Punishment

Wallens Ridge State "Supermax" Prison, Big Stone Gap, Virginia

pen•al•ty n., pl. pen•al•ties
1. A punishment established by law or authority for a crime or an offense.
2. The disadvantage or painful consequences resulting from an action or a condition.

On March 21, 2005, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops formally launched a "Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty" at a press conference held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC and an accompanying website.

The date marks the 25th anniversary of a 1980 "Statement on Capital Punishment," which passed the conference with a vote 145 to 31 with 41 abstentions, the highest number of abstentions ever recorded, as a result of which the statement, the most controversial statements ever issued by the conference, became conference policy, which the latest statements reaffirm.

The closeness of the votes indicates that the two capital punishment statements were among the most controversial ever issued by the conference. Many bishops were concerned that a rejection of capital punishment might appear to be a rejection of church tradition, which long had acknowledged a state's right to execute dangerous criminals. On the other hand, many other bishops wanted to show that the hierarchy held a fully consistent ethic of life and was opposed not only to abortion but also to capital punishment. Approving such controversial statements necessitated the breaking or bending of their own self-imposed regulations requiring a two-thirds vote on statements.

Basically, the bishops argued from Scripture, Catholic teaching and their own views that the death penalty should be abolished for the following reasons:

The bishops found the following "difficulties inherent" in capital punishment.

One particular remark in the bishops' 1980 statement drew my attention:

"Punishment, since it involves the deliberate infliction of evil on another, is always in need of justification.: some good which is to be obtained through punishment or an evil which is to be warded off."
Now, because I'm an engineer and not a theologian, I don't understand this remark at all. I don't see how it differs from the false and misleading belief, traditionally rejected by the Catholic Church, that one is justified in doing evil that good may come of it. If any kind of punishment involves the deliberate infliction of evil on another, I don't see how it can be justified at all - ever!

The bishops noted that the three justifications traditionally advanced for punishment in general are retribution, deterrence, and reform. They then pointed out that retribution accomplishes nothing positive, the death penalty is a demonstrated deterrent only to the one executed, and that a dead person is incapable of being reformed.

This got me to thinking: It could be argued that any kind of retribution is immoral, that legal penalties in the United States have no demonstrated effective deterrent value to habitual offenders, and that there is no conclusive indication whatever that they are effective in reforming dangerous criminals at all.

For the record, I do not believe that it has been established anywhere, by anybody, either logically, scientifically, or from anybody's Scripture, that any human being, or any number of them collectively, has the moral authority to inflict any amount of suffering, on any human being except as a positive, demonstratedly effective, disincentive to future harmful behavior by that human being. Punishing somebody for something he cannot change, or because of what somebody else might do, is just plain wrong! In addition, if punishment, of any kind, involves the deliberate infliction of evil, I am against it. Evil isn't nice! I think the bishops have produced a persuasive argument against punishment of any kind for any criminal, regardless of his crime. It seems to me that any penalty, any punishment at all, is simply tit for tat, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. (Exodus 21:23, 24) Jesus didn't agree with that. (Matthew 5:38-42)

Punishment of criminals in the United States seems to me to be based on the unstated (and so far undemonstrated) assumption that anyone who commits a crime is a sinner, and it is somehow the function of the state to make the sinner suffer for his sin. The bishops actually referred to "punishment of sinners" (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, TT-II, 68), without any explanation of why society should consider criminal behavior as a sin, or why the state, rather than God, should be in the business of punishing sinners. (The Bible says that sin is lawlessness, but this does not imply that all lawlessness is sinful any more than that all furry animals are gerbils.) I note that one of the spiritual works of mercy is to admonish the sinner, not to punish him. One hears people speak of "bringing criminals to justice," as if there were some designated place to which evildoers could be brought which would automatically rectify the consequences of their unlawful behavior. Others claim that they want "justice," when what they really want is "revenge," Exodus 21:23, 24, again. That is forbidden in the Old Testament (Hebrews 10:30) and again in the New. (Romans 12:19) In addition, I have NEVER understood what "paid his debt to society" means. That's like stealing money from your landlord and then staying in his house rent free until he feels that you don't owe him anything! It just doesn't make any sense!

It should come as no surprise that criminals' thought processes are different from those of "normal" people. That's why they're criminals. The sad fact is that, in many cases, attempts to make the criminal suffer for the sinfulness of his crime in the hope that he will be made thereby to change his behavior are doomed to failure. One reason is that many criminals simply lack the ability to identify what suffering is imposed upon them as having anything to do with their past or future behavior. Many, perhaps most, criminals simply don't believe they are in jail or have to pay a fine because they did something "wrong." They don't believe it's their fault! It's because the witnesses lied or the judge was corrupt or the sheriff manufactured evidence or they were being singled out or picked on or because their ancestors were slaves, or some other nonsense. Another reason is that the "suffering" isn't all that bad, compared to their "normal" life. If somebody convinced you that you could have free housing, meals, recreational facilities, medical care, education and opportunities to socialize with your friends, without the necessity of working, under better conditions and with more opportunities for advancement than you could have anywhere else if you just "offed" some sonofabitch who needed killing anyway, would you do it? Would you do it if morality didn't enter the picture? Would you do it if you thought it was your only way to survive? Be honest, now.

We even reward clumsy criminals. One cannot be punished for murder if he actually didn't mean to commit a crime, regardless of how irresponsible the behavior was that caused the death. Even if he did mean to commit a crime, he cannot be punished for murder if he was drunk or under the influence of drugs or mentally incompetent, or if the victim somehow managed to survive. On the other hand, if a victim dies as the direct result of the intentional commission of a different felony, the felon can be found additionally guilty of felony murder in most, or perhaps all, jurisdictions. The law is not interested in what the criminal actually did, only in what he was guilty of doing. We punish him for the guilt, not the crime. Sometimes, we punish him for deciding to do something he didn't actually do! We even have penitentiaries, where people do penance for crimes, some of which they only conspired to commit! In addition, we have reformatories, detention centers, prisons, jails and correctional facilities, all of questionable utility and value.

And since only the most bizarre crimes carry a death sentence, we can't positively put a truly dangerous criminal away for good unless he is convicted of multiple offenses. So if some smarmy bastard rapes and bludgeons a little girl almost to death, we can't impose the "death penalty" on him, because that's reserved for only if he actually kills her. Often, we can't put him in jail for very long. To take him off the streets permanently, we have to try him for statutory rape, aggravated rape, rape, attempted rape, conspiracy to commit rape, indecent exposure, aggravated battery, battery, conspiracy to commit battery, aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted first, second and third degree murder, reckless endangerment, kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, child endangerment, lewd acts with a minor, public intoxication, disturbing the peace, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and, possibly, vagrancy! Then we ask for consecutive, rather than concurrent, sentencing and hope that the judge and jury members are parents of small children themselves!

I admit to being confused about why killing an individual to prevent him from harming others is considered such an extreme measure, given that every single person, convicted or otherwise, without exception, is eventually going to die anyway!

In addition, I can't help wondering when we are going to stop rewarding dangerous felons. I worked all my life to have a guaranteed place to live, enough food to eat, clothes to wear, appropriate medical care, and an opportunity to socialize with my friends when I got old. Nowadays, one can get the same benefits simply by raping and murdering a little girl!

In a recent statement on national television, Diena Thompson, the mother of Somer Thompson, whose murdered body was found dumped in a land fill, stated, "We as parents, as community leaders, as citizens, we need to get together and figure out what it is that we're not doing right." I know exactly what we're not doing right. We're not finding them before the commit such crimes and lock them up forecer! How many little girls like Somer Thompson have to die horribly before we get the message?

Phillip Garrido, a convicted rapist has not yet served the sentence imposed upon him for that crime because he was paroled for good behavior, Subsequently he kidnapped, imprisoned and continually raped Jaycee Lee Dugard over a period of 18 years before he was caught and sentenced to the California State Prison, Corcoran, for 431 years to life. Bad as that situation is, it's better than that of Phillip Paul, who murdered a women voices in his head claimed was a witch and then cleverly soaked her body with gasoline so wild animals wouldn't dig her body out of the flower garden in which he buried her. Found not guilty by reason of insanity (!), he subsequently walked away from his "supervised" "confinement" while on a recreational outing at the Spokane County fair! Fortunately, he was captured three days later.

The practice of making the "sinner" "suffer" for his "sin" or the "criminal" "pay" for his "crime" has the dubious result of leaving the public forever at risk of such behavior if the perpetrator feels that whatever benefits he derives from it are worth risking the limited consequences. Child molesters, for example, are frequently unmoved by the marginal penalties that American legislatures and juries (that exclude child members) now consider appropriate "punishment" for people who rape and torture small children. Fines and other economic penalties may be viewed simply as the affordable cost of doing illegal business. I agree with that philosophy, too, but I think the cost of going around jeopardizing the peace and safety of civilization ought to be unacceptably high.

Perhaps it is time for enlightened societies to take another look at the whole concept of dealing with people who do bad things.

