[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., FLA., NEB., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

June 22



NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Sununu veto keeps state's death penalty law intact----Governor promised veto 
after NH House, Senate passed repeal earlier this year



Gov. Chris Sununu delivered Thursday morning on his promise to veto a measure 
passed in the New Hampshire House and Senate to repeal the state's death 
penalty law.

The governor was flanked by law enforcement officials from departments across 
the state as he vetoed the bill.

"To repeal the death penalty today would deprive future victims of the justice 
they deserve," Sununu said. "Abolishing the death penalty would send the wrong 
message to those who would commit the most heinous offenses within our state 
borders."

The House passed Senate Bill 593 in April, but the vote fell short of the 2/3 
supermajority that would be needed to override the veto.

"While I very much respect the arguments made by the opponents of this bill, I 
stand with crime victims, members of the law enforcement community and 
advocates for justice in opposing this bill," Sununu said.

The Senate voted in favor of the bill by a 14-10 vote, also short of the 
override threshold, in March.

The bill wouldn't apply to the state's only death row inmate, Michael Addison, 
who was convicted in the 2006 capital murder of Officer Michael Briggs. 
Opponents of repeal warned that despite the bill???s language repealing the 
death penalty only for future murders, Addison's attorneys will move in court 
to have his penalty reduced to life in prison.

The last time a convicted murderer was put to death in New Hampshire was in 
1939.

State lawmakers last sent a death penalty repeal bill to the governor's desk in 
2000, when then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed it.

"We have made our arguments in front of both houses in the Legislature, and we 
believe that this is the right thing to do," Franklin Police Chief David 
Goldstein said.

Barbara Keshen, who chairs the Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said 
many of the victims her group represents are against capital punishment.

"They don't want to be part of a system that creates another grieving family, 
which is what the death penalty does," Keshen said. "That is not justice. Life 
in prison is sufficient justice for them."

The bill will head back to the Legislature, but death penalty opponents would 
need to get more votes in the House and Senate to reach the 2/3 majorities 
needed to overturn the veto.

(source: WMUR news)








FLORIDA:

Tentaction's alleged murderer facing death penalty as he is charged with 
1st-degree murder



XXTentacion's alleged murderer, Dedrick D. Williams, has been charged with 1 
count of 1st-degree murder.

If convicted, the only 2 sentences available for that statute are life in 
prison and the death penalty.

Williams went before the judge on Thursday afternoon local time where he was 
held without bond 'due to probable cause'.

He will also have to return to court on Monday after he was hit with a 
probation violation that stemmed from 2014.

The 22-year-old was arrested Wednesday night in South Florida and booked for 
1st-degree murder by Broward County sheriff's departement.

He has previous arrests for cocaine possession, weapons possession, domestic 
violence, aggravated assault with a firearm and grand theft auto.

A suspect has been arrested in the death of rapper XXXTentacion, according to 
police. Dedrick D. Williams was taken into custody Wednesday, 2 days after the 
artist, whose birth name was Jahseh Onfroy, was gunned down in South Florida.

He has been accused of shooting dead 20-year-old rapper XXXTentacion in South 
Florida during an armed robbery on Monday.

The rapper, real name Jahseh Onfroy, was shot and died at the scene, and a 
statement from the Broward County Sherriff's Office added that the incident was 
a 'likely robbery' as his Louis Vuitton bag was stolen.

XXXTentacion shot to fame with the song Look At Me, which has been streamed 81 
million times on Spotify. His debut album reached number 1 on the Billboard 
charts.

XXXTentacion's music has climbed up the charts in the wake of his death.

(source: metro.co.uk)








NEBRASKA:

Nebraska Supreme Court rejects motion by death row inmate Carey Dean Moore to 
dismiss his lawyer



The Nebraska Supreme Court has denied a death row inmate's request to go 
without legal representation as he advances toward execution.

Late Wednesday, the court overruled Carey Dean Moore's motion to dismiss his 
appointed attorney from the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy. The 
commission is a state legal office that represents defendants facing serious 
felony charges who are unable to afford a lawyer.

Moore, 60, has been on death row for 38 years for the killings of 2 Omaha 
cabdrivers in 1979. State officials are trying to carry out his execution this 
summer, making him the 1st inmate put to death in 21 years and the 1st to be 
executed by lethal injection.

In his May 24 motion to dismiss his lawyer, Moore told the high court, "I do 
not want any further legal representation and I do not want anyone to file 
anything on my behalf."

