Not all issues are created equal. This is true for voters generally: no voter goes into the voting booth weighing a candidate’s stance on our foreign relations with Latvia the same as what to do about the economy. But this statement is particularly true for Catholics: not all issues are equal.
On some issues, there can be legitimate disagreement among Catholics of good faith. Even when the bishops announce a position on certain issues, Catholics may in good conscience come to other conclusions. They can take the bishops’ teaching into account, consider the evidence and information for themselves, and then arrive at the same or a different judgment on the matter.
On other issues, there cannot be legitimate disagreement. The bishops have arrived at a conclusion about an issue based on clear Scripture teaching and have issued a binding pronouncement. The sanctity of human life and the sanctity of one man, one woman marriage are among the latter category.
Thus, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote to the American bishops’ task force on Catholics in Public Life: “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.” (see also Archbishop Myers).
In a joint pastoral letter, the Catholic bishops of Kansas recently reiterated that Catholics may legitimately hold different views from the bishops’ conference on certain political issues: “While the above issues [peace, poverty, immigration], as well as many others, have important moral dimensions, Catholics may and do disagree about the most effective public policies for responding to them. How these issues are best addressed and what particular candidates are best equipped to address them requires prudential judgments – defined as circumstances in which people can ethically reach different conclusions.”
I bring all of this up to point out the flaws in a recent editorial by the Madison Capital Times criticizing Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison. The Cap Times acknowledges Morlino’s opportunity, even responsibility, to discuss Senator Biden’s and Speaker Pelosi’s recent comments on abortion on Meet the Press. But then the editorial goes on to say:
[T]here have been grumbles about the fact that, while Bishop Morlino is quick to call out Catholic politicians who deviate from church views regarding abortion, he has been slow to complain about Catholic politicians, such as state Sen. Alan Lasee, R-DePere, who are at odds with the church’s anti-death penalty teachings.
Of even more concern, however, is the failure of the bishop to be more outspoken on questions of war and peace. … Bishop Morlino has not objected to the steady support by a number of Catholic politicians, including U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, to pre-emptive war-making.
Of course, here is the rub. Yes, the bishops have come to a different conclusion than Sen. Lasee on the death penalty and Congressman Ryan on the War in Iraq. But those are prudential questions on which Catholics are allowed to exercise their judgment and come to different conclusions. On abortion, however, the millions of babies killed since Roe, there can be no other legitimate conclusion. So, it is entirely appropriate for Bp. Morlino to criticize Pelosi and Biden and withhold the “equally blunt assessments of the stance and statements of Catholic politicians regarding the death penalty, pre-emptive war, poverty and a host of other issues about which the Catholic church’s positions are just as clear as they are on the issue of abortion” that the Cap Times wants. Because not all issues are equal: though the church’s teaching may be equally clear on those issues, it is also equally clear that those issues are not ascribed the same weight as abortion.
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For the Catholic Church, this is a non dilemma.
The objection to abortion is that it is the killing of a total innocent. The Church finds it an intrinsic evil.
Executing a murderer is a legal sanction for commiting a murder. Any Catholic is free to call for an increase in executions, based upon their own prudential judgement, and will remain a Catholic in good standing.
Very different.
Furthermore, you can, rightly, agrue that the death penalty is pro life.
The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
To state the blatantly clear, living murderers, in prison, after release or escape, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.
Although an obvious truism, it is surprising how often folks overlook the enhanced incapacitation benefits of the death penalty over incarceration.
No knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law.
Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
That is. logically, conclusive.
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty deterrence.
A surprise? No.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 16 studies. They don’t. Studies which don’t find for deterrence don’t say no one is deterred, but that they couldn’t measure those deterred.
What prospect of a negative outcome doesn’t deter some? There isn’t one . . . although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one.
However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. Yet, the evidence is compelling and un refuted that death is feared more than life.
Some death penalty opponents argue against death penalty deterrence, stating that it’s a harsher penalty to be locked up without any possibility of getting out.
Reality paints a very different picture.
What percentage of capital murderers seek a plea bargain to a death sentence? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of convicted capital murderers argue for execution in the penalty phase of their capital trial? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of death row inmates waive their appeals and speed up the execution process? Nearly zero. They prefer long term imprisonment.
This is not, even remotely, in dispute.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Furthermore, history tells us that lifers have many ways to get out: Pardon, commutation, escape, clerical error, change in the law, etc.
In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to spare murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocent lives.
Furthermore, possibly we have sentenced 20-25 actually innocent people to death since 1973, or 0.3% of those so sentenced. Those have all been released upon post conviction review. The anti death penalty claims, that the numbers are significantly higher, are a fraud, easily discoverable by fact checking.
6 inmates have been released from death row because of DNA evidence. An additional 9 were released from prison, because of DNA exclusion, who had previously been sentenced to death.
The innocents deception of death penalty opponents has been getting exposure for many years. Even the behemoth of anti death penalty newspapers, The New York Times, has recognized that deception.
To be sure, 30 or 40 categorically innocent people have been released from death row . . . (1) This when death penalty opponents were claiming the release of 119 “innocents” from death row. Death penalty opponents never required actual innocence in order for cases to be added to their “exonerated” or “innocents” list. They simply invented their own definitions for exonerated and innocent and deceptively shoe horned large numbers of inmates into those definitions – something easily discovered with fact checking.
There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.
If we accept that the best predictor of future performance is past performance, we can reasonable conclude that the DNA cases will be excluded prior to trial, and that for the next 8000 death sentences, that we will experience a 99.8% accuracy rate in actual guilt convictions. This improved accuracy rate does not include the many additional safeguards that have been added to the system, over and above DNA testing.
Of all the government programs in the world, that put innocents at risk, is there one with a safer record and with greater protections than the US death penalty?
Unlikely.
Full report -All Innocence Issues: The Death Penalty, upon request.
Full report – The Death Penalty as a Deterrent, upon request
(1) The Death of Innocents: A Reasonable Doubt,
New York Times Book Review, p 29, 1/23/05, Adam Liptak,
national legal correspondent for The NY Times
copyright 2007-2008, Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O’Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Who Would Jesus Kill?
John:
In Romans it says “The wages of sin are death”.
That’s the way it is, according to the Christian God.
