For example, death sentences have declined to their lowest levels in three decades, with juries sentencing 125 people to death last year, compared with an average of 290 per year in the 1990s.  The number of inmates executed last year was the lowest since 1996, and the Supreme Court has twice in the last three years limited who can be punished with death.  Yet, public opinion polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty, but this is a drop since 1994, when it was 80%.  Further, there is no question that the system is imperfect and that some innocent people have been executed.  But, the refinement of DNA techniques and the sporadic release of inmates from death row because of uncertain guilt have added to the confusion.  Recently, the focus of death penalty confusion has been the case of Stanley “Tookie” Williams, founder of the Crips Street gang, who was convicted of four counts of murder in 1981 and scheduled to be executed on 13 December 2005.  I want to devote this perspective to Williams’s case and then make a few comments on the ethics of capital punishment.

• First, some background to the Tookie Williams case.  Tookie Williams fits no one’s definition of innocence.  He was convicted of murdering four people—a 7-Eleven clerk shot twice in the back during a holdup, and three members of a family during a robbery at a motel—and as a leader of the Crips he set in motion a criminal enterprise that destroyed countless lives.  He is asking Governor Schwarzenegger for clemency.  Why?  He has written several books for young people, persuading them to avoid gangs.  For the last ten years, Williams has been apologizing for his role in founding the Crips—in recorded messages meant to be heard by youth groups, and in a series of children’s books.  A long-time supporter maintains a Web site where Williams, using the language of a self-taught man, urges young people to stay away from gangs.  In a ludicrous, but for obviously very political gesture, some have even nominated him for the Noble Peace prize.  In 2004, Jamie Foxx starred as Tookie Williams in a made-for-TV movie, “Redemption,” that portrayed him in glowing images as a redeemed man.  Other celebrities have made Williams a celebrity hero and executive clemency is now a Hollywood panacea.  One final fact, Williams denies ever committing the murders but there is absolute no evidence, DNA or otherwise, to cause any doubts about his guilt for these brutal murders.

• Second, a word about the legality of capital punishment in the US.  In 1972 the US Supreme Court issued its decision, Furman v. Georgia, which rendered that state’s capital punishment law unconstitutional.  Its decision made the death penalty a state issue, dependent on the various laws and statues of the individual states.  Once this issue became a state issue, it became a matter of constitutional law and long appeals have become the standard.  Cases involving clemency—condemnations of the obviously innocent, minors or the mentally incapacitated—are now usually handled by the courts.  But the matter of clemency is still largely an executive decision, i.e., of the governor of the respective states.  This is where Governor Schwarzenegger weighs in.  Tookie Williams has exhausted all legal appeals in the court system; his fate is now in the hands of California’s governor.  Schwarzenegger can only appeal to his power of clemency.  So, now the issue is - should he exercise that power for Tookie Williams?  Columnist Eugene Robinson has poignantly observed, “. . . there are hundreds of other men on death row who repent of their crimes and would appreciate a little executive clemency, but they don’t have movie stars pleading their cases.  Oh, and also lacking a publicity machine are the four people Williams was convicted of killing.”  The case of Tookie Williams is not about whether his attitude has softened or whether his rage has dissipated.  It is about justice—and that is the bottom line.

• Finally, a word about the ethics of capital punishment from the perspective of historic, biblical Christianity.  For me, the issue is not how capital punishment is practiced within the US.  If this were to be the basis of the discussion, there would always be problems.  Instead, I want to focus on whether one can make a biblical defense of capital punishment as a responsibility of the state.  If humans bear God’s image (Genesis 1:26ff), then taking the life of an image-bearer in a premeditated act of murder ethically demands just punishment.  Killing a human being is an attack on the Creator God.  It is a rejection of His sovereignty over human life (Deut. 32:3).  But is it just to make the punishment capital?  I believe that the theological answer is yes.  (1)  Genesis 9:6—Because of the Flood’s destruction of all life, future generations might conclude that life is cheap to God and assume that humans can do likewise.  However, the covenant affirms the sacredness of human life and that murder is punishable by losing one’s life.  The text, therefore, introduces the principle of talionic justice, or law of like punishment.  It is not a harsh principle of justice, for it establishes the premise that the punishment should fit the crime.  It is summarized elsewhere in God’s Word as an “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:23-25).  This covenant with Noah takes away the revenge factor and emotional anger and places the matter of justice in the hands of government.  (2)  The Mosaic Law not only delegates the responsibility of capital punishment but broadens it as an aspect of His moral law.  (3)  Romans 13:1-7—This passage gives to the state the authority to wield the “sword” in its role of justice:  “It [the civil ruler] does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.”  The word for “sword” here is machaira, which refers not only to a sword used in battle, but also the sword used in executions, as when Herod killed James, the brother of John (Acts 12:1,2).  Paul’s use of this term gives strong support to the state receiving from God the authority to execute.      

The matter of the death penalty is difficult, controversial and wrapped in much emotion.  Further, we seek to find a balance between mercy and justice.  But as in all things, we must begin with God’s view of things—and this is no exception.  It is imperative to remember that when it comes to premeditated murder or grotesquely violent crimes, the matter of justice centers on the death of an image-bearer of God.  This alone must be the beginning point of our analysis of the death penalty. 

See Peter Slevin, “More in US Expressing Doubts About Death Penalty,” Washington Post (2 December 2005), for the statistics and data on US support of the death penalty; E.J. Dionne, Jr., Washington Post (2 December 2005); Eugene Robinson, Washington Post (2 December 2005); Mark Essig, New York Times (2 December 2005); and James P. Eckman, Biblical Ethics, pp. 67-70.