[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., ARK., KAN., OKLA., CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 8



INDIANA:

Indiana bishops say death penalty does not help convicts or victims



Ahead of a scheduled reinstatement of the death penalty for federal inmates, 
the bishops of Indiana are calling on U.S. President Donald Trump and his 
administration to reverse the decision.

“The federal government’s decision in July to end a 16-year moratorium on 
executing federal inmates is regrettable, unnecessary and morally unjustified,” 
the bishops said in a joint statement Oct. 4, released through the Indiana 
Catholic Conference.

In the Catholic Church in the United States, October is celebrated as Respect 
Life Month, with activities and prayers focused on respecting life from 
conception to natural death.

“As we observe Respect Life Month in the Catholic Church, we, the Bishops of 
Indiana, in as much as federal executions are conducted in our State, ask 
President Trump to rescind the U.S. Justice Department’s decision to resume 
capital punishment later this year. We respectfully implore that the sentences 
of all federal death row inmates be commuted to life imprisonment.”

On July 25, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was making plans to 
“resume capital punishment after a nearly two decade lapse, and bringing 
justice to victims of the most horrific crimes.”

The statement added that the Attorney General would be directing the Federal 
Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions of five federal death row inmates, 
all of whom have been convicted of murdering, and in some cases also raping or 
torturing, children and the elderly.

“Each of these inmates has exhausted their appellate and post-conviction 
remedies, and currently no legal impediments prevent their executions, which 
will take place at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, Indiana,” the Department of 
Justice stated in July. The decision came despite several states placing 
moratoria on their state death penalties in recent years.

It also came one year after Pope Francis modified the Catechism of the Catholic 
Church to state that capital punishment is “inadmissible.” Previously, the 
Catechism had stated that the death penalty was admissible for guilty parties 
“if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against 
the unjust aggressor.”

Federal executions in the U.S. are rare, with only three occurring in the 
modern era and the last one being in 2003, the Death Penalty Information Center 
reports. The federal death penalty was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme 
Court in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia, but revised federal death penalty statues 
were reinstated in 1988.

The Indiana bishops are not alone in their opposition to the end of the 
moratorium on the federal death penalty. When the Trump administration 
announced that executions would resume in July, numerous U.S. bishops voiced 
their opposition to the change.

In their statement, the Indiana bishops noted that “In seeking to end the use 
of the death penalty, we do not dismiss the evil and harm caused by people who 
commit horrible crimes, especially murder. We share in the sorrow and loss of 
families and victims of such crimes. And we call upon our faith community and 
all persons of good will to stand with the victims and to provide spiritual, 
pastoral and personal support.”

However, they added, their support of a moratorium on the death penalty comes 
from a respect for all human life. “Capital punishment undermines the dignity 
of human life. Taking human life is justifiable only in self-defense, when 
there is no other way to protect oneself, another innocent person or society 
from extreme violence or death,” the bishops said. “In the case of incarcerated 
prisoners, the aggressor has been stopped and society is protected. Hence, it 
is no longer permissible to take the life.”

Besides being morally problematic, the Indiana bishops said, the death penalty 
“neither helps the victims who survive, nor does it mitigate the loss of a 
loved one” and also takes away the guilty party’s chance for “reconciliation 
and rehabilitation.”

The bishops added that the death penalty is unequally applied to minorities, 
the poor, and those with mental health problems, and that it always carries 
with it a risk that an innocent person is being put to death.

They also expressed concern for the authorities that are tasked with carrying 
out the death penalty.

“Moreover, its application also impacts those who are associated with it, 
particularly correctional officers and those who are obligated to participate 
in taking a human life. The psychological and spiritual harm that these persons 
experience is real,” they said.

“We join our brother bishops of the United States in calling for an end to the 
death penalty. Twenty-five states no longer use it as a form of punishment. We 
ask the federal government to continue its moratorium until it can be rescinded 
formally as a matter of law.”

(source: Catholic News Agency)








ARKANSAS:

Capital murder suspect appears in court today, second trial begins 
February--State high court decision stands, new trial for child murder case



A man accused of raping and killing his 6-year-old son is facing a capital 
murder trial for the 2nd time.