Dudley:
And in Romans, it also says,
12:17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
12:18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”says the Lord.
That’s the way it is, according to the “Old Testament” and reiterated in the “New.” But nice try.
Additionally, next time you try to use the Bible for support, cite the full context:
6:20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
6:21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In other words, according to Christian thought, ALL sins merit a death sentence, but that sentence on mankind is commuted in light of the Crucifixion. In other words, the Bible says the opposite of what you wish it did!
I also refer you to John 8:3-11, which speaks pretty clearly as to Jesus’s views on capital punishment.
Argue the supposed merits of your case secularly if you want, but don’t try to claim that the Bible supports you without reading it first.
Kat:
The wages of all sin are earthly death death.
Eternal life is given through the sacrifice of Jesus, if an adherent to Christ.
I was simply and properly responsing to John Foust’s question.
You presume, without evicene, that I have not read the bible.
I do argue the death penalty secularly.
Religious positions in favor of capital punishment are neither necessary not needed to justify that sanction.
However, the biblical and theological record is very supportive of the death penalty.
Many of the current religious campaigns against the death penalty reflect a fairly standard anti death penalty message, routed in secular arguments. When they do address religious issues, they often neglect solid theological foundations, choosing, instead, select biblical sound bites which do not impact the solid basis of death penalty support.
The strength of the biblical, theological and traditional support for the death penalty is, partially, revealed, within the previously sent references.
I hope you read them.
I have tried to sent the post, with the references, twice. It vanishes.
Are comments with links blocked?
Dudley:
I take it, then, that you advocate the death penalty for all sins, including adultery, petty theft, and disrespect towrd parents? After all, if the “wages of sin is death” authorizes the death penalty as a response to sin, then it does so for all sins.
I am still awaiting a rebuttal to John 8 and Romans 12, which you conveniently ignored. I take it that you know from your legal background that failure to address a point raised is considered a concession?
As for your supposed evidence that the death penalty is an effective deterrent (contradicted by the fact that murder rates have been consistently–and increasingly–higher in states with the DP than those without it since 1990, the FBI report that of the 12 non-DP states, 11 of them had murder rates below the national average in the latest year reported, 2006, and the 2000 study showing that between 1980 and 2000 the homicide rate has been, on average, 48% to 101% higher than in states without the DP), that no innocents have ever been killed by the DP (I point you to Larry Griffin, Carlos DeLuna, Ruben Cantu, Joseph O’Dell, David Spence, Leo Jones, Gary Graham, Cameron Willingham, and the upcoming execution of Troy Anthony Davis, and remind you that for every innocent executed, a killer is freed from ever facing prosecution, something which is not true with life imprisonment), or your laughable assertion that DNA evidence will make the execution of innocents impossible (admissible DNA evidence only exists in a minority of cases, as any lawyer worth his salt knows), save yourself the trouble, because I don’t suffer fools or liars kindly. I notice that you conveniently overlooked the issues of cost (DP is significantly more expensive than life without parole), recidivism (both DP and life without parole prevent it entirely), mental illness (there is no dispute that severely mentally ill or disabled persons have been and continue to be executed), and ethical questions about the justice/vengeance issue raised by the DP(with the exception of your laughably out of context and irrelevant Bible quote, your interpretation of which is flatly contradicted both by context and by my citations of John 8 and Romans 12).
I give you an A for effort, but if this is the best that the pro-death groups can field, it’s no wonder the tide is turning against your side.
Oh, and by the way, don’t bother using “Old Testament” quotes to boost your position, unless you want to be thoroughly educated about Jewish religious law and biblical interpretation during and after the time of Jesus. And let me tell you, it doesn’t help your case.
Kat writes: I take it, then, that you advocate the death penalty for all sins, including adultery, petty theft, and disrespect towrd parents? After all, if the “wages of sin is death” authorizes the death penalty as a response to sin, then it does so for all sins.
Dudley reply: I am not sure you are actually reading what I have written. I stated: “Religious positions in favor of capital punishment are neither necessary not needed to justify that sanction. However, the biblical and theological record is very supportive of the death penalty.” I don’t question what God prescribes the death penalty for. However, I support it for certain murders, acts of terrorism, and a few others
Kat writes: I am still awaiting a rebuttal to John 8 and Romans 12, which you conveniently ignored. I take it that you know from your legal background that failure to address a point raised is considered a concession?
Dudley reply: Relax Kat. I sent many references in reply. As I stated. But they didn’t show up. I am working with the site to figure it out.
Kat writes: As for your supposed evidence that the death penalty is an effective deterrent (contradicted by the fact that murder rates have been consistently–and increasingly–higher in states with the DP than those without it since 1990, the FBI report that of the 12 non-DP states, 11 of them had murder rates below the national average in the latest year reported, 2006, and the 2000 study showing that between 1980 and 2000 the homicide rate has been, on average, 48% to 101% higher than in states without the DP),
Dudley reply:
Death Penalty and Deterrence: Let’s be clear
In their story, “States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates”, The New York Times did their best to illustrate that the death penalty was not a deterrent, by showing that the average murder rate in death penalty states was higher than the average rate in non death penalty states and, it is. (1)
What the Times failed to observe is that their own study confirmed that you can’t simply compare those averages to make that determination regarding deterrence.
As one observer stated: “The Times story does nothing more than repeat the dumbest of all dumb mistakes — taking the murder rate in a traditionally high-homicide state with capital punishment (like Texas) and comparing it to a traditionally low-homicide state with no death penalty (like North Dakota) and concluding that the death penalty doesn’t work at all. Even this comparison doesn’t work so well. The Times own graph shows Texas, where murder rates were 40 percent above Michigan’s in 1991, has now fallen below Michigan . . .”. (2)
Within the Times article, Michigan Governor John Engler states, “I think Michigan made a wise decision 150 years ago,” referring to the state’s abolition of the death penalty in 1846. “We’re pretty proud of the fact that we don’t have the death penalty.”(3)
Even though easily observed on the Times’ own graphics, they failed to mention the obvious. Michigan’s murder rate is near or above that of 31 of the US’s 38 death penalty states. And then, it should be recognized that Washington, DC (not found within the Times study) and Detroit, Michigan, two non death penalty jurisdictions, have been perennial leaders in murder and violent crime rates for the past 30 years. Delaware, a jurisdiction similar in size to them, leads the nation in executions per murder, but has significantly lower rates of murders and violent crime than do either DC or Detroit, during that same period.