The court's decision to overrule the motion was registered in the case file 
without comment. It's unclear if the order means a lawyer with the commission 
will file pleadings to contest the execution despite Moore's wishes.

Chief Justice Michael Heavican also appointed a member of the Nebraska Court of 
Appeals to serve as a Supreme Court judge in the Moore case. Assigned to the 
case was Judge Francie Riedmann of Gretna, who has served on the Court of 
Appeals since 2012.

Attorney General Doug Peterson has filed a motion to issue a death warrant and 
set a date for Moore's execution. He also has asked the court to hasten its 
decision to carry out the sentence before 1 of 4 lethal injection drugs expires 
on Aug. 31.

The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on those motions.

Moore, the longest-serving of Nebraska's 11 death row inmates, killed Reuel Van 
Ness and Maynard Helgeland, both 47, 5 days apart in the summer of 1979.

Even though Moore is not actively contesting his possible execution, several 
lawsuits pending in District Court or on appeal could have an impact on the 
death penalty.

(source: omaha.com)








CALIFORNIA:

Jury returns death penalty verdict for gang slayings in Tulare County



A jury of 10 men and 2 women in Tulare County returned a death penalty verdict 
Thursday in the case of a gang member who killed a man who had been beaten with 
brass knuckles and ordered the murder of another man to silence him.

The death penalty verdict was reached after four hours of deliberation, the 
Tulare County District Attorney's Office said.

Norteno gang member Eric Jimenez, 33, of Strathmore - his gang moniker is 
Psycho - was convicted June 13 of 2 murders.

One was 1st-degree murder with the special circumstances of being committed in 
the commission of a robbery. In the killing of a 2nd victim, he was found 
guilty of murder to help a criminal street gang. Plus he was found guilty of 
2nd-degree murder with the special allegation it was committed to help the 
street gang.

The same jury also found him guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy 
to dissuade a witness from testifying, dissuading a witness from testifying, 
residential robbery and vehicle theft, all felonies, the District Attorney's 
Office said.

Jimenez had 5 previous felony convictions between 2004 and 2012: carrying a 
concealed and loaded gun, possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell, 
vandalism, possession of a deadly weapon in jail, and possession of brass 
knuckles.

The District Attorney's Office gave this account of the murders:

On the night of March 28, 2012, Jimenez and gang member Matthew Campos, 28, 
walked into the Porterville garage of Jimenez's girlfriend, Raquel Espinosa, 
29, as she was talking to 39-year-old Jorge Ayon.

Jimenez knew the victim often carried money and drugs. After a brief exchange, 
Jimenez pistol whipped Ayon and held his hands while Campos struck him with 
brass knuckles.

Jimenez then ordered Espinosa to get an electrical cord, which was used to 
strangle the victim to death.

Jimenez and Campos took the drugs and money, rolled the victim up in a carpet 
and put his body in the extended cab of his own pickup truck. They drove away, 
with Jimenez dropping Campos at his home before going to a mechanic's shed on 
private property outside Porterville.

At the shed, Jimenez placed the victim's body in a service pit, poured gasoline 
over the body and set it on fire. The owner of the property saw the smoke and 
notified authorities.

Porterville police tracked him down April 23, 2012, found the brass knuckles 
and arrested him. On May 25, Campos, who had told his friends about the murder, 
was arrested along with Espinosa.

In jail, Jimenez feared people would tell police what he did, so he conspired 
to murder 19-year-old Michael Avalos.

On Nov. 9, 2017, Campos was convicted of 2nd-degree murder and sentenced to 16 
years-to-life in prison.

Meanwhile, Espinosa pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and is 
awaiting sentencing on June 27.

"The death penalty is not something to be taken lightly," District Attorney Tim 
Ward said. "It is reserved for the most heinous, callous, and depraved crimes 
imaginable. I am grateful to law enforcement and prosecutors for working 
tirelessly and investing countless hours to secure justice for the families of 
the victims."

Judge Kathryn Montejano presided over the trial.

The case was prosecuted by Supervising Deputy District Attorney Melissa Chabra 
and investigated by Tulare County Sheriff's Sergeants Steve Sanchez and Frank 
Zaragoza, and investigator Jerry Hunziger of the District Attorney's Bureau of 
Investigations.

(source: fresnobee.com)

*****************

Supreme Court Okays Death For Orange County Man Who Cannibalized 12-Year-Old 
Boy



The Supreme Court of California Thursday affirmed a death penalty punishment 
for a one-armed amputee and immigrant, who fled Egypt on religious persecution 
grounds and suffered severe mental illness including regular hallucinations, 
because he molested, murdered, dismembered and may have cannibalized a 
12-year-boy in La Habra in 1998.