This is this 2nd time Mauricio Torres will face a capital murder trial.

In March 2015, Torres’ son, Maurice Torres died on a family camping trip in 
Missouri. A forensic pathologist testified that Maurice died as a result of 
sexual abuse.

In November 2016, Torres was convicted of capital murder and 1st-degree battery 
and was sentenced to death.

In April 2019, his conviction was overturned after he argued the state did not 
prove its case for the death penalty. In a 4-3 decision, the state Supreme 
Court agreed with Torres, stating the rape had to happen in Arkansas if it 
supported the death penalty.

Torres was in court on Monday (October 7) for an omnibus hearing. His trial is 
set to begin on February 18, 2020.

(source: KNWA news)








KANSAS:

Death-Row Inmate Pushes High Court for Insanity Standard



As the Supreme Court opened its fall term Monday with a case about what it 
takes to plead insanity, Justice Stephen Breyer offered a hypothetical example 
of two criminals — one who believed a dog had told him to shoot another person, 
the other who shot another person because he believed that person was a dog.

“They are both crazy,” Breyer said. “And why does Kansas say one is guilty, the 
other is not guilty?"

In 2009, there was no dog hallucination, but James Kahler had been experiencing 
depression systems after his wife left him and took the kids.

Fired from his job and living with his parents in Kansas, Kahler entered the 
home of his former in-laws where the family had spent Thanksgiving. He shot and 
killed his ex-wife, 2 teenage daughters and his mother-in-law, sparing only his 
son.

When Kahler went on trial, Kansas barred his insanity defense pursuant to 1996 
law that says mental illness cannot excuse a defendant from knowing his actions 
were wrong.

Facing the death penalty now after he was convicted, Kahler says this approach 
to the insanity defense violates the Eighth and 14th Amendments.

His attorney Sarah Schrup argued Monday before the Supreme Court that criminal 
defendants have a due-process right to mount a case for insanity, and that it 
is cruel and unusual to sentence a person with a mental deficiency the same way 
it would sentence a mentally competent individual.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that reforming the rules for insanity 
defenses could lead to the adoption of a model where defendants are judged 
“guilty but insane,” and thus confined either to a mental institution or 
prison, depending on an assessment of their mental capacity.

Schrup, who is with Northwestern University’s Supreme Court Practicum, argued 
that such a scheme, though common in other nations, would violate due process.

“I think it would because the conviction itself carries collateral consequences 
that — and we have never, as a country, treated the insane as culpable,” she 
said. “And that conviction would impose collateral consequences on the insane 
person who really should be excused.”

In arguments for the state meanwhile, Kansas Solicitor General Toby Crouse said 
defining insanity would be a waste of time, noting that the historical basis 
for a right-versus-wrong test cannot even be said to be deeply rooted since it 
first cropped up in the 1800s.

Crouse noted that the state still allows defendants to tackle morality 
perceptions after their conviction, drawing pushback from Justice Sonya 
Sotomayor.

“You’re saying the same thing with something like duress: I intend to kill 
someone, but it’s because somebody is holding a gun to my head. All 50 states 
would let you off,” Sotomayor said. “But you’re now saying it’s okay to 
stigmatize you with a criminal conviction even though, in fact, you may be 
insane.”

“I’m saying what the state of Kansas has done is it has defined its mental 
illness defense consistent with what the historical teachings are,” Crouse 
replied. “Criminal intent was what handled everything with regard to criminal 
insanity.”

(source: Courthouse News)








OKLAHOMA:

Supreme Court rejects appeal of man who killed Oklahoma Trooper



The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected the appeal of death row inmate Ricky 
Ray Malone, who was convicted of killing Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Nikky 
Green in 2003 in Cotton County.

Malone, 45, has now exhausted his appeals and is eligible for an execution date 
when the state resumes executions. Malone is 1 of 22 Oklahoma death row inmates 
eligible for execution; there are 57 inmates on death row.

Oklahoma has not executed an inmate since 2015. Last year, the state abandoned 
lethal injection as its execution method and has been exploring the use of 
nitrogen gas.