Obviously, the Times study and any other simple comparison of jurisdictions with and without the death penalty, means little, with regard to deterrence.
Also revealed within the Times study, but not pointed out by them,: “One-third of the nation’s executions take place in Texas—and the steepest decline in homicides has occurred in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, which together account for nearly half the nation’s executions.” (4)
And, the Times also failed to mention that the major US jurisdiction with the most executions is Harris County (Houston, Texas), which has seen a 73% decrease in murder rates since resuming executions in 1982 — possibly the largest reduction for a major metropolitan area since that time.
Also omitted from the Times review, although they had the data, is that during a virtual cessation of executions, from 1966-1980, that murders more than doubled in the US. Any other rise and fall in murders, after that time, has been only a fraction of that change, indicating a strong and direct correlation between the lack of executions and the dramatic increase in murders, if that is specifically what you are looking for.
If deterrence was measured by direct correlation’s between execution, or the lack thereof, and murder rates, as implied by the Times article, and as wrongly assumed by those blindly accepting that model, then there would be no debate, only more confusion. Which may have been the Times goal.
Let’s take a look at the science.
Some non death penalty jurisdictions, such as South Africa and Mexico lead the world in murder and violent crime rates. But then some non death penalty jurisdictions, such as Sweden, have quite low rates. Then there are such death penalty jurisdictions as Japan and Singapore which have low rates of such crime. But then other death penalty jurisdictions, such as Rwanda and Louisiana, that have high rates.
To which an astute observer will respond: But socially, culturally, geographically, legally, historically and many other ways, all of those jurisdictions are very different. Exactly, a simple comparison of only execution rates and murder rates cannot tell the tale of deterrence. And within the US, between states, there exist many variables which will effect the rates of homicides.
And, as so well illustrated by the Times graphics, a non death penalty state, such as Michigan has high murder rates and another non death penalty state, such as North Dakota, has low murder rates and then there are death penalty states, such as Louisiana, with high murder rates and death penalty states, such South Dakota, with low rates. Apparently, unbeknownst to the Times, but quite obvious to any neutral observer, there are other factors at play here, not just the presence or absence of the death penalty. Most thinking folks already knew that.
As Economics Professor Ehrlich stated in the Times piece and, as accepted by all knowledgeable parties, there are many factors involved in such evaluations. That is why there is a wide variation of crime rates both within and between some death penalty and non death penalty jurisdictions, and small variations within and between others. Any direct comparison of only execution rates and only murder rates, to determine deterrence, would reflect either ignorance or deception.
Ehrlich called the Times study “a throwback to the vintage 1960s statistical analyses done by criminologists who compared murder rates in neighboring states where capital punishment was either legal or illegal.” “The statistics involved in such comparisons have long been recognized as devoid of scientific merit.” He called the Times story a “one sided affair” devoid of merit. Most interesting is that Ehrlich was interviewed by the Time’s writer, Fessenden, who asked Ehrlich to comment on the results before the story was published. Somehow Ehrlich’s overwhelming criticisms were left out of the article.
Ehrlich also referred Fessenden to some professors who produced the recently released Emory study. Emory Economics department head, Prof. Deshbakhsh “says he was contacted by Fessenden, and he indicated to the Times reporter that the study suggested a very strong deterrent effect of capital punishment.” Somehow,
Fessenden’s left that out of the Times story, as well. (5).
There is a constant within all jurisdictions — negative consequences will always have an effect on behavior.
1) “States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates”, The New
York Times 9/22/00 located at
www (dot) nytimes.com/2000/09/22/national/22STUD.html and www (dot) nytimes.com/2000/09/22/national/22DEAT.html
2) “Don’t Know Much About Calculus: The (New York) Times flunks high-school
math in death-penalty piece”, William Tucker, National Review, 9/22/00, located
at www (dot) nationalreview.com/comment/comment092200c.shtml
3) ibid, see footnote 11
4) “The Death Penalty Saves Lives”, AIM Report, August 2000, located atwww (dot) aim.org/publications/aim_report/2000/08a.html
15) “NEW YORK TIMES UNDER FIRE AGAIN”, Accuracy in Media, 10/16/00, go to www (dot) aim.org/
My failure to respond on any issue is not a concession, btw. I just respond when I can. OK?
Kat writes: (Regarding innocents executed) “I point you to Larry Griffin, Carlos DeLuna, Ruben Cantu, Joseph O’Dell, David Spence, Leo Jones, Gary Graham, Cameron Willingham, and the upcoming execution of Troy Anthony Davis
Dudley responds: I think you need to look at the state’s recent reviews of Larry Griffin and Ruben Cantu cases. They are easy to find.
There is certainly no evidence for innocence in the Gary Graham case.
Here’s a review of O’Dell, below.
Death Of Truth: Sister Prejean’s new book Death Of Innocents
Four articles
(a) “FOR GOOD REASON, JOE O’DELL IS ON DEATH ROW”
scholar(DOT)lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950728/07210224.htm
quote: “The DNA report commissioned by O’Dell and his lawyers actually corroborates O’Dell’s guilt. There is a three-probe DNA match indicating that the bloodstains on O’Dell’s clothing is indeed consistent with the victim Helen Schartner’s DNA as well as her blood type and enzyme factors.” “There is certainly no truth to O’Dell’s accusation that evidence was suppressed or witnesses intimidated by the prosecution.”
(b) “Sabine district attorney disputes author’s claims in book”
www(DOT)shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050124/NEWS01/501240328/1060
quote: “I don’t know whether she is deliberately trying to mislead the public or if she’s being mislead by others. But she’s wrong,”
District Atty. Burkett, dburkett(AT)cp-tel.net
(c) Book Review: “Sister Prejean’s Lack of Credibility: Review of “The Death of Innocents”, by Thomas M. McKenna (New Oxford Review, 12/05). http://www.newoxfordreview.org.....05-mckenna
“The book is moreover riddled with factual errors and misrepresentations.”
“Williams had confessed to repeatedly stabbing his victim, Sonya Knippers.”
