IS IT REALLY JUSTICE? By Kathy Kearney

“When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.” (Ecclesiastes 8:11) This verse passed repeatedly through my mind as I listened to the news coverage and watched the pro and anti-capital punishment groups rally outside the prison the night of William Bonin’s execution. Is this one reason why America’s death row cells are filled to capacity?

Numerous appeals allowed Bonin to remain alive fourteen years after he murdered his victims. In his final moments, here was a man, (some would say a monster), gobbling pizza and ice cream, and guzzling soft drinks with an evident lack of remorse for those young men he killed during unbelievable acts of torture.

Then I read “Greetings From Death Row” (Accent, March 15) excerpts from the journal of a convicted murderer, Dean Phillip Carter who was sent to San Quentin’s death row in 1990 for the murder of four women. (All the physical evidence in the case led straight to Carter.) Seems that Dean Carter has found a voice through Allen Bennet, a San Francisco radio personality, who posts the journalizing on a World Wide Web page, “Dead Man Talkin’.” for any who wish to hear Carter’s unrepentant whining about his awful life on death row.

“Dead Man Talkin’?” He’s alive and well. Sadly, those four victims will never be talkin’ again. Mr. Carter saw to that when he killed them. Sadder still that he can make a mockery of their deaths by drawing in listeners on the Internet to hear him mewl about how scary life is on death row. I wonder just how scared his victims were before he killed them.

Those who oppose the death penalty claim that it’s not a societal deterrent for murder. How do they know that? Has some survey been taken? And if one was, would they be surprised by the answers?

The obvious deterrent and principal aim, is that the executed murderer will murder no more. But any deterrent impact for society is drastically lessened by the passage of time invested in numerous appeals.

A death penalty justly carried out by government is upheld in the Bible. “. . .But if you do evil, be afraid, for it (the government) does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.” (Romans 13:4)

There is a vast difference between murder: the taking of innocent life by another, and capital punishment: a legal and just execution carried out by government. The commandment, “You shall not murder,” addresses the wanton taking of innocent life, not a legal system’s just dispensation of capital punishment for murder.

But I see still another rarely considered deterrent. The death penalty serves as an awesome admonishment to parents to raise children with a godly regard for human life, teaching them that if that regard is trampled upon by the act of murder, then the government will and should remove them from society.

A murderer’s execution should be cause for mourning. We need to grieve over the fact that the awesome, terrible event of capital punishment has had to be enacted. The sight of people clapping, cheering, and drinking champagne after the execution of William Bonnin was repugnant. In Ezekiel 33:11, God who begs the wicked to repent or die says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked. . ..” Nor should we.

While Christ suffered on the cross for the sins of the human race–including murder, The Gospel of Matthew (27:44) records that two criminals on either side of him railed and mocked the Son of God. The gospel of Luke (23:41-42) states that one of the men had a change of heart, saying to the other, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds but this man has done nothing wrong.” His repentance gains salvation through Christ’s death.

A murderer can walk on trembling legs to a death chamber at the end of a long, echoing corridor knowing that if he has asked forgiveness through the forgiveness of Christ his debt to God is paid; Christ paid it for him on the Cross. But the government has the obligation to discharge his debt to society through our system of justice.

What were my emotions that night? Along side a sad assurance that this man would never kill again, was the unanswered question of where and how did he exchange humaneness for monsterhood. I wonder if we will take seriously the terrible lesson of that sorrowful night by teaching our children to regard human life as does the One who created all life.

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