"Not weighing our merits, but granting us your pardon..."

In my previous offering on capital punishment I discussed the executions of Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer, which happened on the same day, albeit with vastly different responses. Mr. Davis's execution occurred under a spotlight of worldwide attention, with tearful vigils and supporters wearing "I Am Troy Davis" t-shirts, while Mr. Brewer's execution occurred under a veil of comparable obscurity, aside from the laudable fast and prayer vigil by civil rights activist Dick Gregory. The two contrasting reactions led me to decry a tendency among death-penalty opponents to lionize certain death-row inmates, overlooking or downplaying their crimes, while questioning the righteousness of their executions.

This is borne out in Mark Shea's entry in which he remarks,

Our Judicial system, the envy of the world, successfully manages to kill Troy Davis before too much evidence of his possible innocence accrues and public demand to revisit the case creates a big paperwork headache for everybody. The important thing is that we got somebody killed, not whether or not they, you know, deserved it. Moloch requires sacrifice and isn't that picky about who he eats.

Setting aside objections about the sarcastic tone of the entry, the point I wish to make about this reasoning is that it assumes not only that Mr. Davis's execution was wrong, but that the state actively rushed an innocent man to death. (If he were innocent, not only would a death penalty be wrong, but it would also demand his release from prison.) The history of the case bears out my objection to that line of attack; Mr. Davis was tried and convicted in 1991, and his case went through a lengthy appeals process at both the state and federal level up to the United States Supreme Court, including an evidentiary hearing (ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court) on subsequent retractions by numerous witnesses. The courts at the highest level not only upheld the conviction, but also declined to order a new trial. This was a twenty-year case that had a considerable appeals process, not a drumhead trial in which the accused was rushed to his death.

To characterize those who support capital punishment of merely having a bloodthirsty need for vengeance on anyone is to distort the truth that justice must be served, that one of the primary roles of the state is to uphold justice, and that, in a constitutional republic such as ours, we elect and appoint prosecutors, magistrates, and judges, and, as citizens, serve as jurors to ensure that the interests of justice are served. (Just as it is an oversimplification to paint supporters of capital punishment as rash, vengeful, and bloodthirsty, so is it misguided to characterize death-penalty opponents as simply being "soft on crime" and insensitive to victims. Often, the most vocal advocates of their respective positions do a disservice by applauding executions, on the one hand, and turning convicted killers into political prisoners on the other.)

Although I favor a constitutional government based on limited, enumerated powers, I am not a libertarian; that is to say, I do not subscribe to a viewpoint that the state has no or very few powers to uphold and carry out justice. A system of courts, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers is necessary to pursue and uphold the common good, and is rightfully delegated to the state rather than to private individuals. That system is neither flawless nor infallible; that is one of the reasons I have deep reservations about using the death penalty. The work of The Innocence Project has borne this out. I believe the questions surrounding the Troy Davis case make that more clear, but, I also believe that even in a more clear-cut case such as that of Lawrence Brewer we ought to examine the use of capital punishment. The teaching of the Church tells us that we are to use bloodless means to protect public safety and order where those are sufficient. In both of these cases I believe that use of capital punishment was wrong on these grounds.

I also support the right of the state (contrary to some libertarian and, for lack of a better term, "liberal" positions) to use capital punishment in instances where public safety and order cannot be secured, and justice cannot be served, without bloodless measures. I use as examples crime family members who have the means to order hits from inside prisons, inmates who have killed other prisoners, as well as people who wage armed insurrection against government officials and buildings. Other instances that I would consider are people who have placed themselves outside the law, such as pirates and terrorists. That said, these are rare instances. The Church teachings, while not providing or limiting themselves to types of crimes that call for a death penalty, nonetheless uphold it as an option, rather than calling for a blanket abolition.

The differing reactions to these two executions, and often to discussions of death-row cases in general, has focused on whether a particular inmate "deserves" death. The lingering questions around Troy Davis led people to boldly proclaim his innocence, while Lawrence Brewer's case was left in comparable obscurity. Supporters of the executions, on the other hand, rightly pointed out that both men had committed terrible crimes, that they had been tried under our laws and had been given ample opportunity to present a defense, that their cases were allowed to be reviewed by appellate courts, and that they ought to be dealt with justice, which in their judgment entailed carrying out capital sentences in both instances.

Just as I looked to the Church teaching about capital punishment specifically in my previous entry, so now will I look at a Christian response to the question of justice and mercy in a broader sense here.

The central life of the Church, the "source and summit" of Her existence, is the celebration of Holy Mass, the Eucharist, in which the bread and wine are consecrated and transformed into the very Body and Blood of Christ. The central prayer of that liturgical encounter with God is the Roman Canon, or, more prosaically, "Eucharistic Prayer I". In the midst of that long and beautiful prayer is a section of intercessions, in which the priest prays on behalf of himself and all assembled for a share in eternal life with the saints (some of whom are then specifically named); this intercessory section concludes thus:

[A]dmit us, we beseech you, into their company, not weighing our merits, but granting us your pardon, through Christ our Lord.

This prayer serves to remind us that God's mercy is not contingent upon our merits, our conduct, good or otherwise, but rather that our pardon is given to us through Christ's love for us. This is an example of what Fr. Z means when he writes "the Church's preeminent form of communication: liturgical worship." The words of the prayer call to mind the harsh truth that, on our own, we are in fact deserving of death, of Hell, by virtue of our sinfulness, but that through the love of Christ, we are indeed saved and welcomed into His eternal presence.

What does that mean when looking at capital punishment? It means that, yes, indeed, those on death row in fact "deserve" death in light of their crimes (incidentally, the same idea of "deserving" applies to other convicts); it further means that the truly innocent, i.e. those who are wrongly convicted, do not "deserve" to be punished for crimes they did not commit, and that further, that justice requires they be compensated for their loss of reputation and their loss of productive years of work. As Christians, we must approach capital punishment not on such a basis of what one deserves, but rather on a balance of what upholds justice for crimes committed, what protects a stable civic order and ensures the safety of the general public, and what is aligned with God's call to be merciful.