“This DNA test was performed by an independent lab in Dallas, which concluded that there was a one in nearly four billion chance that the blood could have been someone’s other than Williams’s.”
” . . . despite repeated claims that (Prejean) cares about crime victims, implies that the victim’s husband was a more likely suspect but was overlooked because the authorities wanted to convict a black man.”
” . . . a Federal District Court . . . stated that ‘the evidence against Williams was overwhelming.’ ” “The same court also did “not find any evidence of racial bias specific to this case.”
“(Prejean’s) broad brush strokes paint individual jurors, prosecutors, and judges with the term “racist” with no facts, no evidence, and, in most cases, without so much as having spoken with the people she accuses.”
“Sr. Prejean also claims that Dobie Williams was mentally retarded. But the same federal judge who thought he deserved a new sentencing hearing also upheld the finding of the state Sanity Commission report on Williams, which concluded that he had a “low-average I.Q.,” and did not suffer from schizophrenia or other major affective disorders. Indeed, Williams’s own expert at trial concluded that Williams’s intelligence fell within the “normal” range. Prejean mentions none of these facts.”
“In addition to lying to the police about how he came to have blood on his clothes, the best evidence of O’Dell’s guilt was that Schartner’s (the rape/murder victim’s) blood was on his jacket. Testing showed that only three of every thousand people share the same blood characteristics as Schartner. Also, a cellmate of O’Dell’s testified that O’Dell told him he killed Schartner because she would not have sex with him.”
“After the trial, LifeCodes, a DNA lab that O’Dell himself praised as having “an impeccable reputation,” tested the blood on O’Dell’s jacket — and found that it was a genetic match to Schartner. When the results were not to his liking, O’Dell, and of course Sr. Prejean, attacked the reliability of the lab O’Dell had earlier praised. Again, as with Williams’s conviction, the federal court reviewing the case characterized the evidence against O’Dell as ‘vast’ and
‘overwhelming.’ ”
Sr. Prejean again sees nefarious forces at work. Not racism this time, for O’Dell was white. Rather, she charges that the prosecutors were motivated to convict by desire for advancement and judgeships. Yet she never contacted the prosecutors to interview them or anyone who might substantiate such a charge.
“(Prejean) omits the most damning portion of (O’Dell’s criminal) record: an abduction charge in Florida where O’Dell struck the victim on the head with a gun and told her that he was going to rape her. This very similar crime helped the jury conclude that O’Dell would be a future threat to society. It supports the other evidence of his guilt and thus undermines Prejean’s claim of innocence.”
“There is thus a moral equivalence for Prejean between the family of an innocent victim and the newfound girlfriend of a convicted rapist and murderer.”
“This curious definition of “the victims” suggests that her concern for “victims” seems to be more window-dressing for her cause than true concern.”
(d) Hardly The Death Of Innocents: Sister Prejean tells it like it wasn’t — Joseph O’Dell
by Anonymous, at author’s request
In lionizing convicted murderer Joseph O’Dell as being an innocent man railroaded to his 1997 execution by Virginia prosecutors, Sister Helen Prejean presents a skewed summary of the case to bolster her anti-death penalty agenda. While she is a gifted speaker, she is out of her element when it comes to “telling it as it was” in these cases.
Prejean got to walk with O’Dell into the death chamber at Greensville Correctional Center on July 22, 1997. However, she wasn’t in Virginia Beach some 12 years earlier when he committed the crime for which he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. That is where the real demon was evident, not the sweet talking condemned con-man that she met behind bars. O’Dell was, in the words of then Virginia Beach Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Albert Alberi (case prosecutor), one of the most savage, dangerous criminals he had encountered in a two decade career.
Indeed,O’Dell had spent most of his adult life incarcerated for various crimes since the age of 13 in the mid-1950′s. At the time of the Schartner murder in Virginia, O’Dell had been recently paroled from Florida where he had been serving a 99 year sentence for a 1976 Jacksonville abduction that almost ended in a murder of the female victim (had not police arrived) in the back of his car.
The circumstances of that crime were almost identical to those surrounding Schartner’s murder. The victim of the Florida case even showed up in Virginia to testify at the trial. Scarcely a mention of this case is made in the Prejean book.
Briefly, let me outline some of the facts about the case: Victim Helen Schartner’s blood was found on the passenger seat of Joseph O’Dell’s vehicle. Tire tracks matching those on O’Dell’s vehicle were found at the scene where Miss Schartner’s body was found. The tire tread design on O’Dell’s vehicle wheels were so unique, an expert in tire design couldn’t match them in a manual of thousands of other tire treads. The seminal fluids found on the victim’s body matched those of Mr. O’Dell and pubic hairs of the victim were found on the floor of his car.
The claims that O’Dell was “denied” his opportunity to present new DNA evidence on appeals were frivolous. In fact, he had every opportunity to come forward with this evidence, but his lawyers refused to reveal to the court the full findings of the tests which they had arranged to be done on a shirt with blood stains, which O’Dell’s counsel claimed might show did not have the blood marks from the defendant or the victim.
Manipulative defense lawyer tactics were overlooked by Prejean in her narrative. O’Dell was far from a victim of poor counsel. As matter of fact, the city of Virginia Beach and state government gave O’Dell an estimated $100,000 for his defense team at trial. This unprecedented amount nearly bankrupted the entire indigent defense fund for the state. He had great lawyers, expert forensic investigators and every point at the trial was contested two to five times.
There was no “rush to justice” in this case.
O’Dell’s alibi for the night of Schartner’s murder was that he had gotten thrown out of the bar where he encountered Schartner following a brawl. However, none of the several dozen individuals supported his contention – there weren’t any fights that night. Rather, several saw Miss Schartner getting into O’Dell’s car on what would be her last ride.
But Prejean would want us to believe the claims of felon Joseph O’Dell. He had three trips to the United States Supreme Court and the “procedural error” which Prejean claims ultimately doomed him was the result of simple ignorance of basic appeals rules by his lawyers.
Nothing in the record ever suggested that Joseph O’Dell, two time killer and rapist, was anything but guilty of the murder of Helen Schartner.
Justice was properly served.
