Capital punishment

Ralph Nielsen nielsen@uidaho.edu
Sat, 28 Feb 1998 16:57:36 -0800 (PST) (00888735456, v03007804b11ded531162@[129.101.112.119]) 


>NANCY

>This thread is somewhat off-topic, but that won't stop me from adding my

>$0.02-worth. Until there can be a guarantee that no innocent person will be

>put to death, I cannot support capital punishment. To make the thread a

>little more on-topic, I find it rather ironic that some xtian groups, most

>notably the RCC, are adamantly opposed to capital punishment when it is

>prescribed by the god they worship.

>

>Nancy Todd

>todds@pa.net


RALPH
I agreee with you completely. Recently a man in California was released
from prison after 16 years on a wrongful murder conviction. Just a few
months ago a man in Canada was set free after serving 23 years for murder.
DNA evidence proved him innocent. A couple of years or so ago in England
several Irishmen who had been sentenced to life for murder were found to be
innocent. They had been framed by lying cops.

A conservative British judge commented that if they had still had hanging,
the Irishmen wouldn't have been alive to complain. A reader of the
Manchester Guardian commented that if the judge had been found guilty of
murder and hanged, we wouldn't have had him around to complain, either.

I remember reading several years ago that someone had done a study and had
found that at least 90 innocent people had been executed in the U.S.
Needless to say, many of them were poor blacks who had no money for an
adequate defense. In the "good old days," the police would have believed
Susan Smith's story about a black man kidnapping and drowning her children.
A black man would have been produced, tried by a jury of white Christians,
and executed. The case would be marked closed, and Susan Smith would be
free today.

I mentioned earlier that there is a divine commandment in the Bible
concerning putting people to death that is not followed today, not even by
self-proclaimed Bible believers. Does anyone know what the restriction is?
If not, I'll tell you all later.