John Samuel Ghobrial, an unemployed panhandler who served in the Egyptian army 
and lived in a backyard residential shack, now officially becomes Orange 
County's 72nd defendant on San Quentin State Prison's death row.

Though Ghobrial, repeatedly chained and beaten as a kid, was known to defecate 
on rooftops, mutilate himself, hear imaginary voices, push a loaded shopping 
cart down Imperial Highway, utter hyper-talkative ramblings, pull out his own 
hair and toenails, cover his face with butter and coffee, and had publicly 
threatened to eat his 6th-grade victim's penis prior to the murder of Juan 
Delgado, the court rejected a defense argument that an Orange County Superior 
Court judge wrongly failed to conduct a mental competency hearing.

The court ruled, "Although the defense counsel's penalty phase mitigation 
evidence showed that the defendant suffered from serious mental illness, we 
conclude that the mitigating evidence did not constitute substantial evidence 
of present incompetence that required the trial court, on its own motion, to 
declare doubt and conduct a competence hearing."

The court also didn't accept a defense contention that while Ghobrial was the 
killer, there was insufficient evidence of a premediated murder.

"The defense stresses that the prosecution never presented evidence of 
extensive planning," the court opined. "The jury was, however, entitled to 
consider evidence showing that [Ghobrial] had previously threatened to kill 
Delgado in considering whether the murder was premediated. [A witness] 
testified that Delgado approached him outside a liquor store and told him that 
the defendant was going to kill him and he later heard [Ghobrial] tell Delgado, 
'I will kill you and eat your pee-pee.' The jury further heard evidence that 
when Delgado???s remains were found, his penis was missing."

"A police search of his shed located a saw, scissors, knife, body cleaver, bolt 
cutters, a capping tool, tin snips and latex gloves plus Delgado's school work, 
shoes and clothes.)

Finally, the court rejected a defense claim that the trial judge wrongly 
blocked potential testimony that would have purportedly shown "that the victim 
often sought out the companionship of adult men" while hanging around stores 
late at night.

The judges wrote, "The trial court excluded the testimony, concluding that any 
evidence describing Delgado's general interactions with customers and employees 
at local businesses was irrelevant because such evidence had no tendency to 
prove or disprove that [Ghobrial, now 48-years-old] molested Delgado."

(source: Orange County Weekly)








USA:

How Abolishing The Death Penalty Degrades Both Justice And Mercy----To abolish 
the death penalty is to abdicate the civilizational attempt to instantiate 
justice in law, and precludes the possibility of mercy.



A recent Pew survey shows that a majority of Americans favor capital 
punishment, with Christians leading the way. It is not just Republican-leaning 
white evangelicals: a majority of American Catholics support the death penalty, 
despite the pope's objections. Tradition seems to be on the side of the laity 
here, although in the interest of ecumenical harmony I shall not recount the 
details of the Catholic Magisterium???s previous enthusiasm for executions.

Nonetheless, last year there was a significant (by the standards of Catholic 
intellectual circles) dust-up over a book by Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette 
that offers a Catholic defense of capital punishment. Public Discourse 
published articles by E. Christian Brugger (1, 2) and Christopher Tollefsen (1, 
2) that relied on the so-called new natural law theory to argue that capital 
punishment is intrinsically immoral. These essays, and Feser's responses (1, 2, 
3), have some Catholic inside-baseball elements, but their broader claims 
against the death penalty are meant to be binding for all Christians, and even 
for all rational persons.

Meanwhile, in Commonweal, which vies with the Jesuit magazine America to be the 
voice of left-wing Catholicism in this country, Orthodox theologian David 
Bentley Hart provided an alternative critique of capital punishment that 
reaches back to the early days of the church and Christian radicalism. These 
arguments are made in good faith, and merit engagement from those they seek to 
persuade, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant.

Thus, although a Protestant jumping into a Catholic or Orthodox theological 
debate is usually as welcome as a streaker running through a team's scrimmage, 
I shall respond to their broad claims metaphorically dousing myself in orange 
paint and sprinting onto the field.

The 2 Big Death Penalty Criticisms

There are 2 distinct, and largely incompatible, criticisms of the death 
penalty. The 1st, advanced by the new natural lawyers, is that moral reason 
shows the death penalty is unjust because it directly and intentionally harms 
the basic human good of life. The 2nd, made by Hart, is that although the death 
penalty may accord with natural justice, Christians must live according to 
Christ's radical teachings without any public-private distinction - Christians 
must forgo state violence and seek mercy for even the worst murderers.