Green was trying to arrest Malone on the side of the road for making 
methamphetamine. After a struggle, Malone took Green's gun, made him lie face 
down on the ground and then shot him twice in the head.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in 2007 upheld Malone's conviction but 
vacated his death sentence, ruling that the jury in his case did not receive 
proper instructions related to Malone's defense that he was too intoxicated to 
have the intent necessary for first-degree murder. A judge in 2010 resentenced 
Malone and gave him the death penalty.

Malone's appeals have focused on whether errors at trial prevented the jury 
from properly evaluating Malone's intoxication defense. The 10th U.S. Circuit 
Court of Appeals ruled that "the cumulative errors did not have a substantial 
and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict. The 
evidence against (Malone) was far too compelling."

Malone appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review 
the case without comment.

(source: The Oklahoman)






CALIFORNIA:

Man Charged in Fatal Shooting of Girlfriend’s Estranged Wife in Granada Hills: 
DA



A man could face the death penalty in the murder of his girlfriend’s estranged 
wife outside the victim’s Granada Hills home in July, prosecutors announced 
Monday.

Javier Flores, a 24-year-old Simi Valley resident, has been charged with 
capital murder in the death of Cheyenne Brown, the Los Angeles County District 
Attorney’s Office said. Flores also faced a special circumstance allegation 
that he lied in wait and used a handgun.

Brown, also 24, was a competitive roller dance skater with the Northridge Skate 
Team and left behind a 2-year-old daughter, according to Northridge Skateland.

The victim had just gone home from one job and was preparing to drive for Uber 
when she was shot three times behind her home on July 22, her grandfather, Bill 
Schroeder, previously told KTLA.

Schroeder said he found her in an alley and tried to perform CPR, but Brown was 
ultimately pronounced dead at the scene. Family members described her as a 
devoted mother.

Officers responded around 10:20 p.m., p.m. the night of the incident in the 
16600 block of Chatsworth Street, according to the Los Angeles Police 
Department.

Witnesses reported seeing a truck fleeing the scene, and investigators 
subsequently served search warrants in Granada Hills, Mission Hills and Simi 
Valley, where they arrested Flores at his residence on Sept. 12, LAPD said.

The District Attorney’s Office said Flores was in a relationship with Brown’s 
estranged wife but provided no further details about the circumstances that led 
to the attack.

If convicted as charged, Flores could be sentenced to death or life in prison 
without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors have not decided whether or not 
they would seek capital punishment.

Flores was scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

(source: ktla.com)

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

Conviction again overturned for former death row inmate accused of 1981 Newport 
Beach murder



A 67-year-old man once plucked from death row who was ordered to instead serve 
life in prison without the possibility of parole after his most recent trial 
has once again seen his sentenced overturned, this time by an appellate court.

With a panel of California Court of Appeals judges deciding to overturn James 
Andrew Melton’s special-circumstances murder conviction, prosecutors will now 
be forced to decide whether to pursue a 4th trial related to the 1981 killing 
of Antony Lial DeSousa.

In a written opinion released Monday, the appellate judges questioned a 
“retrospective competency” hearing held before Melton’s most recent trial, 
which was meant to determine whether he was mentally competent during a 1982 
preliminary hearing.

“Under the particular circumstances of this case, at a distance of 35 years, 
and without any expert competency evaluations at the time of the preliminary 
hearing, we do not believe that any trial court could fairly come to a reliable 
conclusion that Melton was mentally competent at the preliminary hearing,” the 
judges wrote.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a 
request for comment regarding the appeals court decision.

Melton was accused of using advertisements in gay magazines to meet rich, older 
men who he could rob. Prosecutors say Melton met DeSousa through such an ad 
before robbing the 77-year-old retiree and strangling him at his Newport Beach 
condo.

Melton has been behind bars since his 1981 arrest. He was sentenced to death in 
1982, and spent more than a decade on Death Row at San Quentin. But the 
question of his competency has long lingered over the case.

In 2007, a federal judge ruled that Melton had been over-medicated by jail 
staff during his trial, preventing him from understanding the proceedings. A 
subsequent retrial in 2013 ended with jurors deadlocked 10-2 in favor of 
conviction.

Leading up to Melton’s third trial, prosecutors decided not to seek the death 
penalty, partly because of the case’s age.

