WTE: Justice is right. Capital punishment teaches the value of life

Daniel Lee Lewis kidnapped William Mueller, his wife and stepdaughter. He tortured and killed them, one at a time, because he believed they could tell him where they had hidden gold and other treasure. This was only his most heinous crime of a seven-year career that included another murder, a public shootout with police and burglary. 

Gutwrenching as it is to read about these evils, it is necessary background for a sober discussion of capital punishment. Details too terrible to print combined with Lee’s lack of remorse and a long history of violence to convince the jury that justice required the death penalty. This judgment has been reaffirmed by every possible appeal for two decades.

Attorney General William Barr announced the scheduling of his execution, along with five others, last Thursday, July 25. These will be the first federal executions since 2003. That’s a good reason to think about what we’re doing.

In fact, there have only been three federal executions since 1963. Executions are rare because the death penalty is typically reserved for the most heinous murders. They are made rarer still by individual players who thwart decisions reached by layers of careful deliberation. Media outlets that reported Barr’s announcement as lifting some formal “moratorium” misled their readers.

After 2003, pharmaceutical companies conspired to keep the Bureau of Prisons from procuring the anesthetic needed for the procedure. Then, Attorney General Eric Holder deliberately neglected to schedule any executions during his tenure. Most recently, he ordered a review of all death penalty procedures. Barr’s announcement signaled that the five-year review is now complete, resulting in new protocols and a resumption of carrying out the law.

While almost every culture has exercised capital punishment, those influenced by Christianity limit it in fundamental ways. Two key biblical passages are invoked. Romans 13:4 teaches that God Himself gives governments the “sword” to “execute wrath on him who practices evil” (NKJV). This, in turn, is grounded on God’s command to Noah after the Flood, “[w]hoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6).

Fundamental to Christian political thought is that “evil” is not an arbitrary construct, but an objective reality seen in nature. From this, Western Civilization has seen governments as “ministers of God” to punish evil on His behalf. When a nation forgets or denies this fact, it does not become more just. It fails in its primary task to punish evil.

Perhaps this explains why those who were first to oppose the death penalty were avowed atheists. Robespierre, the henchman of the French Revolution, wrote a pamphlet against the death penalty before he sentenced 40,000 countrymen to death. Likewise, the Bolsheviks initially banned capital punishment in early 1917 before slaughtering somewhere between eight and 60 million citizens over the next 70 years.

All agree that to abolish the death penalty is to make a statement. Some believe it’s a statement that life is too valuable to take. Others conclude that the lives of the victims are not valuable enough to avenge. Whatever it teaches about the lives of victim and perpetrator, it chiefly teaches something about the source and authority of government.

Laws and regulations can only be enforced by those with power over your bodily life. If government does not have the legitimate, God-given authority to take life, it has no legitimate authority at all: it has no authority to wage just wars, nor does it have authority to enforce just laws.

Atheists and non-Christian citizens need not fear the specter of a theocracy dependent upon some private revelation. Since governments are established to rule believer and unbeliever alike, just laws can only rest on “the Laws of Nature” and not upon the revelation of the Gospel.

Far from establishing a totalitarian theocracy, a government that recognizes itself as a servant of God will necessarily be a limited government. If a government is not limited by God, what else can limit it?

Take God out of the equation and governments tend toward totalitarianism. This was seen in the French and Bolshevik Revolutions, and wherever communism raises its head. Capital punishment, thoughtfully considered, keeps a society fully aware that governments are subservient to transcendent principles and are not gods unto themselves.

Our concern to exercise this awesome power responsibly will make every participant in the justice system humble and careful. The lessons of 1700 years of Western Law must be followed scrupulously to ensure that innocents are not mistakenly put to death. But it is precisely for the protection of innocent life that some crimes require capital punishment.

The pending execution of five human beings is a terrible thing. What would be more terrible still is to deny that just societies have the right to do it, and the responsibility to do it justly.