Punishable by Death

President Bush told the Pope that he gave an “awesome speech” at the White House yesterday. The Pope urged thousands of White House guests to live fully their religious values in their secular lives. Even as Bush told the cheering crowd and the Pope that “all life is sacred”, the Supreme Court was affirming the death penalty just down the street. The Pope has to be one of the world’s most influential critics of the death penalty. The five Catholic Supreme Court justices headed to a White House dinner with the Pope following their affirmation of the death penalty.

Justice Stevens declared his opposition to the death penalty while voting to uphold it yesterday, in deference to legal precedent. On the other end of the spectrum, Justice Roberts concluded that executing prisoners was not “cruel and unusual punishment”, and compared lethal injection to going to sleep. Justice Clarence Thomas preferred an even harsher standard than Roberts in evaluating death penalty practices but took pains to explain that extraordinary cruel methods of the death penalty would not be allowed, such as “burning prisoners alive”. Justice Scalia punted to the states, declaring that the issue ought to be decided by the legislatures not the courts.

Perhaps the massive gulf between Catholic teaching and public opinion on the death penalty in this country caused the justices - along with Christian leaders nationwide - to present a strained and disparate justification for their positions. Leading Christian conservatives Gary Bauer, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson have all spoken in favor of the death penalty. Pat Buchanon challenged Pope John Paul II on his anti-death penalty position, declaring that “it is the Holy Father and the bishops who are outside the Catholic mainstream, and at odds with Scripture, tradition and natural law”. Most US-based Catholics, like most Americans overall, support the death penalty. Over the last ten years the support for the death penalty in the United States has decreased from 75% to 63%, which represents an encouraging trend and discouraging distance to travel for death penalty opponents.

One of the most impactful speakers in opposition to the death penalty in this country is Sister Helen Prejean. Prejean was absent from news coverage of the decision yesterday. The Tim Robbins movie based on Prejean’s book (”Dead Man Walking”) is worth renting again. Prejean often points to media bias about the death penalty in her remarks; she accuses the media of making it easy for the public to view killing prisoners in positive terms, such as justice being done or a crime avenged.

Newspapers today mostly treated the decision as a front-page story; in fact more prominent coverage was given to the death penalty decision than the Pope’s remarks. Most headlines used somewhat modest language, supporting Prejean’s theory. The LA Times wrote, “High court finds lethal injections are humane”, the Washington Post wrote “Justices Uphold Lethal Injection Procedure”, and the Chicago Tribune led with “Stevens now foe of death penalty”.

The Obama-Clinton debate was the most prominent newspaper headline today. All three Presidential candidates are death penalty supporters. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Hillary Clinton is a “longtime advocate” of the death penalty. She lobbied for Bill Clinton’s crime bill, which expanded the list of crimes punishable by death. John McCain is also a proponent of the death penalty, and has supported the expansion of the death penalty law. Barack Obama is tentative in his support, sounding very much like a politician caught between his convictions and his political reality. Obama supports punishment by death when “the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage”.

Ron Paul is the only contender that opposes the death penalty, and is on record praising former Pope John Paul II for his opposition to punishment by death. Yes, he is still running.