RE: John 8:7
Sister Helen Prejean: “It is abundantly clear that the Bible depicts murder as a capital crime for which death is considered the appropriate punishment, and one is hard pressed to find a biblical proof text in either the Hebrew Testament or the New Testament which unequivocally refutes this. Even Jesus’ admonition “Let him without sin cast the first stone”, when He was asked the appropriate punishment for an adulteress (John 8:7) – the Mosaic Law prescribed death – should be read in its proper context. This passage is an entrapment story, which sought to show Jesus’ wisdom in besting His adversaries. It is not an ethical pronouncement about capital punishment . Sister Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking.
Misuse and misunderstanding of John 8:7 is quite common. See Forgery in the Gospel of John
www(dot)religioustolerance.org/john_8(dot)htm
Somehow this got lost. 4th try.
I deactivated all links. you need to add “www.” before each one to get them to work.
Kat, there is no biblical evidence that the death penalty is evil, harms the peace or is revenge, as depicted in the bible.
God cannot contradict God, therefore the texts you cite can not contradict God’s implementation of the death penalty.
I hope you find these useful. These cover Romans 12.
(1)”The Death Penalty”, by Romano Amerio, a faithful Catholic Vatican insider, scholar, professor at the Academy of Lugano, consultant to the Preparatory Commission of Vatican II, and a peritus (expert theologian) at the Council.
Thoughtful deconstruction of current Roman Catholic teaching on capital punishment.
domid.blogspot.com/2007/05/amerio-on-capital-punishment.html
titled “Amerio on capital punishment “, Chapter XXVI, 187. The death penalty, from the book Iota Unum, May 25, 2007
(2) “Catholic and other Christian References: Support for the Death Penalty”, at
homicidesurvivors.com/2006/10/12/catholic-and-other-christian-references-support-for-the-death-penalty.aspx
(3) “Capital Punishment: A Catholic Perspective”,
by Br. Augustine (Emmanuel Valenza)
sspx.org/against_the_sound_bites/capital_punishment.htm
(4) “Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice”, Prof. J. Budziszewski, First Things, August / September 2004 found at
orthodoxytoday.org/articles4/BudziszewskiPunishment.shtml
(5) “The Death Penalty”, by Solange Strong Hertz at
ourworld.compuserve.com/HOMEPAGES/REMNANT/death2.htm
(6) “Capital Punishment: What the Bible Says”, Dr. Lloyd R. Bailey, Abingdon Press, 1987.
The definitive biblical review of the death penalty.
(7) “Why I Support Capital Punishment”, by Andrew Tallman
sections 7-11 biblical review, sections 1-6 secular review
andrewtallmanshowarticles.blogspot.com/search?q=Capital+punishment
(8) Forgotten Truths: “Is The Church Against Abortion and The Death Penalty”
by Luiz Sergio Solimeo, Crusade Magazine, p14-16, May/June 2007
tfp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=957
(9) “A Seamless Garment In a Sinful World” by John R. Connery, S. J., America, 7/14/84, p 5-8).
(10) “God’s Justice and Ours” by US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, First Things, 5/2002
firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2022
(11) “The Purpose of Punishment (in the Catholic tradition)”,
by R. Michael Dunningan, J.D., J.C.L., CHRISTIFIDELIS, Vol.21,No.4, sept 14, 2003
st-joseph-foundation.org/newsletter/lead.php?document=2003/21-4
(12) “MOST CATHOLICS OPPOSE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?”,
KARL KEATING’S E-LETTER, Catholic Answers, March 2, 2004
catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040302.asp
(13) “THOUGHTS ON THE BISHOPS’ MEETING: NOWADAYS, VOTERS IGNORE BISHOPS”,
KARL KEATING’S E-LETTER, Catholic Answers,, Nov. 22, 2005
catholic.com/newsletters/kke_051122.asp
Kat:
Please try to be more civil.
Kat writes: “your laughable assertion that DNA evidence will make the execution of innocents impossible (admissible DNA evidence only exists in a minority of cases, as any lawyer worth his salt knows), save yourself the trouble, because I don’t suffer fools or liars kindly.”
Dudley responds: Please, try to read what I write, as opposed to making up what you think I write. It will save time and aggravation. I have never stated “that DNA evidence will make the execution of innocents impossible “. Nor will I. Of course, DNA helps to convicxt the guilty and clear the innocent.
Kat writes: “I notice that you conveniently overlooked the issues of cost (DP is significantly more expensive than life without parole), recidivism (both DP and life without parole prevent it entirely), mental illness (there is no dispute that severely mentally ill or disabled persons have been and continue to be executed), and ethical questions about the justice/vengeance issue raised by the DP(with the exception of your laughably out of context and irrelevant Bible quote, your interpretation of which is flatly contradicted both by context and by my citations of John 8 and Romans 12).
Dudley responds: Please don’t make up false accusations. Please. I never overlooked any of those issues. They had not come up within the context of the discussion. I try to stick to topic.
Of course, as we all know, and to state the blatantly clear, again, living murderers, in prison, after release or escape, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.
Although an obvious truism, it is surprising how often folks overlook the enhanced incapacitation benefits of the death penalty over incarceration.
No one disputes that lifers can harm and murder, again, although you, apparently, disagree.
Niether your John 8 not Romans 12 contradict anything I have stated.
Should you have any rebuttal to the Saints, theologians and Popes and others, which are in the review, let me know.
No one disputes that many on death row have mental illnesses, however, as most know, many mental illnesses will not remove culpability for a capital murder.
Cost Comparisons: Death Penalty Cases Vs Equivalent Life Sentence Cases
In comparing the cost of death penalty cases to other sentences, the studies are woefully incomplete.
Generally, such studies have one or more of the following problems.
1) Most studies exclude the cost of geriatric care, recently found to be $60,000-$80,000/inmate/yr. A significant omission from life sentence costs.
2) All studies exclude the cost savings of the death penalty, which is the ONLY sentence which allows for a plea bargain to a maximum life sentence. Such plea bargains accrue as a cost benefit to the death penalty, such benefit being the cost of trials and appeals for every such plea bargain. The cost savings would be for trial and appeals, estimated at $500,000 to $1 million, which would accrue as a cost benefit/credit to the death penalty.
Depending upon jurisdiction, this MIGHT result in a minimal cost differential between the two sanctions or an actual net cost benefit to the death penalty, depending upon how many LWOP cases are plea bargained and how many death penalty cases result in a death sentence.