Part of the problem, of course, is the definition of "bad things." A great leap forward was taken by the Babylonian King Hammurabi, beginning about the year 2100 BC, when he decreed that laws be written to allow publication, understanding, and fair application. The "Code of Hammurabi" not only identified specific acts which were crimes, but also established rights of various classes of citizens (including women) and rules for court proceedings, standards of just compensation and admissibility of evidence. Chapters 21 and 22 of Exodus, written over 800 years later, contain remarkably similar provisions. Hammurabi established one of the greatest human institutions of all time, the concept of the rule of law.

The rule of law is still not accepted as a valid concept, even in developed countries, even, unfortunately, in the United States. An increasingly vocal proportion of our population repudiates the rule of law in favor of their uninformed misinterpretation of the Holy Bible. They adamantly maintain that human law is based upon or derives its legitimacy from the Ten Commandments, while steadfastly ignoring the fact that The Ten Commandments themselves are in fact a catechetical formula, a human invention, and are not found as such anywhere in anybody's canonical scripture. To be sure, there was little, if any, difference between law and religion in the Old Testament, because the law was the religion, and vice versa. In the United States, the First Amendment to the Constitution erects a wall of separation between the two, so that "The People" decide what is lawful, and each individual person gets to decide for himself what is a sin. The People have the option of changing any law that they find objectionable, but The People have a good deal more sense than those who repudiate the Christian requirement to love one's enemies, (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27) and the Old Testament mandate to eliminate abominations from their society (Exodus 19:12, 21:12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 29; 22:18, 19, 20; 31:14, 15; 35:2; Leviticus 20:2, 9-16, 27; 24:16, 17; Numbers 1:51; 3:10, 38; 15:32-36; 18:7; 35:16-21; Deuteronomy 13:1-10; Joshua 1:18; 7:15-25; and 1 Kings 21:13). Fortunately, The People continue to elect and appoint judges who consider adherence to their oaths of office of more importance than caving to the opinions of religious fanatics. Unfortunately, the fanatics have been able to thwart this process, in the case of federal judges, by use of the Senate filibuster. As this is being written, rejection of federal judicial appointees by filibuster is being successfully challenged in the Senate.

A crime is a violation of an established law; an offense is something someone finds objectionable. If one rejects the rule of law, it is impossible to discriminate between offenses and crimes, and this is actually happening in the US today. There aren't any rapists anymore; they're now called sex offenders. If the underage victim wasn't offended, people now demonstrate to let the convicted perpetrator go free. We don't say that someone raped and mutilated and terrified and brutalized and tortured and violated a woman, we say he offended her. He didn't steal a little girl's innocence and destroy her psyche and ruin her life; he committed an offense.

As an example of the extent this lunacy has reached, I recently saw a TV interview with the warden of a "supermax" prison, a place where they keep incorrigibly violent people. The warden referred to them as "offenders." Now, this guy is supposedly educated enough to be trusted with the awesome responsibility of keeping society safe from some of the most dangerous people on the planet, yet he considers them "offenders!" Something is very wrong here! They are variously; convicts, criminals, inmates, prisoners, or even incarceratees. But offenders? People who pick their noses in public are offenders. Offenders are people who talk on cell phones in restaurants; people with tattoos; grossly fat people; people who don't bathe or who wear pajamas in public! A society is in very, very deep trouble if it doesn't know the difference between these minor sociopaths and the truly scary people who shoot strangers on the freeway or rape and torture little girls and then bury them while they're still in the process of dying!

The rule of law allows society to deal rationally with people who do things that are generally considered offensive, that is, "bad" things. The process is vastly simplified by the fact that the legislature is not required to determine why they are bad, only what they are and that they are. Once it defines the offensive behavior sufficiently for an individual of average intelligence to know that he is guilty of it, the legislature must identify the means by which the behavior can be recognized as such by law enforcement officers and a judge or jury, and the penalties that may lawfully be imposed for it. If the legislative process agrees, the behavior becomes unlawful and a "just" cause for punishment.

This very simplicity is at the root of the problem of modern criminal "justice." Laws are inherently limitations on freedom. A truly enlightened society should not need them. The lawbreaker may be punished if he is caught, but the law keeper is punished twice already; first by having to give up his personal freedom by conforming his behavior to the law, and then by paying taxes to make and enforce laws. Each and every law carries with it the social burden of limitation of freedom and the financial burden of the maintenance of the legislature itself, the necessity for police forces, the cost of criminal courts, and the establishment of a privileged class of otherwise unnecessary people known as lawyers. Supposedly, these essential evils are outweighed by the supposed benefits of social stability, promotion of social responsibility, providing incentives for right behavior, protection from evildoers, and restoration of the social order.

There is not now, and never has been, a legislature constrained to pass laws that do all, or, indeed, any of these things!

To be sure, there are constraints on legislatures. In the United States, the Constitution contains a list of laws the Congress cannot pass (Section 9), and has been amended several times to recognize rights of The People that Congress cannot abridge (even though the fundamentalists disagree). However, there is no requirement, Constitutional or otherwise, for the legislative process to assure that any particular law promotes social stability or encourages social responsibility, provides any incentive to do anything, provides protection of anyone from anyone, or restores social order (whatever that means). The only requirement for the guilt of an act or omission to be punishable is that the legislature has made it so, and that such action is within the legislature's constitutional authority.

In other words, no legislature is required to pass only good laws - or any good laws, for that matter!

In particular, laws establishing penalties for lawbreakers don't have to (and frequently don't!) accomplish anything worthwhile. Every fine, every hour of "community service" or day in jail, every execution of a convicted capital felon, is proof positive that there are people for whom the "rule of law" simply doesn't work, and a society that thinks otherwise are these predators' natural prey.

I think it's time for a change!

The Old testament imposes the death penalty for certain behaviors:

The nature of these capital offenses is consistent with the requirements of a theocratic society in which the legislature is the Lord God Yahweh. Basically, there is no such thing as constitutional restriction or civil rights, and the legislature (God) can make any law, including the value of the universal gravitational constant, or of pi, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. It is interesting, however, that not even Yahweh required that the lawbreaker be found guilty. The testimony of at least two witnesses to the deed reduced the likelihood of a criminal being executed because a single witness disliked him enough to lie under oath, but this requirement is essentially an evidentiary rule. The commission of the offense was sufficient to invoke the penalty, just as it is today in what we call the natural law. The penalty for slapping your mother (Exodus 21:15) is the same as for jumping off a steep cliff - death! Next case!

Society and its members are shaped by the laws it enforces. Our ancestors lived for millions of years with little more than the natural law to influence their behavior. Those who were afraid of high places and exercised great care at cliff edges were more likely to survive to reproduce themselves than those who were filtered out of the gene pool by ignoring the penalty for falling from a great height. Indeed, our species evolved in an environment of consistent, dramatic consequences of hazardous behavior. Our religious concepts were profoundly influenced by the idea of an invisible Father figure who punished people for violating His Commandments. Even today, there are millions of believers who see the all the evils of the modern world as the capricious imposition of autocratic punishment for violation of arbitrary "rules," instead of the natural and inevitable consequences of acting unwisely. It's not God who's "gonna gitcha" for being a sinner; it's your own fault, and the wages of sin is death!

The lethal consequences of naturally antipreservative acts certainly extinguish the possibilities for reform and rehabilitation of the person committing them, but they more than compensate by creating an incentive for others not to. I can speak with authority here, because this is the basis of my professional specialty, safety science. If a person is killed every time he jumps off a cliff, society rapidly rids itself of cliff jumpers, either by the demise of people who think they can outwit the law, or by convincing others that they shouldn't try that. The natural law decrees that cliff jumpers are a menace and should be eliminated. Same with mother slappers, at least according to the Bible. Rehabilitation may be a worthwhile goal, but it is not a government function. The function of government is to protect its citizens from harm. An enlightened society has a legitimate vested interest in permanently disposing of harmful people.

Providing the opportunity for a criminal to make some creative compensation for the evil of his crime (whatever that means) requires society to endure the continued burden of keeping him around. Often, that's not a good trade. There are some people who are just too darned dangerous! In the United States at the time of this writing, one in every 168 people is in jail, about 60 percent of them for a second or subsequent crime. This may be an intolerable social burden, considering possible alternatives. We can probably tolerate the loss of a few people who think jumping off cliffs is OK in exchange for the continued existence of those who are smart enough to learn from the tragic misjudgment of others. Same for mother slappers. I can't think of any reason for society to send a message to anyone that you can get free room and board if you assault your mother.

Just think of all the innocent homeless people and terrorism refugees we could take care of if we weren't supporting the continued existence of dangerous criminals!

Executing people for having done something (or for not having done something) is different from using deadly force against them to protect others. It obviously involves the possibility of making a mistake, an increasing problem in law enforcement, but so does everything else in life. The only person who never makes a mistake is the person who never does anything, and society can do without him as well. Maybe the cliff jumper didn't know the cliff was there, or didn't know how high it was, or thought he could fly, possibly because he was high on drugs, or had a bad childhood, or was a minimally educated, functionally illiterate, socially maladjusted, marginally employable juvenile representative of a culturally disadvantaged racial minority. Too bad for him! He should have been more careful! Splat! Next case!

