Death Penalty vs. Redemption: What's a Christian to Do?
NOTE: I subscribe to a variety of newsletters, but in the interest of trying to not fall victim to Selective Hearing - that enigmatic problem where you only listen to the voices that you like and agree with - I try to get a range of
The following is an article from Sojourners Magazine, which deviates (at times substantially) from orthodoxy, but is passionate about social justice, which I feel the evangelical church needs to get better at. Here is the article. As a follower of Christ, I still am uneasy about the idea of Capital Punishment at times. I am unsure why. But stories like Tookie Williams and Faye Tucker give me pause. Chime in, because I certainly don't have any answers.
Redepmtion on Trial in California
One man, Stanley "Tookie" Williams, faces execution Tuesday, Dec. 13, at San Quentin State Prison in California. With him our belief in human redemption also sits on the gallows, pending a decision in the clemency hearing conducted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Williams, a founder of the notorious Crips gang, is charged with the murder of four people in the Los Angeles area in 1979. At the time of the trial, he proclaimed his innocence, a position he maintains today. A jury convicted him wholly on circumstantial evidence; in other words, no eyewitnesses or incontrovertible material evidence linked him to the murders, according to attorney Verna Wefald’s appeal.
In one of the robberies that led to a murder, an accomplice was given clemency for pointing his finger at Williams for the murder. Beyond the self-interest involved, the accomplice's reputation as a truth-teller was less than stellar. The prosecution produced a shell casing tied to the murder weapon found at the motel where Williams was staying. But the science that matched the casing to the weapon was speculative and its results have not been revisited in the intervening years, the Los Angeles Times reported.
I revisit the facts of the case because Schwarzenegger's decision to grant Williams clemency will depend more on the possibility of his innocence - or at least the uncertainty of his guilt - than it will turn on the contribution that Williams has made to society over the last two decades.
That's tragic, because Williams has become a major figure in the gang peace movement. He has co-authored 10 books from Death Row. The message is clear: Violence is never a solution. He urges young gang kids to get out before it destroys them and the lives of their family members. That's a powerful message from one of the founders of the Crips.
Williams first made a public plea to hundreds of gang members who gathered at a Los Angeles hotel in 1993 for a summit called Hands Across Watts. He did not hide his early role in the Crips, but on a prerecorded videotape filmed for the summit told the young gang members that he lamented his history. Recounting this first public event to the San Francisco Chronicle, Williams said, "I told them I never thought I could change my life, that I thought I would be a Crip forever. But I developed common sense, wisdom and knowledge. I changed."
Williams has gone on to build on this witness. In his 1998 prison autobiography Life in Prison, he directed young people to seek an alternative life beyond violence. Prison, he stressed, was no place to spend a life. Two years later he launched the Internet Project for Street Peace. His memoir, Blue Rage, Black Redemption, and the movie, Redemption, came out in 2004.
Williams has a bevy of supporters calling for his clemency. They argue that he has changed thousands of young people's lives, and if allowed to live will continue to be a force for good. His street credibility with gang kids is high, so he can reach them in a way that a teacher or social worker cannot.
In the eyes of the criminal justice system, a redeemed criminal is simply another criminal. I recall my first visit to a federal prison back in seminary when starting a prison chaplain residency. The warden of the prison came to the orientation I shared with other interns. His message was clear to us: "I want you to remember that the prison system today is not about reforming criminals. We are here to punish them."
Redemption, in other words, has no place in our justice system. We do not offer a path for conversion. Once marked for condemnation, an offender's destiny is fixed.
Elsewhere in the world, four Christian Peacemaker Teams members are marked for execution by a radical terrorist group in Iraq. The circumstances are dramatically different, so I hesitate to make the connection. We are appalled by the blind ideology that drives the terrorists and leads them to cheapen the value of human life. In this ideology, the individual is a tool for political expediency.
Don't we want to offer our citizens more in a democracy?
1 Comments:
Editor's Note: The following comments are from Chris Mihai, my good bud and a great sounding board for deep thoughts. Here is what he says:
I think first of all we should recognize our emotional remoteness from this whole situation. From where we stand is so easy to consider anyone on an opposite side with ours irrational, ignorant or cruel. But this is not some cyber story where we arbitrate morality.
Tookie is not a holographic image, his victims did not exist in a two dimensional world on a laptop screen or in a newspaper headline. This is real, tangible life! It’s easy to say that Tookie did a lot of good and his life should be spared. But to me, Tookie never existed until two weeks ago or so. There are some people who for the last two decades almost have been painfully aware of his existence. Most of us know a Stanley Williams who 'contributed so much good.' But there are others who know a Stanley Williams who was convicted of murder. And some who actually know him as the murdered of their loved ones.
I don't think we can say that 'it doesn't matter' if he killed someone or not just because he is a changed man. Unless of course this did not affect us in any way and we can afford to place ourselves on some moral platform and from there wonder how come everyone does not see this the way we do.
Maybe the victims' families want justice. Or maybe they just want revenge. Who am I to judge? I did not have to walk into my house and find my closest family members laying lifeless in a pool of blood. Should he be spared? If he is executed, who gets the capital punishment, Tookie Williams the murderer, or Tookie Williams the changed man? If he is given clemency, is it because Arnold believes that this is the right thing to do or is it because this would be a good political move for him as he needs some booster points in his ratings? If I had someone murder my family and waited for twenty years to see him pay for his crime, I wonder how would I feel when I'm told that by now he is a new man so society has decided to forgive him. I have no answer to all of this. All I know is what the Bible says that whenever justice is delayed people lose hope. God knew what he was talking about. But, we decided we know better and now, regardless of what decision Arnold makes, justice won’t be served.
8:57 AM
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