Despite their differences, these arguments overlap in several significant ways. 
Both seek more than a unified Catholic (or Orthodox) teaching on capital 
punishment. The new natural lawyers present their case as one of philosophical 
reason, knowable by all rational persons regardless of religious belief. Hart 
makes his case to all Christians, asserting that "no Christian who truly 
understands his or her faith can possibly defend the practice of capital 
punishment."

Those making such broad claims insulate themselves against directly engaging 
the merits of the death penalty. To effectively critique the new natural 
lawyers in a fashion they will acknowledge requires engaging with their entire 
system. This is a worthy project, but it is also a book-length one. Shorter 
critiques, such as this one, can only be partial and preliminary. Likewise, 
addressing Hart requires extended discussion of the relationship between 
Christ's radical teachings and the responsibilities Christians in public office 
have - if Christians should be in government at all.

Both Hart and the new natural lawyers sidestep this question of responsibility, 
which explains why Augustine is largely absent from their contributions to the 
current debate. Yet they are undoubtedly familiar with Augustine's 
consideration of a judge who, in ignorance, may bring the full brutal force of 
Roman law against the innocent, torturing and even condemning them.

He wrote, "If such darkness shrouds social life, will a wise judge take his 
seat on the bench or no? Beyond question he will. For human society, which he 
thinks it a wickedness to abandon, constrains him and compels him to this 
duty." But while the judge may be guiltless (he injures from ignorance, not 
malice), his happiness will be marred by the "misery of these necessities" and 
if he is pious he will cry to God to be delivered from them.

This passage does not contain any definitive teaching that is binding on 
Catholics, let alone other Christians, nor does it directly address the death 
penalty. Indeed, its primary purpose was to illustrate the miseries of earthly 
life. Yet it introduces an axis of theological and philosophical reflection 
that Hart and the new natural lawyers have abandoned - that of responsibility 
and our duties to the necessities of our fellow men with whom we share this 
life.

Hart simply disavows such responsibilities if they conflict with what he takes 
to be Christ's commands, writing that, "On the whole, the Gospel is probably 
not a very good formula for protecting public safety." Likewise, the new 
natural lawyers dismiss any concern for the consequences of following the moral 
absolutes they believe their system provides. For example, during the Cold War, 
they insisted on unilateral nuclear disarmament even though they thought it 
would likely lead to worldwide communist tyranny. They have also argued that it 
is always wrong to lie, even to save Jews from the Nazis (their example, not 
mine).

Participating in Government Requires Violence

To be sure, radical otherworldliness is part of Christian ethical reflection, 
Augustine's included. But it is only part - the sense of responsibility 
Augustine described is another part. And if Christians are to participate in 
earthly government, whether by holding office or simply by voting, they will 
have to reckon with the violence that is intrinsic to the survival and 
well-being of any polity in the City of Man.

Indeed, if Hart wants Christians to abolish the death penalty, they will only 
be able to do so through participation, and inevitable complicity, in a 
government that requires violence to sustain itself. Those who seek to improve 
governance in the City of Man will become responsible for it, and therefore 
will experience the tension that Augustine so eloquently illustrated in the 
figure of the wise judge. It is wickedness to abandon their duty, though they 
may pray even more fervently for the Kingdom of God to come, that they might be 
delivered from the evils of their necessities.

The new natural lawyers respond to this challenge by claiming that adherence to 
the moral absolutes their philosophy picks out is a fulfillment of 
responsibility - a protection of basic human goods. No other responsibility, no 
matter how weighty, can override these moral absolutes. However horrible the 
situation is, and regardless of the consequences of inaction, one must avoid 
the guilt of violating a moral absolute.

However, this philosophy of moral purity is less stringent than it might 
appear. Their philosophical analysis of act and intention provides a backdoor 
by which ostensibly forbidden acts may return to consideration, if the acting 
agent frames his intentions just so. But although their casuistry may cleverly 
weave its way through apparent contradictions in the pages of a philosophy 
journal, it collapses in the real world because their model of moral reasoning 
bears no resemblance to moral knowledge and deliberation as experienced by 
ordinary people.

Same Action, Finely Parsed Different Intent

This failure may be seen in their discussions of justifiable killings, where 
they emphasize disavowing the intention to do what one knowingly does. For 
instance, John Finnis, the dean of the new natural lawyers, has argued that one 
must never perform an abortion to save the life of the mother in a childbirth 
gone disastrously wrong. However, the doctor may dismember the child, so long 
as his intention is not to kill the child (however foreseeable that may be), 
but only to relieve the obstetrical blockage that will kill the mother.