The natural law (read "God's law" for those who believe in such things) provides for long and unavoidable delays, with many undesirable consequences, as well as more prompt resolution. Jumping off a cliff will teach you the error of your ways in a few seconds, whereas death by AIDS or syphilis can take years. We still don't know what causes some kinds of cancer. But when the effects are consistent and the consequences inevitable, the cause can eventually be found and avoided. The imposition of motions for new trials and multiple appeals and sanity hearings and technical arguments and introduction of new evidence and public demonstrations and mass protests and candlelight vigils, long espoused by the fundamentalists, have the effects, among others, of prolonging the suffering of the convict and his loved ones, obfuscating the consequences of his actions, and confusing perceptive people who might otherwise have the opportunity to learn from the tragic mistakes of the condemned. Nature takes a different approach. I submit as evidence the current ratio of surviving habitual lawbreakers to surviving habitual cliff jumpers.

Habitual lawbreakers are a menace to themselves as well as others. A recent television news broadcast reported that 15 year old Larry Mugrage of Union Township, outside Cincinnati, regularly amused himself by walking across the yard of quiet but crotchety 66 year old Charles Martin. According to Mr. Martin, Larry had "just been giving me a bunch of shit, making the other kids harass me and my place, tearing things up." Recently, Larry traipsed through Mr. Martin's yard for the last time. Mr. Martin reportedly hauled out his .410 shotgun and fired twice, killing Larry stone cold dead!

This is, of course, a tragedy. Mr. Martin was sentenced to 18 years in jail, and subsequently committed suicide, a lonely old man who wanted nothing more than for people to stay the hell out of his yard, and leave him the hell alone, which were well within his rights. He doesn't seem to have been a danger to anyone except habitual trespassers, which doesn't seem all that bad to me. Of course, it is generally illegal to shoot and kill them. But trespassing is also illegal, and I can't help thinking that the real culprit here is Larry Mugrage, who felt he could break the law with impunity, and reportedly did so with malice aforethought for at least five years. Also at fault were the local legislators and law enforcement officials, who failed to put a stop to his habitual criminal behavior, and certainly his parents, who failed miserably to their responsibility to teach their kid the necessity of obeying the law and respecting his elders. As far as Larry is concerned, the only believable good thing I heard about him is that he won't be purposely annoying his neighbors any more. He was described in the news report as a "popular hard-working and clever schoolboy," but he wasn't all that popular with Mr. Martin, and didn't seem to be clever enough to know that it is unwise to do unlawful things. As far as hard-working is concerned, wouldn't it have been nice if he would worked harder at not doing them when he was ten?

Another example of evolution in action via punishment imposed by natural (God's) law is that of 17 year old Carlos Sousa and his buddies Paul and Kulbir Dhaliwal. On Christmas of 2007, they decided to stagger over to the San Francisco zoo and annoy the tigers after getting tanked up on illegal vodka and stoned on illegal marijuana. They cost the zoo one tiger, got the Sousa family involved with famous attorney Mark Garagos, and improved the human race as a whole by getting rid of some of its stupidity genes and discovering that tigers can jump farther than previously thought, especially if you appeal to their natural hunting instincts by attracting attention and advertising that you're functionally disabled, slow, weak and tasty!

"Then there's the case of Russell E. Cox, 19, of Marion, Indiana, who found out the hard way that you really shouldn't build a gunpowder and propane bomb, set it to go off, and then go back and inspect it if it doesn't detonate when you expect it to. Daniel Ferraro, also 19, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, received the same punishment when he decided to photograph the explosion of a homemade pipe bomb up really close. Stupidity is always a capital crime, and sometimes you get convicted!

Conviction for stupidity can be sudden, swift, and violent, as in the recent case of exceptionally stupid spectators of an illegal drag race on Maryland Highway 210. After the two illegal drag racers roared off in a cloud of smoke, the onlookers walked onto the highway to get a better look at the rapidly receding cars, completely ignoring the oncoming traffic, temporarily blinded by all the unexpected smoke, at their backs. In the words of one medic called to the scene of the tragedy, "there were shoes all over, many of them with feet still inside." The general consensus among the stupid is that the police "should have done something," or that the legal traffic "shouldn't have been there." but if they have enough events like this, ether the surviving morons will eventually recognize that walking onto a public highway to watch an illegal drag race without even a glance for oncoming traffic is unacceptable behavior, or, there won't be any survivors! Either way, the human race as a whole benefits. Consider it evolution in action.

Do we really think that God overreacted?

One rapidly increasing example of evolution in action is the penalty for violating the natural law against aggravating someone or things that can kill you, even if you don't think they can, don't think they should, don't know what aggravates them, or are "just having fun." The probability of violent demise increases with the number of violations. The main threat used to be wild animals, like mountain lions or bears, but today it's on-duty uniformed police officers. If you annoy or run from them, even once, Nature may convict, sentence, and execute you, regardless of what you think about it or whether or not it's "fair." It pays to stay away from confrontations with police, just like with bears. If you are involved in one anyway, be very, very, very very careful, - again, just like with bears. (Incidentally, bears are almost always killed if they kill a human, unlike police officers, but their victims are equally dead!)

It doesn't matter what or how old you are, either. You can be male, female or other, black, white, Hispanic, other or unknown, straight or gay, mentally healthy or otherwise. You can even be a cute, personable, community volunteer, honor roll student. advanced placement attendee, or the son of a police department clerk. It's a natural law; if you annoy or run from a police officer, circumstances may converge not to let you breed again, even if your parents get rich for not having raised you right. It doesn't matter how they feel about it, either. That's how evolution works! Moral - don't annoy police officers - or bears!

Every person comes into this world related to at least two people who have the sacred duty of taking care of him, loving him, and educating him not to do self-destructive things, his parents. Society can help them do that, but it's still their responsibility. If they fail, either through incompetence or otherwise, they have only themselves (and the perpetrator, of course) to blame for the anguish it causes them and the reduction in number of their grandchildren. It is illegal to trespass on other people's property and throw rocks at their houses, or to drink vodka if you're under 21 or mess with marijuana or homemade explosive devices or flee from police officers at any age. That means you shouldn't do it! Period! Larry's (and Carlos's and Russell's and Daniel's) parents should have taught them that! Similarly, if the kids' parents never cautioned them not to jump off cliffs, it's not the fault of the society that it didn't bulldoze down the cliff that got them smushed and made their parents feel bad. It's not the cliff's fault, either. And certainly not God's! Public controversy over the issue is resolved when the consequences are so inevitable that they are accepted as the natural order of things and people learn to make wise choices rather than accept unpleasant consequences. When was the last time you saw an organized protest against the laws of gravity?

Most people who claim that the death penalty is imposed disproportionately on racial minorities and the poor seem to assume that there is something inherently wrong with that! In 1987, in McCleskey v. Kemp, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 vote that a mere statistical variation was not enough to invalidate the death penalty. Of course, it could be argued that there are certain crimes that rich people rarely commit. They rarely murder liquor store proprietors. They are almost never involved in gang warfare. They infrequently rape and kill little children. They hardly ever run over pedestrians while fleeing from police in stolen cars. They usually don't attack law enforcement officers with deadly weapons. On the other hand, those are really bad things, and there isn't really any good reason to tolerate such behavior in some misguided attempt to be "fair" to the perpetrators. If the racial minorities and the poor don't want the death penalty imposed disproportionately on them, they shouldn't commit a disproportionate number of capital crimes - or perhaps they should work less at committing crimes and more at not being poor in the first place.

I believe the prohibition of racial profiling in the United States is a politically motivated counterproductive policy with little to recommend it, the opinion of fundamentalists not withstanding. If persons with certain physical characteristics are known to be statistically more likely to commit certain crimes, it makes good sense, when such crimes are known to have been committed, to look for perpetrators among those where they are most likely to be found.

The bishops noted that over 18,000 people were murdered in the United States in 1976. According to Barbara Bowser of the Death Penalty Information Center, nobody was executed for anything in the United States in 1976. On the other hand, about 25,000 Americans committed suicide in 1976, and all of them died. The message here is that the consequences of killing oneself are infinitely more severe than those of killing other people, and I think that's a bad message. As the bishops pointed out, the small number of death sentences in relation to the number of murders makes it seem highly unlikely that the threat of capital punishment will be carried out and so undercuts the effectiveness of the deterrent. This is a strong argument for recourse to the method established by Almighty God in the Old Testament, which is immediately to eliminate them from society.

The bishops seem to be confused regarding the relevance of forbearance in the face of evil (Matthew 5:38-42, Luke 6:29), forgiveness of injuries (Matthew 18:21-35) and the necessity of dealing with dangerous sociopaths (Exodus 19:12, 21:12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 29; 22:18, 19, 20; 31:14, 15; 35:2; Leviticus 20:2, 9-16, 27; 24:16, 17; Numbers 1:51; 3:10, 38; 15:32-36; 18:7; 35:16-21; Deuteronomy 13:1-10; Joshua 1:18; 7:15-25; and 1 Kings 21:13). I don't know of any responsible group of people (except possibly the USCCB itself) that maintains that society's response to the problem of violent crime is or should be motivated by hatred of the criminal. Here, I think, we have an excellent example from Pope John Paul II, who not only publicly forgave Turkish gunman Ali Agca, who attempted but failed to assassinate him in May 1981 in St. Peter's Square, but later met with him in his Italian prison cell. On the other hand, the Pope didn't do anything to pressure the Italian government to let Mr. Agca go free so he could take another shot - at him or anyone else.

