DEATH PENALTY Jurors cringe at mention of the Bible

Opinions on the death penalty differ among religious groups.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pope John Paul II died days after a ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court that related indirectly to one of the Polish pontiff's notable innovations in Catholic teaching.
The Colorado case involved Robert Harlan, who in 1994 kidnapped and raped Rhonda Maloney. Jacquie Creazzo, a Good Samaritan driving by, stopped to help and Maloney jumped into her car. They sped off with Harlan in close pursuit, shooting at them.
Harlan seriously wounded Creazzo, who survived with permanent paralysis. He dragged Maloney from Creazzo's car and her body was found later. A jury convicted Harlan and sentenced him to death.
Improper defense
But Colorado's high court has overturned Harlan's execution in favor of a life sentence because one juror discussed biblical teaching with another during the penalty phase of the trial. One passage cited was Leviticus 24:17-20 ("he who kills a man shall be put to death. ... eye for eye, tooth for tooth").
The justices called this the "use of improper, extraneous, prejudicial materials," which infuriated some religious commentators.
The fascinating case raises these questions: What does the Bible really teach about capital punishment? What's the proper role of the Bible in shaping culture and individual judgments?
Also, what moral resources should a juror be permitted to use? For instance, would it have been illicit for a juror to cite Roman Catholic teachings against the death penalty?
Culture of life
The 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, issued under John Paul, acknowledged that Catholic tradition grants the right and duty of legitimate governments to exact "penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty." However, "if bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives," these should be applied instead, in order to honor "the dignity of the human person."
The pope's 1995 encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" ("The Gospel of Life"), which strongly opposed abortion and mercy killing, hardened the church's stand against capital punishment.
Government "ought not to go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: In other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today such cases are very rare if not practically non-existent," John Paul wrote.
Afterward, a revision of the Catechism said traditional Catholic teaching "does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of defending human lives against the unjust aggressor."
That narrow wording virtually excludes execution. Since life sentences can equally protect against aggressors, America's Catholic bishops have for decades opposed all executions.
Vigorous debate
Conservative Protestants who favor capital punishment rely especially on Genesis 9:6: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image." To them, the Catholic catechism's emphasis on human dignity argues for the opposite, requiring a life in return for a life.
But there's vigorous debate about whether Genesis requires execution or merely allows it. The Rev. Derek Kidner, a British evangelical, wrote decades ago that the teaching about life's value is eternal but "one cannot simply transfer verse 6 to the statute books. ... Capital punishment has to be defended on other grounds."
Others argue that while the Bible allows execution, the practice is illegitimate unless it's applied fairly. That's the reason the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America in 2000 surprisingly appealed for a nationwide moratorium on executions pending "a comprehensive review of how the death penalty is administered."
According to Orthodox Jewish writers, the Bible may specify execution to punish various misdeeds but the later rabbis were extremely reluctant to apply it. They found technical grounds to avoid the practice whenever possible.
A 1979 resolution from America's Reform rabbis summarized the point: "Jewish tradition found capital punishment repugnant, despite biblical sanctions for it."