A key witness against Melton was his former prison lover, Johnny Boyd, who 
claimed that the pair had hatched a plan while serving time together in 1980 at 
the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, to target rich, older men.

Boyd, saying he set up a dinner date between DeSousa and Melton, said that 
Melton admitted to killing DeSousa and claimed to have seen Melton wearing 
DeSousa’s jewelry.

Boyd died of AIDS in 1992, but jurors were presented with his testimony from 
the 1982 preliminary hearing.

The appellate judges, in this week’s ruling, determine that introducing that 
testimony in the retrial was improper and prejudicial, because prosecutors 
couldn’t prove Melton was competent enough to assist with his own defense at 
the preliminary hearing.

During his last trial, Melton’s attorney described Boyd as a spurned lover with 
a history of lying.

Melton’s previous conviction had already been questioned by his attorney over 
allegations of juror misconduct.

While his 2018 trial was underway, an alternate juror discussed the case with a 
manicurist at a Fountain Valley nail salon, a conversation overheard by a court 
clerk.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg L. Prickett had declined to set a new 
trial, ruling there was no indication the alternate juror was biased against 
Melton, or that any outside information was passed on to other jurors.

(source: Orange County Register)

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

'Hollywood Ripper' murderer to learn if he'll be sentenced to death for killing 
2 women



A man known as the "Hollywood Ripper" who was convicted of murdering 2 Los 
Angeles women and trying to kill a third will soon learn if he'll be sentenced 
to death for his crimes.

A jury will convene Monday to determine the fate of Michael Gargiulo, 43, who 
was convicted in August after a trial that included testimony from actor Ashton 
Kutcher.

Kutcher had a date scheduled with 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin the day she was 
stabbed to death in her Hollywood Hills home in February 2001.

Kutcher, who then a cast member on "That '70s Show," testified that when he 
went to pick Ellerin up at her home that night there was no answer at the door.

"I pretty well assumed ... she had left for the night," Kutcher testified.

The actor told the jury he looked through the window before he left and saw a 
"little bit of a mess" and what he thought was "red wine spilled on the 
carpet."

Prosecutors said that the red liquid Kutcher mistook for wine was actually 
Ellerin's blood.

Gargiulo was convicted of breaking into Ellerin's home and killing her. He was 
also found guilty of murdering and mutilating his 32-year-old neighbor, Maria 
Bruno, in 2005.

Bruno, who was attacked while she slept, lived in the same apartment complex in 
El Monte as Gargiulo, according to Los Angeles County prosecutors.

Then in 2008, Gargiulo attacked his 26-year-old neighbor, Michelle Murphy, 
stabbing her in her Santa Monica home. Murphy fought him off and Gargiulo was 
cut during the struggle, prosecutors said.

Michael Gargiulo listens during closing statements in his capital murder trial 
in Los Angeles Superior Court, Aug. 6, 2019.

Gargiulo was found guilty of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder with special 
circumstance allegations of multiple murders and lying in wait, which makes him 
eligible for the death penalty, prosecutors said. He was also convicted of 1 
count of attempted murder and attempted escape, prosecutors said.

Gargiulo was also charged in the 1993 killing of 18-year-old Tricia Pacaccio in 
the Chicago area, prosecutors said.

(source: ABC News)








WASHINGTON:

How 2 sociologists ended the death penalty in Washington



This Friday, Oct. 11, marks 1 year since the Washington Supreme Court decided 
in a 9-0 ruling that the death penalty in Washington was unconstitutional, 
making it the 20th state in the country to outlaw capital punishment.

The decision was made in response to new evidence that the death penalty in 
Washington was “imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner” and thereby 
violated Washington’s state constitution which prohibits the infliction of 
“cruel punishment.”

The death penalty was interpreted as cruel punishment in this case because it 
was shown to lack “fundamental fairness.”

The new evidence came from a study conducted by UW sociologists Katherine 
Beckett and Heather Evans in 2014, which analyzed the role race played in 
Washington state capital sentencing in aggravated murder cases from 1981 to 
2014.

The study was challenged in court, but every time Beckett and Evans went back 
to do more analysis using different models, their results came back unchanged, 
only strengthening the validity of their study.