Thus, if the physician reasons that the child must die so that the mother may 
live, he is a damnable murderer. If he reasons that the mother should be saved, 
even if the means involve the foreseeable (but "unintended") death of the 
child, he is morally upright. This distinction may hold in a philosopher???s 
faculty office or armchair, but it will not hold in the hospital, where the 
doctor will, if he be pious, pray to be delivered from his necessities.

The new natural lawyers reject concrete responsibilities in the name of justice 
and personal moral purity; Hart rejects them in the name of mercy. For the 
former, one's personal responsibilities have no weight against the moral 
absolutes derived from their philosophizing. For the latter, they have no worth 
against what he takes to be the requirements of Christian mercy.

Neither of these viewpoints is solely, or even primarily, about the death 
penalty; each encompasses much more. And both are vulnerable to a critique 
rooted in the life and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and 
theologian martyred by the Nazis.

Christians Have Duty to Resist Evil

Unlike Hart, Bonhoeffer came to reject Christian quiescence and to recognize 
the Christian duty to resist grave moral evils. Unlike the new natural lawyers, 
Bonhoeffer did not prioritize his personal moral purity (as determined by 
adherence to analytical moral absolutes) over his concrete responsibilities. 
Contrary to the new natural lawyers' emphasis on the imperative of maintaining 
personal moral purity even in extreme situations, Bonhoeffer suggested that the 
only thing we cannot avoid is guilt.

In some situations, even principled inaction violates one???s responsibilities. 
The responsible man or woman will sometimes (and those times cannot be clearly 
delineated in advance) be willing to incur the guilt of violating abstract 
principles in order to fulfill concrete responsibilities. In this, Bonhoeffer 
argues, they will follow the example of Jesus, who took upon Himself the guilt 
of all men, and for that reason every man who acts responsibly becomes guilty. 
If any man tries to escape guilt in responsibility he detaches himself from the 
ultimate reality of human existence, and what is more he cuts himself off from 
the redeeming mystery of Christ's bearing guilt without sin and he has no share 
in the divine justification which lies upon this event. He sets his own 
personal innocence about his responsibility for men, and he is blind to the 
more irredeemable guilt which he incurs precisely in this; he is blind also to 
the fact that real innocence shows itself precisely in a man???s entering into 
the fellowship of guilt for the sake of other men. Through Jesus Christ it 
becomes an essential part of responsible action that the man who is without sin 
loves selflessly and for that reason incurs guilt.

Those who avoid the guilt of acting to fulfill their responsibilities incur the 
guilt of the self-righteousness and lack of charity shown in their abdication 
of responsibility. Rather than using strategies of evasion and redescription 
(such as the principle of double effect) to deny responsibility for what one 
deliberately and knowingly does, Bonhoeffer urged a clear acknowledgement of 
the deeds one is responsible for, including the guilt one might thereby incur.

Abolishing Punishments Also Abolishes Mercy

The new natural lawyers' flight from concrete responsibilities to theoretical 
responsibilities rooted in ostensibly basic human goods is a result of their 
fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of moral knowledge. By attempting to 
establish universal, impersonal moral absolutes that are demonstrable to any 
rational person, they discard that which is in need of moral guidance - the 
individual in all of his or her particularity. Their attempt to demonstrate 
irrefutable moral truths fails, as, according to Bonhoeffer, all such systems 
must, and it leads to neglecting actual moral responsibilities to one's 
neighbors.

Their attempt to demonstrate irrefutable moral truths fails, and leads to 
neglecting actual moral responsibilities to one???s neighbors.

Furthermore, these critics of the death penalty struggle with mercy as well as 
responsibility. The new natural lawyers abolish mercy in capital cases by 
declaring that it is unjust to execute anyone. But there is no mercy in letting 
them live if justice demands that they be spared. Those who would abolish the 
death penalty for mercy's sake also eliminate mercy. There is no mercy in 
agents of the state not doing that which is no longer within their power.

If the death penalty is pre-emptively abolished, then it is no longer mercy to 
spare murderers, it is simply following the law, and mercy established as law 
is no longer mercy. Only those who established the law could make a claim to 
mercy, and it would be an attenuated and impersonal one.

