[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA, GA., IND.

[Rick Halperin]

May 9


USA:

Difficult Bible Passages and the Penalty of Death


Previously, we saw how capital punishment is compatible with love, honors
God's sovereignty over life, and encourages the condemned to repent and be
saved. Now, let's finish our discussion by looking at 3 biblical
counter-examples to execution.

Religious Objection: What about Cain?

In Genesis 4, Adam and Eve's 2 sons bring their offerings to God. God
accepts Abel's and rejects Cain's. In his anger, Cain strikes and kills
his brother. God discovers Cain's violence and banishes him for life while
also protecting him with some sort of divine mark. Doesn't this show that
even God does not favor executing murderers?

One way to explain Cain's survival is that the law against murder wasn't
given by God for another 1,600 years after Noah's flood. Even the Old
Testament wasn't written by Moses for another 900 years after that. But
this response fails since there is the punishment of banishing. If it
wasn't a crime because the law hadn't been given yet, there would have
been no punishment at all. Also, Cain clearly expected to be punished by
God and men. Thus, his severe but non-capital banishment demands
explanation, and the only biblically plausible answer is that this wasn't
murder.

Nothing in the text indicates that Cain intended Abel's death. Not only
are there hundreds of ways to strike a man and kill him unintentionally,
but it's even possible, as the first homicide in history, that Cain didn't
even understand the consequences of his assault. Furthermore, even if Cain
did intend to kill Abel in a moment of rage, it's not clear this would
legally qualify as pre-meditated. God's penal system distinguishes
negligent homicide from murder. Thus, one might say we know it wasn't
murder precisely because God merely banished him.

Religious Objection: What about King David?

In 2 Samuel 11, King David sees Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop near the
palace, commands her to be brought to him, commits adultery with her,
discovers she is pregnant, fails to trick her husband into sleeping with
her to cover the pregnancy, and then has him killed through a complex
military conspiracy. How does God respond? He sends Nathan the prophet to
chastise David, who repents for his crimes and goes on living, but God
condemns the bastard child to death.

If God is for capital punishment, why doesn't David get executed? Both
adultery and murder were capital crimes in Israel, and this must have been
the worst-kept secret in the Mediterranean. There were even witnesses for
every part of the conspiracy (a necessary component of Old Testament
capital law). So why the leniency?

I believe it's because David was King of Israel, anointed by God Himself
through the prophet Samuel. Though this will sound strange to our ears
which have been trained by the concepts of law as king, the rule of law,
and equality before the law, David was above the law. No matter what the
anointed of God does, he is still holy because of the anointing and cannot
be touched. David demonstrated this by refusing to kill King Saul, who
deserved it many times over. Moreover, when David learns that an aide
assisted Saul's suicide in battle, David immediately executes him for
touching God's anointed.

So David was spared a doubly-deserved death only because he was king.
Nevertheless, a life penalty was still taken: the child. Thus, the Bible
gives one precedent to explain why David wasn't killed and also a reason
to think that the murder still required the compensatory death of a human.
It's certainly a difficult passage, but its also certainly not a clear
repudiation of the death penalty.

Religious Objection: What about the woman caught in adultery?

In John 8:1-11, the Pharisees bring Jesus a woman caught in the act of
adultery to see if He will authorize her execution. After He famously
says, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a
stone at her," they all depart. Jesus proceeds to send the woman on her
way, saying, "Neither do I condemn you; go your way; from now on sin no
more." Of all passages in the Bible, this one most clearly shows that
Jesus opposed capital punishment, right?

First, we should note that this passage is textually dubious. The best
manuscripts don't include it, and both its placement and style controvert
its authenticity. Even so, the Christian community has long considered
this an iconic story of Jesus' mercy. So, to merely throw it out would be
inappropriate. Besides, it may well be a legitimate story, just not one
included in the John manuscript. Hence, an interpretation would be more
helpful than a dismissal.

The trouble is that most people wildly misunderstand this story. The
Pharisees' only reason for bringing this woman to Jesus was to put Him in
a dilemma. On the one hand, Jesus couldn't call for her execution since
Roman law prohibited anyone other than a Roman court from doing this. The
Pharisees proved they knew this when they later brought Jesus to Pilate
rather than killing Him themselves. On the other hand, He couldn't oppose
her execution because this would have proven He was a false prophet for
contradicting God's Law. The passage even explains this in verse 6, " they
were saying this, testing Him, in order that they might have grounds for
accusing Him."

So, the Pharisees wanted to make Jesus a heretic for opposing capital
punishment, but He evaded their trap. The tremendous irony is that now,
2,000 years later, people who claim to love Jesus teach that He was
precisely the heretic His enemies wanted to paint Him as. If Jesus was in
fact repudiating capital punishment in this story, then He was neither the
divine Son of God nor a true prophet. As Im apparently more reluctant than
others to embrace this conclusion, I can't interpret Jesus as rejecting
the Old Testament here. Had He been, His enemies would have left jubilant
rather than ashamed. There are many theories on the meaning of this story,
but the one thing we must not do is use it to say Jesus overturned Gods
Word as His enemies intended.

