The expectation that a murderer will be put to death means that the executioner putting this murderer to death is doing so lawfully. Big difference between "killing" and "murder" is whether it is lawful or not.
Difference or no, both are literally "spilling blood". The verse specifically addresses spilling of blood and makes no distinction between criminal spilling of blood vs. judicial spilling of blood. It condems spilling of blood, period.
The bulk of the chapter is commands. This is part of that.
So you DO regularly frighten animals as "commanded" in Genesis 9:2?
Being in the image of God includes having free will. People who exercise theirs in the direction of evil are punished accordingly.
I take this as your circular way of acknowledging that murderers are in fact made in the image of God.
Verse 9 states that shedding the blood of man is wrong because man is made in the image of God. If a criminal is a man, and therefore made in the image of God, how can you reconcile this verse with the idea that it's acceptable to spill his blood?
He seems distressed about the notion of killing an unarmed man. Makes sense to me that he's ok with the killing of an armed man... but not an armed man who is restrained... so an execution could only rightfully occur, to his specifications, if it were a summary execution.
I think you've mis-read what he wrote.
I thought it was common sense that violent criminals are more prone to violence than non-violent criminals.
The distinction was capital vs. non-capital, not violent vs. non-violent.
For example, Do you think it's common sense that a child rapist would be more prone to kill a fellow inmate than a gang member serving a sentence for attempted murder of a rival gang member?
Say you're in prison and you get your choice of cell mates. Considering your own safety, who would you choose to bunk with:
- someone like
John Allen Muhammed, who killed ten people in the Beltway Sniper attacks, or
- a Hell's Angels or Crips member in prison on a manslaughter conviction and with a record for aggravated assault and attempted murder.
What Muhammed did was despicable, but that doesn't necessarily make him more dangerous to other inmates than many people in prison for non-capital crimes.
And again, do you have any data to back up your claim?
Consider the number of decades individuals are spending on death row... then consider how many captial crimes are being committed during those decades... and since 1976, 1100 executions have taken place.
As of June 30, 2007,
according to the US DOJ, there were
more than two million people in jail and prison in the US. 1,100 people in more than 30 years isn't even within the margin of error of the overall prison population, I'd bet.
According to the Death Penalty Info Center, there were 3,263 death row inmates in the US as of Jan/Feb 2008. 3,263 out of 2,299,166 works out to
0.14% of the prison population.
Again... do you really think there's a "flood" of capital criminals?
If you can fill up an entire prison while it's already full... you'd end up either having to build a new prison, or let out just about anybody.
Kenneth McDuff... I believe he was serving Life without parole in Texas... got let out because of overpopulation.
If they actually did that, they were just stupid
(edit: I do get the sneaking suspicion, though, that you haven't presented all the relevant details. Texas isn't usually the sort of place where they go easy on criminals). Commuting a few drug posession sentences from jail to a fine and community service would do the same thing and present negligible risk to society. Like I said, there are other options.
or building more and larger prisons.
...or reforming sentencing, or letting out non-violent criminals, or crime prevention programs (i.e. things to stop people from going into the justice system to begin with). There are lots of alternatives to the narrow range of options you're presenting.
I say we let out the least, and execute the worst, and let the day to day prison system consist of everyone in the middle.
Once you let out the least, there's no pressing need to execute the worst.
No, but during the time between when the death penalty was abolished until it was reinstated, the US wasn't any more awash in murderers than it was when it killed them regularly.
Capital punishment will cease when captial crime ceases. It will not work the other way around.
Sure it does. Get rid of capital punishment and no crimes are capital crimes.
This bed ridden person is not a criminal. This person should wait for the disease to run its course.
The guy who raped, murdered, and or dismembered should die now.
Why does the mere fact that the person is a criminal enter into the argument? It seemed like your position was that a prisoner serving a life sentence would have no hope of ever living a normal life in society again, and therefore should die. A patient in a hospital could also have no hope of ever living a normal life in society again, so why shouldn't your logic apply consistently?
