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1,000th Person Executed
At 2:15am on December 2, 2005, Kenneth Lee Boyd was put to death by
lethal injection at a prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. Boyd had
maliciously gunned down his estranged wife and father-in-law in 1988.
His death received special attention because he was the 1,000th person
to be executed since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment 28
years ago. While some at the prison expressed appreciation that justice
had been served, several others voiced their objections to the death
penalty. "Maybe Kenneth Boyd won't have died in vain, in a way,
because I believe the more people think about the death penalty and are
exposed to it, the more they don't like it," said Stephen Dear,
executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. "Any
attention to the death penalty is good because it's a filthy, rotten
system," he said. Boyd's attorney Thomas Maher, said the
"execution of Kenneth Boyd has not made this a better or safer world. If
this 1,000th execution is a milestone, it's a milestone we should all be
ashamed of.”
We will agree that this 1,000th execution is a “milestone we should
all be ashamed of,” but for different reasons than stated or
intended by Mr. Maher. From 1977 to 2004 (the figures aren‘t in yet for
this year), 558,761 murders were committed in the United States (Source:
www.disastercenter. com/crime/uscrime.htm) -- 558,761 murders! And from
1977 through December 2 of this year, how many convicted murderers have
been executed? That’s right, just 1,000. Take a good, hard look at those
two figures, folks. 558,761 and 1,000. Something is just not right.
The execution of convicted murderers is not “a filthy, rotten system,”
vociferous outcries notwithstanding. To say that it is contradicts the
wisdom of God.
It was an all-wise God who told the patriarch Noah, “Whoever sheds man’s
blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made
man” (Genesis 9:6).
Under Mosaical law, God demanded that the death penalty be employed for
murder, as well as for adultery, rape, homosexuality, and kidnapping.
The law was clear. “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely
be put to death” (Exodus 21:12). And contrary to the modern day
“wisdom” of Boyd’s lawyer and countless others, all forms of punishment
(including the death penalty), made it a “better and safer world.” They
served as deterrents to further crime. "And those who remain shall
hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among
you” (Deuteronomy 19:20).
“Yes,” someone replies, “but we live in an enlightened age, and
statistics show that the death penalty has not been a contributing
factor to reducing the homicide rate.” Such conclusions are based on
faulty statistics. If the death penalty is not a deterrent to murder
today, it is primarily due to the legal systems of today taking 15-20
years (17 in Mr. Boyd’s case) to execute each sentenced murderer. One
inmate in Tennessee has been on death row for 27 years. “Because the
sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the
heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil”
(Ecclesiastes 8:11). Human nature hasn’t changed, and if our nation
would give fair and speedy trials followed by just and swift punishment,
our crime rate would not be what it is today.
“But we live in the age of Christ, when love is to rule our lives. How
can a nation of professed Christians support the killing of an
individual, even though he be a murderer?” Such a question implies that
those who lived during the time of Noah or Moses were unloving. It as
well implies that the God of the Old Testament was unloving -- after
all, He was the one who instituted the death penalty.
Yes, we live in the age of Christ, but there is nothing in Jesus’ New
Testament whereby He or His apostles discouraged a civil government from executing
murderers -- just the opposite, rather. Jesus Himself implied that God
granted such a right to the powers that be (John 19:10-11). The apostle
Paul recognized that there were crimes worthy of death, when during one
of his trials he said, “For if I am an offender, or have committed
anything worthy of death, I do not object to dying” (Acts 25:11).
The same apostle wrote that the “governing authority... does not bear
the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath
on him who practices evil” (Romans 13:1-5). Clearly, the Roman
soldier of that day did not “bear the sword” just for decoration.
Christians should not raise their voices against the death penalty, but
rather support a speedier and broader use of it. It’s a matter of
justice and morality.
--Mike Noble
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