3) FCC economist Dr. Paul Zimmerman finds that executions result in a huge cost benefit to society. “Specifically, it is estimated that each state execution deters somewhere between 3 and 25 murders per year (14 being the average). Assuming that the value of human life is approximately $5 million {i.e. the average of the range estimates provided by Viscussi (1993)}, our estimates imply that society avoids losing approximately $70 million per year on average at the current rate of execution all else equal.” The study used state level data from 1978 to 1997 for all 50 states (excluding Washington D.C.). (1)
That is a cost benefit of $70 million per execution. 15 additional recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, support the deterrent effect.
No cost study has included such calculations.
Although we find it inappropriate to put a dollar value on life, evidently this is not uncommon for economists, insurers, etc.
We know that living murderers are infinitely more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers. There is no doubt that executions do save innocent lives. What value do you put on the lives saved? Certainly not less than $5 million.
4) a) Some studies compare the cost of a death penalty case, including pre trial, trial, appeals and incarceration, to only the cost of incarceration for 40 years, excluding all trial costs and appeals, for a life sentence. The much cited Texas “study” does this. Hardly an apples to apples cost comparison.
b) The pure deception in some cost “studies” is overt. It has been claimed that it costs $3.2 million/execution in Florida. That “study” decided to add the cost of the entire death penalty system in Florida ($57 million), which included all of the death penalty cases and dividing that number by only the number of executions (18). One could just have easily stated that the cost of the estimated 200 death row inmates was $285,000 per case.
5) There is no reason for death penalty appeals to take longer than 7 years. All death penalty appeals, direct and writ, should travel through the process concurrently, thereby giving every appellate issue 7 years of consideration through both state and federal courts. There is no need for endless repetition and delay. This would result in a reduction in both adjudication and incarceration costs.
Judges may be the most serious roadblock in timely resolution. They can and do hold up cases, inexcusably, for long periods of time. Texas, which leads the nation in executions, by far, takes over 10 years, on average, to execute murderers. However, the state and federal courts, for that jurisdiction, handle many cases. Texas has the second lowest rate of the courts overturning death penalty cases. Could every other jurisdiction process appeals in 7-10 years. Of course, if the justices would allow it.
Justice
6) The main reason sentences are given is because jurors find that it is the most just punishment available. No state, concerned with justice, will base a decision on cost alone. If they did, all cases would be plea bargained and every crime would have a probation option.
1). “State Executions, Deterrence and the Incidence of Murder”, Paul R. Zimmerman (zimmy@att.net), March 3. 2003, Social Science Research Network, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/de.....tid=354680
The Death Penalty: Neither Hatred nor Revenge
Death penalty opponents say that the death penalty has a foundation in hatred and revenge. Such is a false claim.
A death sentence requires pre existing statutes, trial and appeals, considerations of guilt and due process, to name but a few. Revenge requires none of these and, in fact, does not even require guilt or a crime.
The criminal justice system goes out of its way to take hatred and revenge out of the process. That is why we have a system of pre existing laws and legal procedures that offer extreme protections to defendants and those convicted and which limit punishments and prosecutions to specific crimes.
It is also why those directly affected by the murder are not allowed to be fact finders in the case.
The reality is that the pre trial, trial. appellate and executive clemency/commutation processes offer much much greater time, money and human resources to capital cases than they do to any other cases, meaning that the facts tell us that defendants and convicted murderers, subject to the death penalty, receive much greater care and concern than those not facing the death penalty – the opposite of a sytem marked with vengeance.
Calling executions a product of hatred and revenge is simply a way in which some death penalty opponents attempt to establish a sense of moral superiority. It can also be a transparent insult which results in additional hurt to those victim survivors who have already suffered so much and who believe that execution is the appropriate punishment for those who murdered their loved one(s).
Far from moral superiority, those who call capital punishment an expression of hatred and revenge are often exhibiting their contempt for those who believe differently than they do.
The pro death penalty position is based upon those who find that punishment just and appropriate under specific circumstances.
Those opposed to execution cannot prove a foundation of hatred and revenge for the death penalty any more than they can for any other punishment sought within a system such as that observed within the US – unless such opponents find all punishments a product of hatred and revenge – an unreasonable, unfounded position
Far from hatred and revenge, the death penalty represents our greatest condemnation for a crime of unequaled horror and consequence. Lesser punishments may suffice under some circumstances. A death sentence for certain heinous crimes is given in those special circumstances when a jury finds such is more just than a lesser sentence.
Less justice is not what we need.
A thorough review of the criminal justice system will often beg this question: Why have we chosen to be so generous to murderers and so contemptuous of the human rights and suffering of the victims and future victims?
The punishment of death is, in no way, a balancing between harm and punishment, because the innocent murder victim did not deserve or earn their fate, whereas the murderer has earned their own, deserved punishment by the free will action of violating societies laws and an individuals life and, thereby, voluntarily subjecting themselves to that jurisdictions judgment.
Dudley:
Oh, not the “John 8 is an entrapment story” crap again. The people who claim that have no knowledge of how Judaism worked in Jesus’s day. Rabbis and “teachers of the law” like Jesus were, legally, judges, whose opinions on legal matters were sought. There was no entrapment, Jesus was being asked to do his job.
If his issue had been with the proceedings rather than the DP itself, he would have inquired as to whether there were sufficient witnesses to convict the woman (yes, you read that right–contrary to Christian interpretation, Jewish law prior to, during, and since Jesus’s time imposed/s such stringent restrictions on what constituted admissible and sufficient evidence in death penalty cases that not a single death sentence was imposed or carried out by the Sanhedrin during its existence). Instead, Jesus claimed that the men who were charging her with adultery were not qualified to kill her because they themselves were sinful–a grounds for dismissal not found anywhere in existing Jewish law at the time, and which would de facto ban all executions if accepted as precedent (as all people are sinful).
Therefore, viewed in the context of history, the “entrapment” interpretation holds no water. Sadly, many people do indeed fall for that phony interpretation, because they know nothing of Jewish history.
I’ll deal with the rest of your “case” later, when I have time.
Kat,
You certainly are filled with charm.
Again, you fail to fully read and then, simply presume. I would have hoped that you may have learned not to do that, anymore.