Of course, nobody can doubt that there is hatred involved. In the sentencing of John Albert Gardner III, who raped and murdered Amber Dubois and Chelsea King, among possibly others, relative after relative railed against the murderer, calling him a coward and a monster. So-called "Christian" after "Christian" made statements like "I pray every day that God will show you no mercy," and "My greatest comfort is that you will never go to heaven." In the end, however, Gardner was sentenced to multiple retirements with guaranteed food, clothing, housing, medical care and an opportunity to hang out with his friends for the rest of his life. California "Christians" also decided to continue handsomely to reward people who rape and murder teenage girls by passing "Chelsea's Law" that provides the same benefits to anyone convicted of doing that. On the other hand, in the 2012 election, Californians defeated Proposition 34, which would have eliminated the death penalty. Proposition 34 lost, 47.2% to 52.8%.

Like many of those who defeated Proposition 34, I disagree with some of the other bishops' assumptions. It seems to me that any "cycle of violence" is best broken by making absolutely certain that the criminal never again commits a violent crime, and that such a purpose is accomplished by executing him. It would like to see some other foolproof method. I do not see this as taking a life for a life. Indeed, I maintain that dangerous criminals should be removed from society, as they were in the Old Testament, as a response to their commission of other crimes, before they take the life of another. This seems to me to be a "more humane," "hopeful," and "effective" response to violent crime, by preventing violent criminals, once they are identified as such, from jeopardizing other people's lives. Executing a criminal only for killing someone else is precisely the taking of "a life for a life" that the bishops deplore. Far from manifesting power and vengeance, I believe that removing a felon before he murders someone rather than afterward would be an expression of intelligence and compassion for people who would otherwise become victims of known habitual criminals.

A good example is that of Charlie Lee "Cookie" Thornton, late of Kirkwood, Missouri, who, by all accounts, felt he was being "picked on" by being expected to obey "white man's law." Having received over 150 tickets for improperly parking his construction equipment all over town, Thornton amused himself by disrupting city council meetings and assaulting public works director Ken Yost. As his last act of defiance, Thornton showed up at city hall with a large-caliber revolver, killed Police Sgt. Bill Biggs, the first officer who tried to stop him, and then took Sergeant Biggs' service weapon into council chambers, where he shot and killed Officer Tom Ballman, City Councilman Mike Lynch, Councilwoman Connie Karr and Mr. Yost. He also shot and seriously wounded mayor Mike Swaboda and journalist Todd Smiththen before the police finally shot and killed him. The truth will come out in the end, and the truth is that it would have been much better if this thoroughly rotten sonofabitch had been removed from society before he shot all those people rather than after. His wife apologized for his behavior, but she would have done everybody a much larger favor if she would have made Cookie sleep with himself until he paid his $20,000 worth of parking tickets. She could also have done a service for the City of Kirkwood, especially the Biggs, Ballman, Lynch, Karr, Yost, Swaboda and Smiththen families, if she had let the city council know he was coming so a police sniper could shoot Cookie from a safe distance when he showed up. They probably wouldn't have done that, though. Like every other US city, Kirkwood, Missouri tolerates terrorists in their community as long as they aren't active terrorists! Do the bishops think that five dead and two seriously wounded public servants are so much better than one dead habitual criminal?

Cookie's brother seems to think Cookie was a soldier of a country unto himself. The cops need to keep a close eye on the 'bro, too.

The bishops are deluding themselves if they believe that hardened criminals do not continue to degrade, injure and murder innocent victims even from the purported security of a "supermax" prison cell. Fact is, vast criminal empires are known to be directed by people already behind bars. Incarcerated prisoners regularly commit acts of violence, mayhem, murder, arson, sodomy and rape. There are so many of them, that they have their own national fraternal organization. It's called the Aryan Brotherhood. The initiation ceremony consists of murdering someone, often a fellow inmate. If the death penalty uses more force than is actually required, given the demonstrated capacity of violent criminals to circumvent any less severe protective measures, one must address the thorny question of how much force is necessary!

And I think it should be admitted that the bishops, as a group, have not demonstrated any rational response to the problem of child abusers. I maintain that the only appropriate response to these people is to rid society of them. Not hate them! Not educate them! Not provide them with free room and board! Not put their pictures on billboards to shame them! Not register them! Not transfer them to other parishes in hopes that they "won't do it again!" Get rid of them! Is there any reason to tolerate people in our midst who molest little children? Come on!

In the three years or so that I have been talking to others about this, I haven't found a single person who agrees with me, not one! The lawmakers don't seem to believe that molestation, rape, torture and murder of innocent children is really all that bad, but children don't elect legislators to public office, and child molesters do. Nevertheless, unpopular as my position is, I still maintain that anyone who is found by a jury to have violated a law against child molestation should be considered a clear and present danger to society! Whatever chance for restitution or rehabilitation these people represent, I believe that the danger they also represent by being around is just too great to be tolerable. It is ridiculously easy to protect our children against child molesters. It's the same way we protect them from polio, smallpox, wild bears and rabid wolves - eliminate the threat! We can hire people to get rid of our termites, why not our child molesters? Child molesters are much more dangerous than termites! Getting rid of them doesn't pollute the environment, either.

I'm in favor of a Constitutional amendment that permits juries to positively remove criminals who have demonstrated a clear and present danger to society, not to punish them for their crimes. The Eighth Amendment prohibits that now, as expressed most recently in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). That decision found that lack of consistency in the application of the death penalty made it, at the time, unconstitutional. In Gregg v. Georgia, The Court set out two broad requirements for sentencing a criminal to death:

First, objective criteria must limit the death sentencing discretion. The objectiveness of these criteria must in turn be ensured by appellate review of all death sentences.

Second, the scheme must allow the sentencer (whether judge or jury) to take into account the character and record of an individual defendant.

Subsequent Court decisions forbid the death penalty for rape (Coker v. Georgia), in certain cases of felony murder (Enmund v. Florida), executing the mentally handicapped (Atkins v. Virginia) and juveniles (Roper v. Simmons). The Court also removed virtually all limitations on the presentation of mitigating evidence (Lockett v. Ohio, Holmes v. South Carolina), required precision in the definition of aggravating factors (Godfrey v. Georgia, Walton v. Arizona), and required the jury to decide whether aggravating factors have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt (Ring v. Arizona). Putting a criminal to death because he is a danger rather than because he is guilty of a specific crime almost certainly violates one or more of the criteria established by these decisions.

Given the overwhelming opposition to executing rapists, attempted murderers and child molesters, I'm willing to compromise. I note that, contrary to popular belief, slavery is not unlawful in the United States; it's perfectly legal as a punishment for a crime! Thirteenth Amendment - look it up. I would like to see our state legislators pass a law that allows a person duly convicted of a crime to be sold. I'd include a one way airplane ticket to central Africa, discretely advertise that a slave was for sale, and auction him or her off anonymously to the highest bidder for cash, no questions asked. I'm not in favor of this option, mind you, but I'm willing to take it we just can't bring ourselves to get rid of them otherwise.

There may be other methods of getting rid of convicted felons that do not involve putting them to death. I don't see a problem with revoking their citizenship, confiscating all their possessions and allowing them permanently to move to some other country that would be willing to take them, or to stay there if they are already gone. Maybe they could be trained as military bomb demolition experts and used in that capacity in combat until they make a regrettable mistake. (Somebody has to do it!) Perhaps allowing them to volunteer for testing of potentially dangerous pharmaceuticals might be appropriate. I just don't know. If juries get to decide, maybe they could come up with something suitably humane, practical, permanent and irreversible.

As far as I'm concerned, since death is such a universal experience, I don't see it as that repugnant an option. Currently, all United States jurisdictions that allow the death "penalty" jurisdictions opt for death by lethal injection, although I understand that in the states of Washington and New Hampshire hanging is still an option, and Utah allows death by firing squad if suitable lethal injection drugs are not available. It seems to me that a more humane option would be to isolate the condemned in a sealed container and replace the air with nitrogen, possibly mixed with a soporific of some kind. Death by hypoxia is reportedly painless, and nitrogen is inexpensive and readily available. Reportedly, the state of Oklahoma is already planning to resume executions using this method.