“It was extremely gratifying to learn that the court took social scientific 
evidence — and the problem of racial bias it revealed — seriously,” Beckett 
said.

The results of the study showed that, although prosecutors were more likely to 
seek the death penalty in cases against white defendants than black defendants, 
black defendants were 4 1/2 times more likely to be sentenced by the jury to 
death than white defendants in similar cases.

Additionally, they found that the decision of prosecutors to seek or impose the 
death penalty varied across different counties in Washington: prosecutors in 
counties with proportionally larger black populations were significantly more 
likely to file death notices in aggravated murder cases.

“Social scientific research and evidence can do many important things, 
including uncovering whether and how various axes of inequality such as race, 
class, gender, sexuality and disability status matter in various institutional 
contexts,” Beckett said. “Such research can also illuminate the human impact of 
various policies and practices.”

In the past decade, the number of students pursuing humanities and social 
science degrees at the UW have dropped significantly, while the amount of 
students in STEM fields has greatly increased.

According to a Seattle Times article from earlier this year, there are nearly 
as many STEM majors at the UW as non-STEM majors. This is a dramatic shift from 
10 years ago, when there were twice as many non-STEM majors as there were STEM 
majors.

While STEM is undoubtedly important in our increasingly technology-mediated 
world, social science research is still necessary to inform effective public 
policy and laws, and to continue to improve society in hopes of being as fair 
and equitable as possible, as Beckett and Evans’s research has done.

(source: Ther (University of Washington) Daily)








USA----stay of impending federal ((Native American) execution

Court stays execution of Navajo man to hear claim of possible jury bias



A divided appeals court has stayed the scheduled December execution of Lezmond 
Mitchell, a Navajo double-murderer, saying it needs time to consider his claim 
that he was not allowed to question jurors for potential racial bias.

Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row, was 1 of 5 inmates 
identified by Attorney General William Barr when he announced plans in July to 
resume federal executions for the first time in nearly 2 decades.

Barr set Mitchell’s execution set for Dec. 11, but a divided panel of the 9th 
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ordered the execution be put on hold 
and set a Dec. 13 date to hear Mitchell’s pending appeal of his racial bias 
claim.

In a dissent, Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta chided the other judges for rushing to 
delay the execution, saying the court has ample time to hear Mitchell’s appeal 
before his execution date. She also said the majority failed to consider 
whether Mitchell has a “significant possibility of success” on his appeal, a 
requirement for granting a stay.

“We frequently decide claims in capital cases in a matter of days,” wrote 
Ikuta, who noted that arguments in Mitchell’s latest appeal could be heard by 
mid-October. “We should do that here.”

A request Monday for comment on the case from the Justice Department was not 
immediately returned. Calls to Mitchell’s attorneys, to the Navajo Nation and 
to tribal groups and capital punishment opponents were also not returned.

When he announced the resumption of federal executions, Barr said this summer 
that the Justice Department prioritized death-row inmates convicted of 
“murdering, and in some cases torturing and raping, the most vulnerable in our 
society – children and the elderly.”

Mitchell was convicted for the 2001 carjacking and brutal murders of a Navajo 
grandmother, Alyce Slim, 63, and her 9-year-old granddaughter in a remote part 
of the Navajo Nation.

According to court records, when he and an accomplice set out to steal Slim’s 
GMC pickup truck, they abducted her and the girl. They stabbed Slim 33 times 
and forced the girl to sit next to her grandmother’s body in the back of the 
truck. They later pulled both from the truck, told the girl to “lay down and 
die” next to her grandmother, before twice slitting the girl’s throat – then 
dropping heavy rocks on her head to kill her when she did not die from the 
slashing.

Mitchell was convicted on 11 counts, including 1st-degree murder and 
carjacking. Under federal and Navajo law at the time, Mitchell could not be 
sentenced to death for committing the murders on the reservation. But federal 
law at the time made carjacking a capital offense, and court records say that 
then-Attorney General John Ashcroft pressed for the death penalty in the case.

Both the Navajo Nation and the victim’s family said they opposed the death 
penalty. But Mitchell was sentenced to death in 2003.