Other criticisms may be added. Lifelong incarceration was generally impractical 
for most of human history, and historically each village was forced to hang its 
own. Under such difficulties, the case for the death penalty as a form of 
self-defense was stronger. Furthermore, the new natural lawyers struggle to 
adequately reckon with Scripture, in which God enjoins the death penalty, and 
at times even total war, as well as smiting people directly. In response, they 
flirt with voluntarism to explain away God acting (and ordering others to act) 
directly against the basic human good of life.

The Death Penalty Restrains State Violence

None of these arguments, or others that could be made, are dispositive. I do 
not offer a system of moral philosophy and moral absolutes that is universally 
demonstrable to all rational persons. Like Bonhoeffer, I consider such to be 
impossible. Therefore, I do not hope to offer an indisputable case for the 
death penalty, nor shall I offer the inverse of Hart's casual dismissal of the 
understanding of the many saints who have approved of the death penalty.

Nonetheless, reflection on the origins and nature of state violence offer 
reasons to think that both justice and mercy require the possibility of capital 
punishment for the worst crimes. The origins of the death penalty are clear 
enough. Every successful polity rests upon a foundation of state violence, and 
capital punishment is a continuation of pre- and proto-political violence. As 
Augustine knew, a conqueror such as Alexander the Great was like a pirate or 
brigand operating on a grand scale.

Every successful polity rests upon a foundation of state violence, and capital 
punishment is a continuation of pre- and proto-political violence.

However, establishing the death penalty as part of a system of law ritualizes 
and may restrain the lethal violence on which governments are founded. Law 
provides for the possibility of public justice, as opposed to private 
retribution or warlord justice. In developing the state, the death penalty is 
part of a codification and regulation of state violence, which may develop into 
a legal system that aspires to justice and proportionate punishment of the 
wicked.

However, that the death penalty codifies the violence inherent in establishing 
a political order does not mean that it should be retained. The new natural 
lawyers would say that capital punishment is a residual injustice that we 
should remedy - though, as Feser points out, they do not directly dispute that 
the death penalty is a justly proportionate punishment for some crimes. Hart 
concedes the natural justice of the death penalty, but holds that Christians 
should replace it with mercy.

However, eliminating the death penalty does not abolish lethal state violence. 
The government will still use force against those who do not comply with its 
directives, even if it will not deliberately execute them. This may seem to be 
a moral advance, but it actually disassociates state violence from justice. 
Genuine self-defense, whether by a private citizen or an agent of the state, is 
justified, but because the violence used in stopping or restraining someone is 
imprecise, it is not necessarily just.

It may be justified, in defense of self and others, to fatally shoot a violent 
lunatic, a fleeing suspect, or a home invader. But these deeds, however 
justified, are not the administration of justice, which demands deliberate 
proportionality in punishment - something that is impossible in defensive 
violence.

The Death Penalty Connects State Violence and Justice

A government dedicated to only using defensive violence will still commit 
lethal violence that is neither just nor merciful. Only including the death 
penalty as a proportionate punishment for certain heinous crimes can maintain 
the connection between justice and lethal state violence. Without this final 
proportionate response to heinous crimes, there will be only the haphazardly 
lethal outcomes of defensive violence, including defensive violence used to 
ensure that lesser punishments are meted out. In such a state the deadly 
violence necessary to the existence of any polity will be not only accidentally 
unjust, but intrinsically unjust, as it will never be administered deliberately 
and proportionately. Without this final proportionate response to heinous 
crimes, there will be only the haphazardly lethal outcomes of defensive 
violence.

To abolish the death penalty is to abdicate the civilizational attempt to 
instantiate justice in law, and precludes the possibility of mercy. Unless 
proportionate punishment extends to lethal state violence, then all the deadly 
violence necessary to state survival will be intrinsically unjust. And unless 
death is a deserved and possible penalty, there is no mercy in sparing a 
murderer's life.

These arguments are not dispositive, and perhaps Christians ought to abandon 
violence (whether defensive or proportionate punishment) altogether, in an 
attempt to more fully live the gospel. I find Hart's emphasis on the radicalism 
of the gospel and early church more sympathetic than the analytic philosophical 
precision of the new natural lawyers.

Quietism has an attraction that casuistry does not. And I agree that Christians 
should be uncomfortable with the violent necessities of keeping such earthly 
peace as there can be. But does this require Christian quiescence, or might we, 
like Augustine's judge, fulfill the responsibilities of earthly life while 
praying for the heavenly kingdom to come and deliver us from them? Perhaps, no 
matter what, the only thing we cannot avoid is guilt.

(source: Nathanael Blake, The Federalist)