Perhaps the part of the bishops' statement that I find most difficult to understand is that society's response to violent lawbreakers should be based upon retribution or the restoration of the order of justice, or that it is morally unsatisfactory and socially destructive for criminals to go unpunished. One hears the assertion that criminals should be "made to pay" for their crimes, but how does someone "pay" for murdering a whole family to facilitate robbing them or torturing a five year old to death over several months? Wouldn't it be better to prevent him from doing that in the first place? I do not know what a "debt to society" is, or how it is paid by receiving food, clothing, housing, education, medical treatment, Viagra, and legal representation from society's largess, but it doesn't seem to me to benefit the victim any. Also, establishing justice is one of the functions of government in the United States, but it is a unattainable goal. How does society establish justice for a little girl who is raped to death and buried while she is still in the process of dying? Wouldn't it be more just to keep that from happening? Nobody has ever been able to show me a pile of "justice," or has suggested any way of measuring or quantifying it, which is the essence of definition. I agree with Portia in "The Merchant of Venice,"

"Therefore, Jew, though justice be thy plea, consider this; that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy." - William Shakespeare, The Merchant Of Venice, Act 4, scene 1, line 200
On the other hand, it is difficult to justify the assertion that mercy to lawbreakers, or protection of their individual rights, overrides the right of society to be protected from them. Society will never be safe from dangerous criminals unless and until it discards the idea that the "just" response is something other than absolutely to remove them. That's the most merciful thing we can do for those who would otherwise become their victims. We are not talking about hatred, or revenge, or retribution, or suffering or penance, or "making someone pay" here, we are talking about safety of innocent potential victims. Safety, especially safety of society, is inherently a good thing! Society is at risk from the criminal, not the crime. If we wait until the criminal has committed a "capital" crime, the damage has already been done! We don't have to hate him or make him suffer or make an example of him or embarrass him or "make him pay." All we have to do is get rid of him! It is just common sense that as soon as it has been determined that the criminal is a threat, we ought to eliminate the threat! It's as simple as that!

Until the bishops can explain to me why the teaching of the Gospel requires society to use demonstrably ineffective methods (i. e. incarceration) to reform and rehabilitate violent criminals while continuing to expose innocent victims to their predations, I cannot agree that Christians, or any other Americans, should support the abolition of what they refer to, perhaps incorrectly, as "capital punishment" unless there is some other effective way of protecting society.

An example of the current state of dysfunction of our "criminal justice system" is the case of Brian Gene Nichols who, according to about a hundred and thirty reliable witnesses, assaulted tiny, elderly sheriff's deputy Cynthia Hall, who was helping him change into civilian clothes before his trial on a previous charge of rape and false (!) imprisonment. Taking Deputy Hall's sidearm, he reportedly shot and killed a judge, a court reporter, and another deputy. He then carjacked two vehicles, severely beating Don O'Briant, a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the driver of one of the vehicles, after which he is alleged to have: telephoned Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard's office and threatened to kill Assistant District Attorney Gayle Abramson; shot and killed U.S. Customs Agent David Wilhelm; and forced himself at gunpoint into the home of one Ashly Smith. After getting him high on her own methamphetamine stash, Smith managed to talk him into letting her go, whereupon she called 911, the Atlanta police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. A SWAT team managed to capture spaced-out Nichols without further incident. On May 5, 2005, he was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury on 54 counts including murder, kidnapping, robbery, aggravated assault on a police officer, battery, theft, carjacking, and escape from authorities.

Given that Nichols allegedly committed all these alleged acts allegedly in the presence of allegedly dozens of alleged police officers and other allegedly trained forensic observers, his initial defense was that his alleged crimes were so bizarre that he had to be nutty as a fruitcake to have committed them, not that he didn't do that. The original judge in the case recused himself after letting it slip that he thought that insanity was the only reasonable plea.

Under current law, of course, Nichols could have got off scot free if he had been insane but later got cured because he found Jesus.

Nichols' court-appointed attorneys found a way to use this case to milk Fulton County's legal defense fund completely dry over more than two years, arguing that they couldn't provide the mandatory "adequate defense" unless the state coughed up at least another 1.5 million dollars for more lawyers, more psychiatric testing, and witness fees for licensed psychiatrists willing to testify under oath that in their expert opinion Brian Nichols' actions did not "deserve the death penalty." Even so, the best defense they could come up with was that Nichols was actually a gallant freedom fighter, heroically battling against the evil institution of slavery under the delusion that he was a slave and that his actions were somehow directed toward winning his freedom, which included stealing and then using illegal drugs.

The jury, unimpressed with the truly awesome cost of fabricating this fantasy, convicted Nichols on all 54 counts in November, 2008. The main arguments for appeal now are that the defense team couldn't adequately defend him, that he didn't get a speedy trial, and that his crimes were enough the fault of a society that allowed him to grow up in a dysfunctional family that the same society now has a moral obligation to take care of him for the rest of his natural life. If his defense was sufficiently incompetent, as they themselves claim, he could still go free. The jury spent 20 hours in December 2008 deliberating about his sentence and still couldn't reach a unanimous agreement about what to do with such a vile, rotten, mean, detestable sonofabitch! They already agreed that was guilty of everything of which he was charged, so one can't help but wonder why. Because they couldn't agree on the death penalty, the judge in the case sentenced him to multiple life sentences, which essentially leaves him able to commit mayhem among his fellow prisoners for the rest of his life, unless he is set free on a technicality to menace the public again. What benefit society derives from this miscarriage of justice is left as an exercise for the student.

There is a better way!

I would be in favor of amending all current laws that impose "punishment" for "guilt" of a crime to instead specify "punishment" only for misdemeanors, and require juries to determine the best method of responding to demonstrated felony violation of a law. Legislatures could provide the necessary guidelines. The purpose of a trial, in my view, should be to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant did indeed violate an established law, without trying to determine capacity, intent, or "guilt." The function of the sentencing phase would then be to determine the best course of action for society to take. The idea here is not to make some kind of punishment fit the crime, but to make the response fit the criminal. I propose three possible non-exclusive choices: rehabilitation, restitution and elimination.

While rehabilitation of dangerous criminals is not necessarily a state function, establishing justice (whatever that is), ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare and assuring the blessings of liberty are legitimate state functions. Therefore, I agree with the bishops that the Gospel requires society, through the instrumentality of the state, to attempt to reform and rehabilitate the criminal, if the benefits outweigh the costs to the public. I believe that in some cases they might. Focus on reformation, that is, behavior modification, should avoid confusion with some hypothetical "restoration of the order of justice" or "moral satisfaction" (which may be additional, but fundamentally different, worthwhile goals). I believe that reformation should begin with the first indications of antisocial behavior, when the criminal is young. That way the costs are minimized and the benefits are of longer duration. The current practice of dealing with juvenile offenders is counterproductive in that it provides little or no incentive for the juvenile to modify his behavior, frequently enhances his status in the eyes of his peers, and exposes him to adult mentors and role models for even more severe behavior. It also frequently creates a hardship on the parents, which some juvenile delinquents may consider a reward, rather than a punishment, for antisocial acts.

Recognizing that juvenile offenders' minds are different from adult minds, and that juveniles are unlikely to benefit substantially from appeal to reason, logic or adult values, I believe that the first response to juvenile offenses should be medical intervention. The TASER appears to be an appropriate medical instrument to accomplish this. Upon conviction of a first offense, a judge or jury could sentence a juvenile lawbreaker to be subjected to, say, 30 seconds of TASER treatment. This could be accomplished in a medical facility, with appropriate care available in the event that the patient was inadvertently injured in the process. Such treatment could be supplemented by a necessary period of indoctrination, possibly in a "correctional facility," to teach the miscreant why his act or omission was unlawful, the correct pattern of behavior, and the consequences of future lawlessness. Subsequent convictions, regardless of the nature of the violation, could result in more intensive medical intervention (perhaps of longer duration), more intensive indoctrination, or both. My feeling is that 30 seconds of TASER treatment of a juvenile purse snatcher or schoolyard bully would make a model citizen out of him. Nobody has ever been permanently injured by a TASER. In addition, the instrument has been tested extensively on animals that are close enough to unruly juveniles for the results to be statistically valid. The TASER is considered less hazardous than physical restraint of a resisting suspect. Over 150 people have reportedly died of heart attacks after being zapped by a TASER, but I don't believe we should make exceptions to the prohibition against criminal behavior for people with bad hearts. If you've got a bad heart, don't commit crimes! Next case!

Being a public nuisance with serious health problems subjects you to cliff jumper rules and penalties, as in the case of fourteen year old Martin Lee Anderson, late of Panama City, Florida. Anderson was a guest of one of the Florida military style "boot camps" in a last-ditch effort to turn him away from a life of crime. Part of this process was making him run until he dropped for minor infractions of camp discipline and beating the snot out of him, with a nurse standing by just in case, in response to his frequent displays of chronic antisocial attitude. The cops were videotaped during one of the snot purgation episodes. Unfortunately for them, Anderson also had a blood disorder (sickle cell anemia) that nobody told them about. The condition increased his susceptibility to death by asphyxiation. Anderson later died of it according to the report of a Florida coroner. A jury found all concerned not guilty of manslaughter, but Florida closed down the boot camps after this episode, making it that much harder for other disadvantaged kids to get straightened up. The bottom line is that nobody is going to be assaulted or raped or knifed or shot or killed by Martin Lee Anderson, whose antisocial attitude, his disrespect for authority, his chronic delinquency, and his sickle cell disorder got him permanently removed from the gene pool by the beneficent intervention of Mother Nature or Almighty God, take your pick. Evolution in action, again, thank God.

To be sure, corporal punishment does work. A variation of the TASER has been employed successfully in curing obsessive-compulsive juvenile patients of dangerous, and sometimes life threatening, behavior. After the kids get zapped a few times, they straighten right up! The treatment appeals to the instinct for self preservation at a very fundamental, natural, effective, level! The patients themselves agree that this process probably saved their lives. Unfortunately, the lawyers have gotten into the act and the successful use of these medical instruments is now being challenged on the grounds that their use constitutes "torture!" This is a well-known, but logically defective fundamentalist tactic, to identify an act with an emotional label and then argue against the emotional response to the label. The idea that there is something inherently objectionable about modifying potentially fatal behavior, given that there is no satisfactory alternative, whatever the process is called, just doesn't make sense.

