By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
On July 15, Michael Bell is scheduled to become the 15th prisoner executed during Gov. Ron DeSantis’ time in office. On July 1, DeSantis signed the death warrant for Edward J. Zakrzewski, with his execution set for July 31. On that date, the governor will surpass the record of eight executions in Florida in a single year.
Two former governors, Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bob Graham, share that dubious distinction.
Why insist on the death penalty? Standing with the families of murder victims does not compel us as a society to seek another death in return. Their pain cannot be wiped away and the loss of life of their loved ones cannot be restored by another death.
The argument has been made that the application of the death penalty represents the legitimate self-defense of society from an unjust aggressor — that is, the murderer.
Historically, the Church has conceded the point that the state can rightly apply capital punishment when absolutely necessary — when it is otherwise impossible to defend society.
However, Pope St. John Paul II has pointed out in Evangelium Vitae: Given the organization of today’s penal system and the option of imposing life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, such an “absolute necessity” is “practically non-existent.”
Pope Francis expanded on John Paul II’s teaching, describing the death penalty as “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” that is “inadmissible” in all cases.
Willful murder, rape and other capital crimes are heinous, depraved acts; they do cry out to God for justice. Yet, while God certainly punished Cain, history’s first murderer, God did not require Cain’s life for having spilled Abel’s blood.
A sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole is a severe and just punishment that also allows for continued reflection of wrongdoers on the grave harm they have caused.
Perhaps the state sees execution as just retribution and fitting revenge. Maybe so, but does not this only serve to further the cycle of violence that continues to harden the hearts and minds of even our youngest members? It is difficult to defend the “necessity” of executing someone when often his accomplice, in exchange for information or testimony, is given a lesser sentence.
Even from a purely pragmatic or utilitarian point of view, the death penalty cannot be defended as an effective deterrent to crime. Murder rates in states without the death penalty are no worse than states with the death penalty.
And the death penalty is not cost effective. It costs the state less to imprison someone for the remainder of his natural life than to execute him. Given that it is irreversible, society has rightly provided that the death penalty be applied only after lengthy (and expensive) legal appeals. And, despite this, there are hundreds of documented cases of wrongly convicted persons sentenced to death in the U.S. during the last century.
In recent decades, capital punishment has been abandoned or outlawed in most modern nations, the exceptions being countries like Cuba, China, North Korea, Iran — and the United States of America.
Like Cain, the condemned prisoner on death row — for all the evil of his crimes — remains a person. Human dignity — that of the convicted as well as our own — is best served by not resorting to this extreme and unnecessary punishment. Modern society has the means to protect itself without the death penalty.
The commutation to life imprisonment would serve the common good of all by helping break our society’s spiral of violence; an “eye for an eye” mentality will just end up making us all blind.
