I should now be about the topic of this discussion. The Old Testament evidence of a death penalty remains in place. I know my Emmanuel born of Mary was the God who does not change. Therefore, my answer to the OP question was and remains, I am unsure if there should be a death penalty.
I support The Innocence Project, and thank God for them. The number of innocent persons wrongly incarcerated in America is staggering. Worse, and yet a blessing due to the diligence of TIP, is the precious lives of those wrongly convicted innocents who were sentenced to death row were saved before they could be murdered by the state. Praise God.
I have a friend who has served more than a quarter century in law enforcement and has witnessed the great evils the fallen human race is capable of. Especially and understandably upsetting are those evils perpetrated against babies and children. He happens to also serve in a state where the law supports capital punishment for those most heinous evils.
He says when I ask him about his view about the DP,
some people ask to be executed. It is as though they are aware they are so fallen that they commit crime after crime as if hoping someone will stop them the only way that is guaranteed to. Because many who are vicious callous murderers on our streets are worse when confined in our prisons.
Lord knows God is no pacifist, I then realize I cannot sustain that ideology myself and keep to his example of righteousness and sound justice.
What gives me pause concerning that final solution to the most evil of criminal acts are those cases I've come across while supporting Innocence Project. There is no appeal or exoneration for an innocent who is sentenced to death and the sentence is carried out before they're saved by the evidence and the law rightly applied this time. They're forever dead in the eyes of the state, and the state shall forever be guilty of murdering one who was not worthy of the ultimate punishment.
I see a sentence in lieu of the death penalty that insures hope and reprieve for the wrongly accused; life! In some states a life sentence means natural life, no parole. In others, there is hope for parole after serving a large portion of the term. Twenty-five years is not unusual a time before being considered for parole.
In that way, the innocent incarcerated in what is a living death, and hell on earth, prison, are able to be saved by advocacy groups who seek to free innocent people from that horribly violent stinking cloying existence. And for those who are guilty, they are able to find their way to perhaps become better people if they are able to find programs inside that lead them to that path of redemption.
For those who are in capital punishment jurisdictions, death row is solitary confinement. They're kept away from the violence and the sub-culture that is general population. Spiritual programs, clergy, hope, visit death row with regularity and as such those who are truly guilty there have hope of repentance and salvation, praise God. And perhaps even contrition so that they realize they put themselves there, as the truly guilty offender. Forgiveness is also a life sentence. May all who are in that place find their way to the love and light of Christ. Amen.
That's my view. And finally, I'm on topic.
(happy dance)