A case in point: in November of 2004, a wild but anonymous six year old at Kelsey Pharr Elementary school in Dade Country, Florida, broke a picture in the principal's office (to which he had been remanded for previous unruly behavior) to get a piece of glass with which he threatened school officials and police. When the two Miami-Dade officers arrived on the scene, the boy had already cut himself under his eye and on his hand. After an unsuccessful attempt to subdue the kid, during which he cut himself several more times, the police decided they had enough of his crap and shot him with 50,000 volts, after which they took him to the hospital for observation. He didn't need medical treatment. (Psychiatric, yes; medical, no.) I saw the kid on television the other day. He was riding his bike, swinging on a swing, and playing with the other kids. His mother claimed that "he hasn't been the same since."

She said it like it was a bad thing!

Of course, it may be that the experience of being arrested, the education associated with being found to be a violator of a law (about which he might previously been truly ignorant), and the threat of being zapped with a TASER might be enough to convince a juvenile delinquent of the error of his ways. In such a case I can't see any reason not to let him off with a warning, regardless of what he did.

If the criminal commits crimes because of a mental, emotional or physical disability, sentencing him to necessary medical intervention and other rehabilitative treatment is the most effective, humane and appropriate response to his behavior, and is the option most likely to restore him as a useful member of society. Current law recognizes this, and most states, perhaps all, allow mentally incompetent persons and those with contagious diseases to be confined involuntarily in hospitals without having been convicted of doing anything wrong unless and until they are "safe" to again enter society as an alternative to being found guilty of a crime. But such treatment is fundamentally different from, and governed by different laws than, treatment of persons convicted of crimes. Indeed, one can shoot the President of the United States and escape punishment because of mental incompetence, and then be found mentally competent enough to be allowed weekend passes from the treatment facility to visit one's parents. I don't think that makes sense. I think a President shooter should be either in treatment if he can be cured, eliminated if he can't, or freed if he has been.

In cases where the unlawful behavior was motivated by poverty resulting from improper education, it seems to me that the Christian choice of appropriate rehabilitation would be to educate the criminal to enable him to be gainfully employed. This could be done by sentencing him to a rehabilitative facility until he had overcome his educational disability and demonstrated his potential to become a productive citizen. His incarceration until (and unless) he demonstrated the necessary skills, educational level and attitude necessary for release would serve as an incentive to acquire them. This would be particularly effective for criminals of limited capacity, especially if combined with medical intervention (weekly TASER treatments) that provided an effective incentive to learn enough to leave. Otherwise, his incarceration constitutes little more than paid vacation, as it is today in our nation's jails and prisons. In many cases, time in jail is much more pleasant that the miscreant's normal domestic environment, which provides a powerful incentive for the disadvantaged to commit rather than avoid crimes. Whatever "justice" is, that isn't it!

Occasionally it happens that an otherwise responsible citizen is driven to commit a crime as an act of desperation, as, for example, a temporarily unemployed father who robs a liquor store to get money for medicine for his sick child. In such a case, the only options open to the court are to punish the criminal, which only exacerbates the problem, or to not punish him, which leaves the basic problem unsolved. My proposal would allow the state to intervene to resolve the problem. Juries would be free to sentence the convict to a period of mutually worthwhile community service, in exchange for providing necessary care, at state expense, to the sick child. This seems to me to be the most appropriate reaction of an enlightened society.

Restitution is also a likely achievable, worthwhile goal. Criminals could be incarcerated until they completely repaid the monetary cost of their crimes. This could be done concurrently with their acquisition of useful skills, by giving them productive work to do while incarcerated, instead of sitting around watching television or learning how to make a shank. The determination of the cost and the method of repayment could be done during the sentencing phase. They should also be required to pay the cost of incarcerating, treating and educating them. Of course, wealthy criminals might be able to avoid incarceration for this purpose by simply paying the cost of their crimes, but if restitution itself is the goal (as opposed to achieving the dubious political purpose of treating rich and poor alike or causing a sinner to suffer), the differences between sentencing of rich and poor is simply not a consideration. Indeed, it could be argued that being able to avoid going to jail (and other unpleasant consequences) by paying restitution is an incentive for potential sociopaths to be productive citizens so they can avoid being poor. This seems to me to be a worthwhile objective in its own right.

Legislation allowing judges and juries to impose sentences related to the need for rehabilitation and restitution of the criminal, rather than making a sinner suffer for his sin, allows society to intervene early in demonstrations of antisocial behavior and to respond to the needs of the criminal rather than to the nature of the crime. In fact, the nature of the crime becomes irrelevant, and conviction is required of only one crime. The commission of a crime would, in my proposal, give the state the right to intervene in the otherwise personal and private affairs of the criminal, with due regard for his requirement for treatment, the victim's need for restitution, and society's need for protection, as well as due consideration of the needs of the relatives, friends and acquaintances of the criminal. It would also eliminate the need to legislate limits of punishment beforehand for every possible extenuating or aggravating circumstance. I believe that this would reduce the potential for violence, manifest our belief in the unique worth and dignity of each person, testify to the conviction that God is the Lord of life, and is most consonant with the example of Jesus, which is what the bishops wanted.

There remains, of course, the problem of how to respond to capital crimes such as premeditated murder or aggravated rape. I believe that my proposal provides an appropriate, humane, Christian, social response.

First of all, early intervention and attention to the need to educate the criminal reduces the probability that his behavior will progress to the commission of serious crimes in the first place. It would reduce the problem now caused by the commission of crimes by former criminals whose previous treatment has been ineffective. If intervention and rehabilitation are the goal, there is no reason for treatment to be delayed or restricted to ineffective measures. The resulting rehabilitation can be accomplished that much sooner, with a higher expectation for a happy and productive life of the reformed criminal.

Second, the reduction of the length of the trial and swiftness of execution of the sentence increases its value as a deterrent to criminal behavior of all kinds and reduces the potential for unhealthy controversy over the propriety of the finding or the justifiability of the sentence. Basing conviction on the simple fact of the crime, rather than on the more difficult determination of guilt or culpability, reduces the possibility of mistake and the need or opportunity for delays and appeals and the resultant anxiety and uncertainty of all concerned. The ability for the convict to participate in his own rehabilitation and reduce its length by sincere cooperation is likely also to reduce the anxiety his loved ones might otherwise experience, and create a favorable public perception that treatment of criminals is fair, appropriate and impartial.

Third, education of the criminal in proper behavior would be a positive remediation of the evil effects of poverty, lack of education, the disadvantages of being the progeny of slaves and slave owners, the inherent liability of being an obnoxious bastard, or other undesirable influences.

Fourth, imposing a requirement for restitution by the convict would reduce or, hopefully, eliminate the social burden now posed by the economic impact of criminal behavior itself and the public financial burden of incarceration of convicted criminals.

Unfortunately, society has only a limited potential to reform a truly dedicated criminal, and provision must be made for the response to criminals for whom all previous rehabilitative efforts have failed. The examples of the Old Testament and the natural law provide guidance in this regard, for not all the capital crimes listed were truly a threat to public safety. Rather, they indicated a kind of callous incorrigibility and sociopathic attitude on the part of the criminal. This made the danger he represented intolerable to his society. Such an attitude may be indicated by the lack of success of previous rehabilitative efforts, or by the nature of the behavior itself. The sad fact is, there are some people who are such a threat to their fellow man that the only reasonable thing to do with them is to eliminate them. Almighty God, in His wisdom, has already included people who believe they can survive jumping off cliffs, irritate people with guns, annoy tigers, or mishandle explosives in this category.

I believe that juries ought to be allowed to consider whether a convict's behavioral history and the lack of success of previous rehabilitative efforts indicates that he is an intolerable social threat. If he is, they should be able to remove him, preferably before he creates the irreparable evil of extinguishing an innocent life. Such a decision could consider, but not be solely determined by, the nature of the crime, the convict's degree of remorse, his social standing, and all the other elements which now are involved in a determination of a sentence. In the case of terrorists or child molesters, for example, the most appropriate response is probably simply to kill them. But the purpose would not be to determine the appropriate amount of suffering associated with the criminal's degree of guilt; it would be to determine if an individual is so dangerous to society that the public interest would best be served by absolutely removing him permanently from it. Local juries, composed of citizens most familiar with local conditions and who are most at risk from criminal behavior in their midst, would be in the best position to make this determination.

In the case of child molesters, the current response to their behavior seems to be motivated by four beliefs: 1) that there may be as yet untried methods of rehabilitating the perpetrator, 2) it's a function of government to do that, 3) that most child molestation isn't really so bad that the perpetrator deserves to go to jail, much less the death penalty, or 4) history indicates that persons are sometimes convicted of child molestation when they are subsequently shown not to have been guilty. The sad result is that there are tens of thousands of convicted child abusers in our midst who are known threats to our children. We don't actually get rid of them until long after they have actually murdered an innocent child, and often not then. A society in which more little children are raped and murdered every day than child rapists and murderers are removed from it is, in my view, a very sick society!

