Listen to “I Don’t Know About the Death Penalty” on Spreaker.
“I don’t know” isn’t a cursed condition. Sometimes, it’s a blessing.
Struggling with difficult ideas and policies — really wrestling with them — can ultimately produce wisdom.
I don’t know what I think about capital punishment.
Despite periodic calls to reinstate the death penalty in West Virginia, the idea has repeatedly failed to become law. Senator Brian Helton told us on Talkline this week he’ll re-introduce legislation to provide for the death penalty when one is convicted of certain heinous acts against children.
Nationally, there is substantial support for capital punishment. According to Pew Research, about two-thirds of Americans — 66 percent — favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while 32 percent oppose it.
But those numbers move considerably when you introduce demographics, circumstances surrounding the crime, the possibility of wrongful conviction and other variables.
Then there is Christa Pike.
Pike, a West Virginia native, has been on Tennessee’s death row for decades for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, committed when Pike was 18 years old.
Tennessee attempted to execute Pike Wednesday night.
It failed.
After receiving two doses of pentobarbital, Pike remained alive and was ultimately transported to a hospital, where she has received life-saving medical treatment. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee subsequently halted executions for the remainder of the year and ordered an investigation into what happened.
Perhaps this issue confounds some of us because it sits at the intersection of religion, morality, law, justice and politics.
Some Christian scholars see support for the authority of government to impose capital punishment in the New Testament. They point to Romans 13:4, where civil authority “does not bear the sword in vain” and is described as an agent of wrath against the wrongdoer.
Others emphasize passages such as John 8 and the woman caught in adultery. Under Mosaic law, the offense could carry death. Jesus challenges her accusers: let the one without sin cast the first stone. Eventually, none does. Jesus tells the woman to go and sin no more.
Does one passage carry greater weight than the other? Are they even addressing the same question? What does the totality of Scripture conclude?
Centuries of theological debate tell us the answer is not simple.
Morality does not simplify things much.
If human life possesses immeasurable value, can deliberately taking a human life ever be morally justified? Or does the deliberate taking of an innocent life create circumstances in which forfeiture of the offender’s own life is justified?
The law seemingly makes the issue only marginally less complicated.
The Constitution does not categorically prohibit capital punishment, but the Eighth Amendment and decades of Supreme Court rulings place significant limits on when it may be imposed.
The Court has held, for example, that the death penalty cannot be imposed for the rape of a child when the victim survives. Murder, however, can qualify for capital punishment under circumstances permitted by state and federal law.
So we draw lines.
Age. Intent. Mental capacity. The nature of the crime. Aggravating circumstances. Mitigating circumstances.
Some of those distinctions are legal. Some are moral. Some require human beings to make extraordinarily difficult judgments about other human beings.
Is that good or bad?
I don’t know.
Then there is another argument: What if death is too easy?
Is an existence spent confined until death comes naturally, a misery actually a greater punishment than execution?
My imperfection gravitates toward that argument. Make the guilty person live with what he or she has done. Let the punishment last in a state of unhappiness and loneliness – a consequence to be endured.
But is punishment supposed to satisfy my imperfection? Probably not, as much as my imperfection would like it to.
Here’s what I do know.
We should welcome the opportunity to wrestle with questions like this. And we should do so regularly — not simply when an execution, a horrific crime or a legislative proposal suddenly puts capital punishment back in the news.
There is nothing intellectually weak about saying, “I don’t know.” Sometimes certainty should be earned.
Ultimately, questions about capital punishment will continue to be answered through our laws, our courts and the collective judgment of the people being the ultimate arbiter on this issue.
We will be better prepared to participate in that judgment – that decision – if we continually reckon with the question rather than waiting until the moment demands an answer.