The death penalty is no solution in the search for justice

By ROBERT N. LYNCH

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 12, 1999

In highlighting last Sunday one of the major deficiencies of Florida's current policy of executing certain convicted felons, Times editorial writer Peter Wallsten has lifted up one of many concerns the Catholic Church has concerning capital punishment. We acknowledge the right of the citizenry to be free of fear that capital offenders might one day be free to commit their crimes again. We support all efforts to guarantee incarceration for life.

But the current policy of using the death penalty is misguided at best. It is ineffective in reducing capital offenses and unfairly targets minorities, especially African-Americans.

In his essay, Wallsten told the story of convicted killer Freddie Lee Hall, who is mentally retarded. Florida's death row has several Freddie Lee Halls. He is not the only person awaiting his date with death who manifests severe retardation. Nor is he the only condemned person whose death sentence was issued by a judge who overruled the decision of a jury for life imprisonment.

Classic Catholic moral theology posits certain necessities to be in place before an act is putable to a person, the first of which is that the person understand fully the consequences of his or her action. The other necessities are that the act be serious (not in question in Mr. Hall's case, to be sure) and that the person wills to commit the act and does not do so under the influence of passion or rage, to name some mitigating factors. Generally speaking, the requirements of the law are the same, although understandably the language is slightly different.

Hall and the others committed despicable crimes, and great pain was brought to bear on their victims and their families. But is executing someone who by every classic definition is to be considered mentally retarded the answer for the state, and does it bring the citizenry the confidence that it should have in "equal justice under the law"?

The Times, like Pope John Paul II and bishops, ministers and rabbis in growing numbers, is prophetically correct in opposing the death penalty. The paper comes at the question from one of basic human rights and the possible unjust application toward certain categories of citizens. Religious people come at the question from the angle of whether any human has the right to determine when the life of another begins or ends. That decision remains within the province of the deity.

It's a "tough sell" in today's society for the paper and for the church. But generally the rightness or wrongness of actions is not something determined by polling numbers. The editors have a sense of justice and a visceral feeling that something is gravely wrong with the current situation in this state, and they are right.

The governor, the Legislature, the judiciary and the citizenry need to join together in looking for an appropriate alternative to the current slightly insane system, which allows people to sit for years awaiting their fate and die in a chair that is rapidly becoming the joke of the world.

The Catholic church used to be largely silent on this issue because of a long-acknowledged right of the state to enforce its laws to protect its citizenry. Pope John Paul II has set us squarely and unambiguously on the path of doing all that we can to oppose capital punishment as a further affront in our age to the dignity of human life. Our positions on abortion, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are well-known. I hope our growing restlessness with the death penalty will be seen as an absolutely consistent logical extension of our commitment to the right to life of all. My reflection today will surely disappoint some of my own membership, but I ask them to recall the example of our Lord who forgave those who put him to death and who reminded us to go to the ultimate to forgive those who have trespassed against us.

These are not just idle words but a challenge we are all called to live. Society in general and the state of Florida in particular need to look at their use of capital punishment and find a better and perhaps more effective way of dealing with capital felons. The Catholic bishops of Florida, like the St. Petersburg Times, wish to help, and rational discourse will not hurt in the search for a solution.

-- Robert Lynch is bishop of the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg.

© Copyright 1999 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.