From: Garrett Clevenger [mailto:onewildearth@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 2:29 PM
To: Vision2020@moscow.com
Subject: re: death penalty-What about "Thou shalt not kill?"
According to the bible, Jesus was sentenced to death. Granted, it was not for a capital crime. He was a rabble-rouser, challenging the political and religious authority of the time. Thus, he was a political prisoner and suffered the consequences. Nonetheless, he was killed by the government.
Ironically, Jesus preached forgiveness and the Golden Rule of treating others as you would treat yourself. He may even have said, "Let he without sin cast the first stone." The bible makes it even clearer by stating, "Thou shalt not kill." This must have been pretty important to God if he were to make it one of the 10 commandments. Perhaps some think this commandment is relative, but it seems absolute.
Who should pull the switch nowadays? Who is "without sin?" That wouldn't last long after pulling the switch!
I used to be supportive of the death penalty. I've been converted, though, after learning the statistics. A significant number of people killed or sentenced to death have been determined to be not guilty of the crime. That sucks! An unproportionate number of death row inmates are black. It seems that the death penalty is still used as a political weapon.
Hopefully you can read the graphic below:
from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/dpicrace.html
For comparative purposes the most recent figures that I have seen
for
ethnic breakdowns of Americans rounded off to whole numbers: (http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dp.breakdown.96)
White
74%
Black
12%
Latino
10%
Asian
3%
People should be punished for crimes they commit. I, however, cannot condone the death sentence. Our justice system has proven too flawed to include this extreme sentence.
Peace from Garrett
"What are we doing to our Home?!:("
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