In his dissent to a 2015 ruling in the case, Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt 
noted that Mitchell could be the 1st Native American put to death by the 
federal government for an “intra-Indian crime that occurred in Indian Country” 
if the execution went forward.

In his latest appeal, Mitchell’s lawyers last August cited a Supreme Court case 
that said courts could consider evidence that jurors “relied on racial 
stereotypes or animus to convict a criminal defendant.”

Ikuta said jurors in Mitchell’s case signed statements that said race played no 
role in their decision, and there was no evidence of bias on their part. But 
Mitchell’s attorneys said they should be allowed to question the jurors because 
of “the government’s closing argument was riddled with comments that should not 
have been made,” some of which related to Mitchell’s “religious beliefs and 
Navajo culture.”

The 9th Circuit had ruled in 2007 that any comments in the closing arguments 
“were not, in and of themselves, nearly as inflammatory as the graphic evidence 
of the murders … which was quite properly before the jury.” And a district 
court last year rejected Mitchell’s latest request to question jurors.

Mitchell’s appeal of that district court ruling was pending when Barr scheduled 
his execution for Dec. 11. Because the circuit court had ruled that the appeal 
could go forward, Mitchell asked for and was granted the stay while his appeal 
is argued.

The circuit court set a hearing on that appeal for Dec. 13 in Phoenix.

(source: cronkitenews.azpbs.org)

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

USA----impending/scheduled executions

With the execution of Russell Bucklew in Missouri on October 1, the USA has now 
executed 1,507 condemned individuals since the death penalty was re-legalized 
on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.

Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below 
is a list of further scheduled executions as the nation continues its shameful 
practice of state-sponsored killings.

NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution 
dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.

1508-------Oct. 30------------Ruben Gutierrez----------Texas

1509-------Nov. 3-9-----------Charles Rhines-----------South Dakota

1510-------Nov. 6-------------Justen Hall--------------Texas

1511-------Nov. 7-------------James Dailey-------------Florida

1512-------Nov. 13------------Patrick Murphy-----------Texas

1513-------Nov. 20------------Rodney Reed--------------Texas

1514-------Dec. 5-------------Lee Hall Jr.-------------Tennessee

1515-------Dec. 9-------------Daniel Lewis Lee---------Federal - Ark.

1516-------Dec. 11------------James Hanna--------------Ohio

1517-------Dec. 11------------Travis Runnels-----------Texas

1518-------Dec. 13------------Wesley Purkey------------Federal - Mo.

1519-------Jan. 13-----------Alfred Bourgeois----------Federal - Tex.

1520-------Jan. 15-----------Dusten Honken-------------Federal - Iowa

1521-------Jan. 15-----------John Gardner--------------Texas

1522-------Jan. 16-----------Kareem Jackson------------Ohio

1523-------Feb. 6------------Abel Ochoa----------------Texas

1524-------Mar. 11-----------Carlos Trevino------------Texas

(source: Rick Halperin)

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

Ethics and Religion Talk: The Death Penalty



What is Ethics and Religion Talk?

“Ethics and Religion Talk,” answers questions of ethics or religion from a 
multi-faith perspective. Each post contains three or four responses to a reader 
question from a panel of nine diverse clergy from different religious 
perspectives, all based in the Grand Rapids area. It is the only column of its 
kind. No other news site, religious or otherwise, publishes a similar column.

The first 5 years of columns, published in the Grand Rapids Press and MLive, 
are archived at http://topics.mlive.com/tag/ethics-and-religion-talk/. More 
recent columns can be found on TheRapidian.org by searching for the tag “ethics 
and religion talk.”

We’d love to hear about the ordinary ethical questions that come up on the 
course of your day as well as any questions of religion that you’ve wondered 
about. Tell us how you resolved an ethical dilemma and see how members of the 
Ethics and Religion Talk panel would have handled the same situation. Please 
send your questions to ethicsandreligion at gmail.com.

Marritta asks: When I was a Christian, I believed in the death penalty because 
it was biblical. Almost as soon as I became an atheist, I did a 180. My 
reasoning was that if there is no god, all that's left is humanity; therefore, 
life is the only thing that's sacred. So, we should preserve it at all cost. 
Now, I'm not so sure. What should we do with mass murderers, pedophiles, 
rapists? Many of these offenders are sociopaths with no conscience or empathy, 
and psychology is beginning to recognize that, most likely, they cannot be 
rehabilitated. So, what is the ethical thing to do with them?