Of course, part of the problem is that the fundamentalists, in their confusion of moral culpability with danger to society, have thoroughly obfuscated the process by which society recognizes danger and have substituted instead what fundamentalists consider immoral behavior, deserving of the imposition of suffering. Aggravated assault of a pregnant woman, assaulting parents, blasphemy, cursing parents, deliberately violating the Sabbath, false prophecy, idolatry, keeping a dangerous animal, looting, profanation, sedition and even sorcery don't really offend fundamentalist sensibilities all that much, and no place in the United States that I know of imposes the death penalty for such acts, as the Old Testament does. On the other hand, fundamentalists are really up tight about nudity, attempted nudity, potential nudity, partial nudity, attempt to commit nudity, and conspiracy to be nude! I know of at least one state in which urinating in a public place carries the same "penalty" as attempted rape of a child, on the fundamentalist theory that both are equivalent because of the potential for exposing innocent little children to the traumatic sight of "bad" body parts. I actually heard a mother on television claim that the sight of a waitress wearing a strapless brassiere ("pasties") was "terrifying!"

I don't make this stuff up, folks. That was her word! And she's a voter, too!

Requirement to register as a "sex offender" for peeing in the alley carries with it a permanent, unrevocable license sexually to molest little children (and other people) forever thereafter. The additional "punishment" is more annoying than anything else. Indeed, a potential child molester may want to register as a sex offender for streaking at the high school reunion so he can claim later to his friends and neighbors that his appearance on the sheriff's list was for that, rather than subsequent conviction for attempting to rape a four year old. Fundamentalist "justice" again!

One hears the argument, "better than a thousand guilty go free rather than one innocent person be executed," but that, unfortunately, is not the actual choice involved. The real choice is: "better a thousand predators of little children be let free to find more innocent victims rather than one demonstrated sociopath who didn't commit one particular crime be executed." I don't think that is a reasonable choice. My proposal would examine the criminal's history, after he was convicted of something, to find out if he is a danger to society. Child molesters in particular are often found to have committed many crimes before they commit "the big one," and they could therefore be caught before rather than after, they raped and bludgeoned a little girl to death.

There are many reasons why such crimes occur. The child was in the wrong place, or at the wrong time, or there was a lapse in supervision or in security. But in every case that I know of, every case, one of the essential reasons for the crime, a circumstance necessary to its commission, is that the criminal was intentionally let loose previously by a jury or a law enforcement official who had overwhelming reason to believe that the individual was a danger to the child he finally molested or raped or murdered. Those people who have been exonerated by DNA evidence don't automatically become Mother Teresa; most of them were convicted because the juries unanimously believed, based on convincing evidence, that they were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Very rarely are they actually "innocent," as the news media seems to think. Being found "not guilty" for one particular crime does not make one "innocent" of those for which he didn't get convicted. I don't have any problem with getting rid of a person known to be a scary, child molesting sonofabitch even if his latest conviction is a mistake. If we made a mistake convicting him of this crime, we're still well rid of him!

If he doesn't like our laws, he's free to move to Somalia, where people who rape and murder little children are considered to be just good ol' boys!

Frankly, I agree with the Old Testament that anyone who commits adultery, physically assaults a pregnant woman or his parents, has sex with animals, blasphemes, curses his parents, deliberately violates the Sabbath, makes false prophecies, deliberately kills anyone, worships or offers his children to idols, commits incest, keeps a dangerous animal, kidnaps anyone, loots other people's property, profanes something others hold sacred, undermines the lawful processes of government, commits unnatural sex acts or dabbles in black magic is a danger to society. I'm willing to allow religions to deal with their voluntary, adult members for blasphemy, worship of idols, violating the Sabbath, homosexual acts with a consenting adult partner or doing magic, because I believe the First Amendment protects one's right to practice a religion that does that. I also don't have a problem with making the other things capital crimes that all of society is better off without under criminal law. Anyone who thinks he has a right to do these things has a right to live somewhere else. If he doesn't exercise that right, the rest of us have a right to get rid of him.

The sad fact is that the only choice society has regarding an adult criminal is whether to tolerate him or not. A society based upon laws simply cannot tolerate lawbreakers. If it does, it will change into either anarchy or dictatorship. Currently Americans tolerate people who rape and sadistically murder little children. As far as I can tell, their only reason is that they're not convinced the rapists and murderers are bad enough to get rid of. For shame, people! For SHAME!

I recently watched an AETV documentary "The Execution of Wanda Jean" who was put to death by the State of Oklahoma for shooting and killing her lesbian lover in 1988. According to her defense, Wanda Jean Allen suffered from mental retardation and didn't have the "trigger lock" that most of us have to control violent outbursts. I thought it was a good idea to watch this.

I was struck by the universal lack of understanding all around. Wanda Jean didn't "get it." She kept talking about how the Lord Jesus Christ was going to save her and how, even two hours before her execution she was "going to keep fighting." I don't think she realized what was happening to her, or why, even as she was being injected with the lethal drugs.

Her family didn't "get it." They all seemed to think that events were unfolding with a certain inevitable finality. Everything that everybody did, appropriate or not, was misinterpreted by somebody, who took some kind of action based on that misinterpretation. Her brother screamed that he was going to "whip the defense attorney's ass real bad" for "caressing Wanda Jean." Even at the funeral, Wanda Jean's mother was screaming, "Oh, Wanda Jean, my baby! Why they did you that way?"

The victim's family didn't "get it." Her brother took her upbeat attitude as lack of remorse, "remorse," being something different from what I understand it in the mind of an ignorant black guy with regard to a mentally retarded black girl who murdered his sister while claiming to love her.

The Pardon and Parole Board didn't "get it." Somebody asked her if she had ever graduated from high school or college, and she said "yes," indicating, supposedly, that she had adequate mental capacity to be able to do that. At the time no one considered asking her what college or high school she graduated from, which was, in fact, junior high. She wasn't able to get through high school, much less college.

Wanda Jean had spent four years in prison previously for shooting and killing another black woman, and numerous jail sentences for minor juvenile crimes before that. She met her lesbian lover in jail. The State of Oklahoma carefully considered mitigating circumstances, figured she had "paid her debt to society," and let her go back into a world for which her dysfunctional family, and the state educational system, had failed utterly to prepare her.

My feeling, and that of the clemency lawyers, was that the Good Christian Citizens of Oklahoma condemned her to death because she was a lesbian. There is no doubt that they complied with every letter of the law in sentencing her to death for what they found was beyond a reasonable doubt premeditated murder, but the reason they did that was because their fundamentalist mentality dictated that "God hates fags."

Probably as the producers intended, it just makes me angry that there was nobody to help Wanda Jean. She should have gone to prison for life long before she shot and killed two people she supposedly loved. On the other hand, in prison she would probably have been repeatedly raped and terrorized by hordes of truly scary people serving life sentences for only those things, which should, but do not, carry the death penalty; instead of shooting and killing people, which does.

This is just another demonstration that violent criminals should be eliminated before, rather than after, they destroy lives of innocent victims, and that the juries should make the response fit the criminal, rather than making the punishment fit the crime! A jury, given the options of rehabilitation, restitution or elimination for her first crime, might have been able to take advantage of facilities in prison for her to make something of her life, possibly as a prison preacher, and contribute to society in a way that kept society, as well as herself, safe from each other. Even if they had executed Wanda Jean for her first murder, her second victim would still be alive. Too many people died here!

I wonder when (or if) our born again, family value oriented "Christian" fundamentalists are ever going to start considering the good of society instead of pretending that they really aren't dedicated to "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," as they so obviously are.

Once again, for shame, people! For SHAME!

Rational response to criminal behavior, rather than emotional response to criminal guilt, would reduce the uncertainty of verdicts. Trials would only have to convict a defendant for actually doing something unlawful, not whether he was guilty of doing it (or meant to do it, or conspired to do it, or attempted to do it, or did it accidentally or while in a state of self-imposed diminished capacity or didn't really know it was wrong, or didn't feel loved or was misunderstood growing up or had a good excuse or a really good legal team or a bad childhood or ancestors whom he believed to have been slaves). The purpose of the verdict would not be to determine punishment, it would be merely to establish the jurisdiction of the state over the individual's otherwise private life, such as the control desperately needed by Wanda Jean. Determination of the response would consider other factors, such as the apparent needs (and abilities) of the criminal and his family and the effects of prior rehabilitative efforts, if any.

It would also reduce the tendency for jury trials to be reduced essentially to contests to determine which side, the defendant or the overwhelmingly wealthy state, can afford the better lawyers!

If an individual has been an honest, decent, law-abiding citizen up to this point (such as Mr. Martin, for example), we might simply want to fine him to compensate the victim(s) and then let him go. We might even want to consider awarding him a medal for performing a valuable public service (such as Mr. Martin, for example). This would eliminate the concern over sentencing an innocent person because of mistaken identity. If he just did something bad once, maybe he's basically worth keeping around, especially if it turns out later that he really didn't do it, or it actually turned out to be a social benefit!

This brings up some interesting considerations, which would have to be dealt with by appropriate legislation.