What we see with the above examples is that even the difficult Bible
passages dont undermine the validity of capital punishment.

Conclusion

The religious and the secular arguments agree: capital punishment is
purposeful, rational and pleasing to God. If you have read all eleven of
these columns, I thank you for your persistence and your patience and
trust they have been useful.

(source: Andrew Tallman is host of The Andrew Tallman Show on AM 1360 KPXQ
from 5-7PM weekdays in Phoenix, AZ.; Townhall.com)






GEORGIA:

Death penalty trial date set in hammer deaths


A DeKalb man accused of killing his wife and twin sons with a hammer will
go on trial for his life Sept. 8.

Clayton Jerrod Ellington will be tried before Superior Court Judge Anne
Workman.

The trial could be the 1st in a series of death penalty cases coming in
DeKalb. Keyes Fleming also has announced plans to seek death sentences
against Willie Kelsey, accused of killing a 7-year-old boy in a home
invasion, and William Woodard, accused of killing two DeKalb police
officers.

Neighbors said Ellington, 30, screamed at officers that his family had
been taken from him shortly after he called police to his home near
Lithonia High School late on the night of May 17, 2006.

Inside, police found the bodies of his 31-year-old wife, Berna Ellington,
and their 2-year-old sons, Cameron and Christian.

According to a memo by a district attorney's investigator in Ellington's
court file, Ellington claimed to police detectives that his wife killed
the twins with the hammer. Ellington claimed he took the hammer from her
and beat her with it in a fight that ended with them falling down stairs.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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

Death penalty


 Not to appear callous, but we won't have William Earl Lynd to kick around
any longer. He was put to death Tuesday by lethal injection. It's about
time.

Lynd had been sitting on death row since his conviction for the killing of
his ex-girlfriend in 1988. He had lived for almost 20 years after killing
Ginger Moore just three days before Christmas.

Ironically Lynd had been scheduled for execution last year, but his date
with lethal injection had been put on hold until the US. Supreme Court
ruled on a Kentucky inmate's challenge to lethal injection as "cruel and
unusual" punishment, which is prohibited under the 8th Amendment to the
Constitution.

After the High Court rejected the arguments by the Kentucky petitioner,
Georgia scheduled Lynd's execution. As usual there was the obligatory
weeping and gnashing of teeth by those who oppose the death penalty in any
form. All to no avail.

The High Court made it fairly clear that the "cruel and unusual" statute
does not apply simply because there is some sort of pain associated with
the death penalty. Justice Clarence Thomas, concurring with the majority,
noted in his opinion that the 8th Amendment was adopted to "disable
Congress from imposing torturous punishments" that were, at the time,
deemed "worse than death." Thomas wrote that the courts have "never
suggested that a method of execution is 'cruel and unusual' simply because
it involves a risk of pain."

I'm in favor of the death penalty. Always have been. I'm certainly not in
favor of torturing a person who has been sentenced to death, although
there is something to be said for carrying out the death sentence in, the
same way as the convicted murderer killed the victim.

But the argument that because there is apparently some pain associated
with lethal injection then it should be taken off the table is ludicrous.
And thankfully the High Court agreed.

Now let's get going with setting a date for Jack Alderman and Curtis
Osborne, who were scheduled to die last fall until their date with the
needle was also stopped while awaiting the Supreme Court's decision.

(source: Tom Kerlin, Fayette Daily News)






INDIANA:

Attorneys convince murder suspect to withdraw his death penalty request


Attorneys for a man accused of killing three family members in 2005 have
talked him out of his request to represent himself, plead guilty and
accept the death penalty.

Kenneth Lee Allen, 32, spoke to Judge Tanya Walton Pratt Thursday morning
in Marion Superior Court. She had called the hearing after he wrote to the
court making the request in April -- but his attorneys, Monica Foster and
Eric Koselke, later filed another motion to withdraw the request after
meeting with him. They said such a request is common from death-penalty
defendants.

Judge Tanya Walton Pratt asked Allen if that was what he wanted. "And you
will allow Ms. Foster and Mr. Koselke to represent you?" she said.

"Yes," said Allen, wearing a beige jumpsuit from Pendleton Correctional
Facility, where he has been held while awaiting trial.

Allen's case is on hold while his attorneys appeal one of Pratt's pretrial
rulings. He faces charges of murder, conspiracy and robbery and is accused
of killing his mother, Sharon Allen, who lived in Noblesville, and
grandparents, Leander and Betty Bradley over money. Their bodies were
buried in concrete in the Bradleys' basement on Indianapolis' Eastside.

(source: Indianapolis Star)