That is not a good way to review issues, btw. Try looking at all that I sent.
Again,
Misuse and misunderstanding of John 8:7 is quite common. See Forgery in the Gospel of John
www(dot)religioustolerance.org/john_8(dot)htm
Futhermore,I think you will find many scholars who agree with the entrapment position on the story. I think you are a bit unwise to dismiss it.
Here is one, from a pretty thoughful guy, from my list of references:
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, and Jesus sends 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.
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’s 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 autoscript. 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, He 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, two thousand 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 even a true prophet. As I’m 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 God’s Word as His enemies intended.
Kat, there seems to be much support for the entrapment position in John 8
Do a GOOGLE search for entrapment “John 8:7″ and read the results.
Here are a couple, below. Kat, if you have disagreements with either, there are emails for you to direct questions.
John 6-23 The woman Caught in Adultery John 7:53-8:12 04/22/07
http://www.windycitycommunityc.....22.07.html
and
http://www.quodlibet.net/gunby-sanctity.shtml
The Woman Taken in Adultery
By Rousas John Rushdoony
During the course of our analysis of the law, repeated references were made to the confirmation of the law in the Gospels. It is not our purpose here either to repeat those confirmations or to attempt an exhaustive catalogue of every reference to the law in the Gospels. One event, however, although cited in some detail earlier, deserves further attention: the story of the woman taken in adultery in John 8:1-11.
Because this particular incident has been cited as an instance of the setting aside of the law, as the prime example, in fact, it needs further attention because it in fact is a confirmation of the law. Had the incident been at all antinomian, it would have provided the scribes and Pharisees with exactly the charge they wanted with which to condemn Jesus.
The charge of Jesus against the scribes and Phari- sees was precisely their antinomianism; He had strongly denounced them publicly for their neglect of the law for tradition (Matt. 15:1-10). No answer was possible against this charge: clearly, the leaders of the people had set aside the law by means of their humanistic legal tradition.
The whole point of the attack of these leaders was to try to show that Jesus, when confronted by the hard facts of a concrete case, would be no more a strict champion of the law than they were. The culminating example of this attempt to embarrass Jesus was this incident of the woman taken in adultery. To ask for the full enforcement of the law, the death penalty, would have been to invite hostility, because the pre- vailing attitude was one of moral laxity.
To deny the death penalty would have enabled the Pharisees to charge Jesus with hypocrisy: He would then have been in the same school of thought as the Pharisees He condemned. Quite obviously, Jesus did not take an antinomian stand, because the Pharisees left, confounded, and the incident obviously confirmed Jesus as the champion of the law. A woman had been “taken in adultery, in the very act” (John 8:4).
The woman was “brought unto him.” We cannot assume that she came voluntarily. She may have been dragged there, but the text does not indicate this. Apparently “the scribes and Pharisees” involved had police powers, or had, with the assistance of the authorities, used such legal powers as were necessary to compel her compliance. Having such legal authority, they were also requiring that Jesus preside at the hearing.
The man involved in the act was not brought forward; we have no knowledge of the reason for this, although it would appear that it would have aggravated the “offense” of Jesus had He either demanded the death penalty for a woman, or, on the other hand, allowed an adulterous woman to go free. More emotional reaction could be milked by the use of an adulterous woman than an adulterous man.
“Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him” (John 8:5-6). The reason for the incident is plainly stated: grounds for an accusation against Jesus were sought. Would Jesus persist as the champion of the law, or would He retreat into the use of some aspect of the pharisaic tradition? “But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not” (John 8:6). At this point, the comment of Burgon is most telling and deserves full citation:
The Scribes and Pharisees bring a woman to our SAVIOR on a charge of adultery. The sin prevailed to such an extent among the Jews that the Divine enactments concerning one so accused had long since fallen into practical oblivion. On the present occasion our LORD is observed to revive His own ancient ordinance after a hitherto unheard of fashion. The trial by bitter water, or water of conviction (See Num. v. 11-31), was a species of ordeal, intended for the vindication of innocence, the conviction of guilt. But ac- cording to the traditional belief the test proved inefficacious, unless the husband himself was innocent of the crime whereof he accused his wife. Let the provisions of the law, contained in Num. v. 16 to 24, be now considered.
The accused Woman having been brought near, and set before the LORD, the priest took “holy water in an earthen vessel,” and put “of the dust of the floor of the tabernacle into the water.” Then, with the bitter water that causeth the curse in his hand, he charged the woman by oath. Next, he wrote the curses in a book and blotted them out with the bitter water; causing the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse. Whereupon if she were guilty, she fell under a terrible penalty,—her body testifying visibly to her sin. If she was innocent, nothing followed.
And now, who sees not that the Holy One dealt with His hypo- critical assailants, as if they had been the accused parties? Into the presence of incarnate JEHOVAH verily they had been brought: and perhaps when He stooped down and wrote upon the ground. it was a bitter sentence against the adulterer and adulteress which He wrote. We have but to assume some connexion between the curse which He thus traced “in the dust of the floor of the tabernacle” and the words which He uttered with His lips, and He may with truth be declared to have “taken of the dust and put it on the water,” and “caused them to drink of the bitter water which causeth the curse.” For when, by His Holy Spirit, our great High Priest in His human flesh addressed these adulterers,—what did He but present them with living water (v. 17. So the LXX) “in an earthen vessel” (2 Cor. iv. 7; v. 1)? Did He not further charge them with an oath of cursing, saying, “If ye have not gone aside to uncleanness, be ye free from the bitter water: but if ye be defiled”—On being presented with which alternative, did they not, self-convicted, go out one by one? And what else was this but their own acquittal of the sinful woman, for whose condemnation they had shewed them- selves so impatient? Surely it was “the water of conviction” as it is six times called, which they had been compelled to drink; where- upon, “convicted by their own conscience,” as St. John relates, they had pronounced the other’s acquittal. Finally, note that by Himself declining to “condemn” the accused woman, our LORD also did in effect blot out those curses which He had already written against her in the dust,—when He made the floor of the sanctuary His “book.”1
Because this incident took place in the temple (John 8:2), Burgon’s comment is all the more to the point. The temple dust He wrote in met the requirements of the law. His action placed every accuser on trial immediately; that they were aware of this, the text makes clear, for we are told that all felt “convicted by their own conscience” (John 8:9). Charges had been made against the woman by the “scribes and Pharisees.” Their charges represented a clear-cut case against a woman taken in “the very act” of adultery. The counter-charges by Jesus, by His actions and by His declaration, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7), broke them. As themselves guilty men, they suspected secret evidence on His part against them They were busy trying to collect evidence against Jesus; this made it easier for them to believe that Jesus had done the same to them. These scribes and Pharisees had preferred charges against the woman in the place of her husband; Jesus placed them in the husband’s category by invoking Numbers 5 by His writing in the dust.