There would be no essential difference between premeditated murder and negligent homicide. An unlawful act resulting in the death of one or more victims would certainly be a crime permitting the intervention of the state. But the response of the state would fit the criminal, not the crime. In the case of a Lee Boyd Malveau, for example, it may be that a few minutes of TASER treatment, combined with state-sponsored education in the inadvisability of sniping at strangers, might be enough to reform the individual and return him to society after he had equitably compensated the families of all of his victims for their loss. On the other hand, an incorrigible drunk driver is a known public menace and probably should be taken out behind the courthouse and hanged before he hurts someone. It makes no difference to a dead victim, or to his bereaved family, whether he was killed on purpose or by accident. Dead is dead!

Juries should be able to consider the relationship between the criminal and the victim. Society should not have to live in fear. Witness protection programs are intrinsically unfair to the witnesses. In particular, people without prior criminal records should not have to fear trial for fatally wounding burglars, or robbers, or abusive spouses, or sadistic parents, or known child molesters accosting little children, or persons against whom witnesses are subpoenaed to testify, or those committing felonious assault. Little old ladies should not be made to suffer for taking pistols out their purses and shooting some neighborhood punk trying to steal them, regardless of the value of the purses (or the little old ladies, or the punk, for that matter). Policemen should be immune from prosecution of killing someone resisting arrest or attempting to flee the scene of a crime. Society as a whole is much better off when everyone knows what the rules are and violates them only at their peril, like cliff jumpers. Wouldn't everyone have been better off if Larry Mugrage and his parents had known that he might get killed walking on Mr. Martin's lawn, or Demotric Moore had gotten a healthy dose of TASER treatment the first time he threw a rock at Mr. Watts' home?

The desirability of giving a condemned criminal the opportunity for redemption, asserted by the bishops, suggests that even if a criminal is sentenced to death, his death can be a positive contribution to society. The science fiction writer Larry Niven has proposed an interesting idea, that of using the condemned for repair parts for other people. One ax murderer could, by his death, save a dozen lives. Currently, this practice is prohibited by law because of the potential for abuse of the criminals involved. Only unborn children are allowed to be killed at will to become parts of other people; that's because unborn children don't vote. The people who want to kill them, or to kill other people, do. But I believe that the use of a condemned criminal's blood, organs or entire corpse for medical or scientific purposes would be worthwhile. One might also consider the legitimacy of using a condemned convict, or a group of them, as a target in military exercises, possibly by offering them the alternative of life in prison as an incentive to attempt to survive the experience by putting up a good fight -- and then to keep using them until they lose!

In the case of Brian Nichols, perhaps the Aryan Brotherhood can partially justify the bishops' belief in the desirability of its continued existence in prison by installing a new member possibly with an impressive prison chapel ceremony, taped for later inspirational distribution and broadcast by EWTN.

To summarize, I would be in favor of the following amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution, the sole criterion for conviction for unlawful behavior in the United States or anyplace under the jurisdiction thereof shall be that an act of the accused was unlawful at the time and place of commission. Juries in such cases shall have discretion established by law regarding disposition of the convict, including putting him or her to death. Congress and the Several States shall enforce this provision by appropriate legislation."

Legislatures would then be empowered to deal directly with the danger the criminal represented to society, not the philosophical question of how much he should suffer for a specific sin. Definition of the crime, which is now required to assess punishment, could be reduced to the simplicity of defining the act or event necessary for a jury to become involved.

As an example, here is an alternative to the various definitions of rape...

"Any person who shall have sexual intercourse with, or carnal knowledge of, another person, not his or her spouse, under the age of 18 years, or without that person's free and voluntary consent, or by means of threat or intimidation, shall have committed a felony. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to establish commission of the act."
...and child molestation:
"The following acts committed upon a victim under the age of 18 years shall constitute a felony:
1) Removal by force, enticement or intimidation from the control of the custodial parent(s) or lawful guardian(s),
2) Any act, omission or process which causes death, disfigurement, loss of consciousness or permanent injury other than as a result of necessary therapeutic surgery by a licensed practitioner,
3) Any act or omission which causes sickness or injury requiring medical or surgical treatment by a licensed practitioner,
4) Theft or deliberate destruction or vandalism of any thing, article or possession of a value of more than ten dollars, including a sum of money, from the victim,
5) Deliberate exposure of the victim to known hazards to life or health, including dangerous animals,
6) Any act or omission directed against the victim which places him or her in fear of death, serious injury or abandonment."
The arguments of the bishops are a demonstration that the death penalty is an inappropriate response to a desirable goal, that of protecting society. History has witnessed, time and again, the conviction and sentencing of violent criminals who have subsequently demonstrated, by unspeakable crimes, that both they and society as a whole would have benefited by their swift and sure execution. The decision of the criminal to commit a violent crime, however motivated, imposes on a jury of his peers the unhappy but inescapable duty of deciding which of two admittedly repugnant actions to take, whether to assure that the criminal will unquestionably be put to death, or whether more and more innocent victims' lives will be subject to ruin, or complete destruction, by his continued presence in their midst. The power, and therefore the responsibility, of making such a choice is a burden imposed upon humanity by Almighty God as one of the many crosses we bear as a sinful race. The Christian abdicates this responsibility by making the option of extending, for an indefinite period, the potential for untold misery and suffering of helpless victims of the violent criminal the only one available.

It is, of course, the duty of the bishops, as teachers of the Gospel, to maintain before the public consciousness the image of the perfect society envisioned by Christ. It is entirely legitimate, therefore, for them to propose and defend means by which that society might be brought about, no matter how impractical. Unfortunately, while that society is still a dream among all persons of good will, we must retain the ability to eliminate, by lawful means, those who by their actions have demonstrated that they have freely chosen never to be members of it.

Having said all that, I recently became aware of an address of Pope Francis to a meeting promoted by the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. The main idea of this delivered to promulgators of the official teaching of the Catholic Church, is that "It must be clearly stated that the death penalty is an inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity. It is per se contrary to the Gospel, because it entails the willful suppression of a human life that never ceases to be sacred in the eyes of its Creator and of which - ultimately - only God is the true judge and guarantor... God is a Father who always awaits the return of his children who, knowing that they have made mistakes, ask for forgiveness and begin a new life. No one ought to be deprived not only of life, but also of the chance for a moral and existential redemption that in turn can benefit the community."

This sentiment was expressed earlier in the Pope's letter to the President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, in which he stated. "Today capital punishment is unacceptable, however serious the condemned's crime may have been. It is an offence to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person which contradicts God's plan for man and for society and his merciful justice, and it fails to conform to any just purpose of punishment. It does not render justice to the victims, but rather foments revenge."

For a brief time, various news media reported "Pope Says Death Penalty Immoral," or words to that effect. This prompted immediate impassioned reactions on social media for and against this position. Both the attention to this matter and the public reactions to it were quickly eclipsed by subsequent news reports of domestic mass murders, child abductions and other felonies committed, in many cases, by people who were known to be dangerous and in many cases had already been convicted of and punished for lesser crimes.

I think it is important carefully to examine the Pope's position with the attention, understanding and open-mindedness such a weighty subject deserves:

First of all, the Pope did not tippy-toe around the subject as the bishops did in some kind of attempt at a logical argument against the death penalty. He didn't argue at all. He simply stated a fundamental principle: "It must be clearly stated that the death penalty is an inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity." - "Today capital punishment is unacceptable, however serious the condemned's crime may have been."

Second, the Pope was talking about death penalty and capital punishment. Taking the life of a convict now or in the future for what he or she did in the past after being arrested and confined so that he or she is no longer a menace to the public. "Eye for an eye," and all that. This appears directly opposed to the biblical provisions listed in the foregoing, which he seems to say are abrogated by the New Testament. Seems pretty clear to me; this is the Pope doing his job. It's what we pay him for.

Third, the Pope did not issue this statement to the whole world, or to the Catholic faithful, or the Catholic clergy, as he surely could have done. His remarks were directly addressed to official formulators of Catholic doctrine, as guidance for doing that, and additionally to people already opposed to the death penalty, essentially a simple agreement with them. Basically, the first publication says, "Putting a criminal to death for a past crime is inhumane and immoral; you guys must find an alternate solution." The second says, "We agree with you. We're working on it."

His guidance was incorporated into the official teaching of the Catholic Church. It can be found in the discussion on capital punishment beginning at Paragraph 2266 of the Catechism

Basically, I agree with the this teaching. I'm OK with letting Almighty God impose the death penalty on cliff jumpers, walkers across other people's lawns, throwers of rocks at people's houses, voluntary incapacitated molesters of tigers, testers of homemade bombs, watchers of illegal drag races, baiters of police officers, court associates who don't properly protect themselves against dangerous defendants, criminals suffering from sickle cell anemia, and the children of "tolerators" of child molestation. Only God, after all is "is the true judge and guarantor" of life; it is His to give or take away in a divinely-inspired process called "evolution." I'm sure if He wanted my advice on a better way, He would have asked me for it, but I personally think the way He does it now works pretty well.

I await the guidance of the Pontifical Commission on the other things. Maybe we can find a way to be safe from the others, too.

John Lindorfer