that leave fewer procedural obstacles to carrying out executions and allow lower courts to shorten and condense the appeals process in death penalty cases. In late 1983 the justices for the first time refused to stay the execution of an inmate who had not yet had a chance to appeal his sentence to the Supreme Court.

Thirty-eight states have enacted new capital punishment laws since 1972, when the Supreme Court ruled that then-current laws led to "arbitrary and capricious" application of death sentences and were therefore unconstitutional. In addition, 13 of these states have authorized the injection of lethal doses of drugs as a method of execution—a reprehensible use of medical techniques that were developed to save lives.

Although most death penalty proponents claim that executions are necessary to lower violent crime rates, it is impossible to prove that the death penalty deters murder more than does the threat of long-term imprisonment. In fact, disturbing evidence indicates that murder rates tend to rise following an execution. Adding killing to killing is not making our society safer.

Capital punishment is not necessary for modern societies that want to take a firm stand against crime. A number of pragmatic arguments make a strong case for abolition of the death penalty. The fallibility of our judicial system is the basis of one of the strongest of these arguments. Once carried out, a mistaken death sentence is irreversible. Innocent people have been and will continue to be condemned and executed in this country. As recently as 1983, a Massachusetts prisoner, who had been spared execution only by the 1972 Supreme Court decision, was released because he had been wrongly convicted.

The unjust, discriminatory application of the death penalty is also a powerful argument against its use. Only about 3 percent of the people convicted of homicide in this country are on death row. These few do not represent the worst cases. Instead, they are the offenders unfortunate enough to be poor, poorly educated, members of a racial minority, mentally disturbed or handicapped, or otherwise "different," and therefore dispensable.

Rich murderers, or those who kill impersonally—--by knowingly selling defective automobiles, for example—are not found on death row. Nearly all of the condemned are unable to afford the "good lawyering" that can make the difference between life and death.

Race as well as class status plays a major role in determining who is sentenced to die. More than 43 percent of the death row population is black. The race of condemned inmates' victims is an even more telling indication of the devaluation of black lives. A recent Stanford University study of eight states from 1976 through 1980 shows that those who were convicted of killing whites were sentenced to death four to 10 times more often than those who had killed blacks. Another study reveals that black defendants in Georgia, Florida, and Texas were, respectively, 33, 37, and 84 times more likely to be sentenced to death if the murder victim was white than if the victim was black.

In our society the needs and concerns of all victims of all forms of violence have long been neglected. But capital punishment is a false and violent solution. Executions and other means of exacting greater punishment from wrongdoers fail to help victims. A better solution involves breaking the cycle of violence, addressing the causes of crime, and responding concretely and compassionately—like the Samaritan in the gospel story—to victims' real physical and emotional needs.

When all of the practical arguments surrounding the death penalty are stripped away, one fundamental reason for its use remains: retribution. Executions satisfy and legitimize our base desire for vengeance, sanctioning the premeditated killing of those who have wronged us. But Christians are called to renounce the spirit of retribution that lies behind the death penalty.

Some people support the modern use of the death penalty by turning to the Old Testament. But applying these Scriptures to our society can be problematic. The Hebrew Scriptures allow capital punishment for a wide range of crimes, including adultery, blasphemy, and disrespecting one's parents, that most in our society would not consider punishable by death. The use of this punishment also required much more stringent criteria of evidence and certainty than does our present legal system. In the passages that set forth these laws, and elsewhere in the Scriptures, it is clear that the authority to take life still rests with God, not with human beings.

Cain, the very first murderer in the Bible, received mercy and protection from God. Throughout the biblical record, provisions are made to extend mercy toward and to redeem those who deserve death. God's desire, we are told, is for reconciliation: "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezekiel 33:11). The ultimate example of this is Christ's execution and resurrection, through which God extends mercy and the possibility of redemption to us all.

The death penalty is a way of saying that some people are beyond the reach of God's power to redeem, that Christ's death was not enough: some people must die for their sins. When we arrogate the power to make this judgment and to extinguish the life of one who, like ourselves, was created in God's image, we are completely contradicting the gospel.

Christians are commanded not only to love God and neighbor, but also to love our enemies, abandoning thoughts of retaliation in kind (Matthew 5:38-44). We are called to extend mercy not out of naive disregard for the sinfulness of the condemned. Rather, we are to give up retribution because we ourselves stand condemned and in need of mercy. This is the practical lesson of the story of the adulteress and of Jesus' word to the would-be stone throwers: "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7).

The death penalty is part of the violence and injustice, indeed the whole fabric of sin, that shrouds our lives. We will not be free as long as we throw stones when we should be offering mercy—and perhaps a prayer: God save us all.

Liane Rozzell was an editorial assistant of Sojourners magazine when this article appeared.