Father Kevin Niehoff, O.P., a Dominican priest who serves as Adjutant Judicial 
Vicar, Diocese of Grand Rapids, responds:

“In October of 2017, Pope Francis provided further insight into the Catholic 
Church’s teaching on the death penalty as ‘inadmissible because it is an attack 
on the inviolability and dignity of the person’ (L’Osservatore Romano, 13 
October 2017). While recognizing the rights of the human person, ‘the efforts 
of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to 
the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding 
the common good’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 546). The Church teaches 
that ‘legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict 
punishment that is proportionate to the gravity of the offense’ (ibid.).

“Ethical treatment of individuals requires that one begins with recognizing 
that despite the crime or sin committed the individual has rights. This is 
demonstrated by the legitimately authorized member of society attempting to 
rehabilitate the offender. If the offender cannot be rehabilitated, then 
society has the right to remove the individual(s) to protect the common good. 
This removal in the United States tends to be incarceration.

“There is no sin that is ‘unforgivable’ regardless of how heinous. Even if 
someone may not be rehabilitated, he/she has a right to humane treatment even 
if removed from society for life.”

The Reverend Colleen Squires, minister at All Souls Community Church of West 
Michigan, a Unitarian Universalist Congregation, responds:

“In 1961 the Unitarian and Universalist faiths merged to form the new Unitarian 
Universalist denomination. In that same year our denomination voted and 
approved a General Resolution stating our opposition to the death penalty. In 
1974 and several other times throughout our history we have made a repeated 
declaration of our opposition to the death penalty. At the core of our faith in 
our First Principle, We affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

“Like many of us who find Unitarian Universalism as adults we began life in 
different faith traditions. I too was raised in a faith that support the death 
penalty and I had to grapple and reconcile my beliefs. It became clear to me 
that on the issue of the death penalty I had to be less concerned about the 
actions of other people regardless of the heinousness of the crime and more 
concerned about my own actions. I am responsible to honor our First Principle 
and therefore I live in opposition of capital punishment.”

Dr Sahibzada, the Director of Islamic Center and Imam of the Mosque of Grand 
Rapids, responds:

“Poisonous snake’s biting will end life. Therefore, action will be taken to end 
the life of the dangerous species to save other lives. Murderers will be 
handled in a same manner to protect lives. The future criminals will learn 
lesson. It will minimize crimes and finally put an end to heinous crimes.

“Heinous crimes against humanity have become like contagious disease due to 
lack of true firm deterrent to curtail them in totality. There must be zero 
tolerance for crimes.”

My response:

Our prison system is design to punish, not to rehabilitate. And from the 
evidence, no punishment, whether life in prison or the death penalty, has 
proven to be an effective deterrent against other potential murderers. The 
death penalty prevents the murderer from killing again, whereas life in prison, 
even life without the possibility of parole, leaves open the possibility of the 
murderer taking another life in prison.

I construct my ethical system based on biblical and other early Jewish rabbinic 
sources. Biblical support for the death penalty is based on the notion that 
human life is sacred and the deliberate taking of life demands an equal 
payment. So my response is that I support the death penalty for those who are 
mentally competent and are found guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt to have 
committed intentional murder.

I object to the state killing someone found guilty only beyond a reasonable 
doubt, because as long as there is doubt, there is a possibility of error; and 
as long as that possibility exists, the state should not impose a 
non-rescindable punishment. If there is any shadow of doubt, the next best 
option is life in prison without possibility of parole.

(source: Rabbi David J.B. Krishef)

This column answers questions of Ethics and Religion by submitting them to a 
multi-faith panel of spiritual leaders in the Grand Rapids area. We’d love to 
hear about the ordinary ethical questions that come up in the course of your 
day as well as any questions of religion that you’ve wondered about. Tell us 
how you resolved an ethical dilemma and see how members of the Ethics and 
Religion Talk panel would have handled the same situation. Please send your 
questions to ethicsandreligion at gmail.com.

(source: The Rapidian)