If they were guilty, and Jesus knew of their guilt, then, if He invoked the death penalty, could He not charge them also? By invoking
Numbers 5, Jesus in effect placed them on trial also: did they come to judgement with clean hands? It will not do to plead the “high moral standards” of Pharisees, These men were planning the death of Jesus. In the face of their deliberate and calculating plans against God’s Messiah, the sin of adultery was a trifling matter to such men. They had no stomach for an accusation against them which could cite God’s requirement a death penalty. When Jesus said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7), He was not referring to sins in general but to the sin of adultery. A general statement would mean no court of law is possible; the specific reference meant that men (1. John W. Burgon, The Woman Taken in Adultery, p. 239 f. On the evidences for the authenticity of this passage, see p. 246 ff.) guilty of a crime were not morally free to condemn that crime in another unless they condemned it in themselves.
We are told that all these scribes and Pharisees were then “convicted by their own conscience” (vs. 9). Moreover, Jesus had confirmed the death penalty; He had simply demanded honest witnesses to step forward and execute her, to “first cast a stone at her” (vs. 7). To remain as witnesses against her was to invite witnesses against themselves; to testify to a witnessed fact and confirm a death penalty against the woman was to invite a witness unto death against themselves. They left.
When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: Go, and sin no more (John 8:10-11).
At this point, it is necessary to distinguish between civil or juridical forgiveness. Civil forgiveness occurs when a condemned person pays the penalty for his crime, when restitution is made and the moral claims of the law are satisfied. A thief who had robbed a man of an ox and restored fivefold is thereupon forgiven. Religious forgiveness requires as a prior condition restitution, or civil forgiveness. A thief cannot be forgiven religiously if he has not made restitution. There is a similar distinction between civil condemnation and religious condemnation. Civil condemnation is for offenses against the civil law; religious condemnation is both for offenses against the civil law and for disbelief of God and His law-word.
The two kinds of forgiveness and condemnation are distinct but related. Jesus had been asked to make a pronouncement on the civil law with respect to adultery; He affirmed the death penalty. The witnesses, however, had withdrawn their charge and had disappeared. There was thus no legal case against the woman. Legally, Jesus could not therefore sustain a case: “Neither do I condemn thee.” But a moral case existed. The humility of the woman, who acknowledged Him to be “Lord,” indicates some evidence of change in her, and perhaps regeneration. But Jesus simply said, “Go, and sin no more,” an echo of His words in John 5:14, “sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” It is more than possible that she was religiously a changed person, and forgiven by God’s grace. We are simply told that no ground for legal condemnation existed at the moment. This does not rule out subsequent legal condemnation; her husband, if she had one, is not evident in this episode, but he would have had grounds for some kind of action, under existing law, if he chose. This is not the concern of the text.
She was granted acquittal in terms of the evidences of the immediate “hearing.” Jesus recognized the reality of her offense by His warning, “Go, and sin no more.” The fact of this warning indicates some evidences of a change in her, since it was contrary to our Lord’s practice to warn those who would not be warned (Matt. 7:6). For Christ to tell an unregenerate person to “sin no more” is unreasonable. The particular sin referred to was adultery. She was charged with a responsibility to chastity as an aspect of her new life in Christ.
The woman addressed Jesus as “Lord” (John 8:11); the scribes and Pharisees simply called Him “Master” (vs. 4), and the disciples themselves often spoke of Him as simply “Rabbi” (John 1:49). Her con- duct here indicated a changed person. In brief, instead of any evidence of antinomianism, this episode confirmed emphatically the position of Jesus as the champion of the law, and He confounded the attempts of the scribes and Pharisees to prove otherwise. The sin of Phariseeism was thus exposed. Phariseeism, first of all, denied the necessity of conversion. Man, by his unaided free will, is able to save himself, to choose between good and evil and make himself good. Both free will and self-salvation were thus affirmed, and pre- destination and conversion or regeneration denied.2
Second, the Pharisees had, while professing to hold to the law of God, converted it into the traditions of men. Thus, they had denied the Biblical doctrines of justification and sanctification and were accordingly the particular target of Christ’s denunciation. The Pharisees, professing to be champions of God’s word, were in fact its enemies and perverters.
2. See Hugo Odeberg, Phariseeism and Christianity (St. Louis: Concordia, 1964).
I am very happy to have presented the above extended passage which is quoted from Rousas John Rushdoony’s INSTITUTES OF BIBLICAL LAW, The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, The Craig Press, 1973
“I most heartily recommend this, his central and finest work, to the reader.”
Richard Eric Gunby currently resides in the central North Carolina town of Graham, located halfway between Durham and Greensboro, and approx. 35 minutes from Chapel Hill. Holding a fully accredited B.A. (1976) in Bible and Philosophy, with two years of graduate seminary work, he is a published writer of nutrition & alternative health, and Pre-Columbian studies concerned with ancient exploration.
He has also previously self-published a Biblical/Theological study on God’s Omniscience, entitled The Future. Another of his self-published works details and thoroughly documents the voyage of Prince Henry Sinclear to America almost a hundred years before Columbus, in, Little Known Facts of Gunn(by) History.
He has been in the faith since the Lord Jesus Christ brought Eric to Himself in 1972. He is a member in good standing of Beacon Baptist Church, Burlington, NC. A moderate size independent fellowship (approx. 350) that adheres to and promotes the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the doctrines of grace, also emphasizes expositional preaching, discipleship, and missions.
Eric welcomes all civil correspondence:
Richard Eric Gunby
Lot 18 Sleepy Hollow<
2833 South Hwy. NC #87
Graham, NC 27253-9429
1(336) 570 – 1237
email: ericgunby@earthlink.net