OBSERVATIONS FROM DEATH ROW

Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible…. 

Romans 13:1-4   NKJV

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

² Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.

³ For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.

⁴ For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. 

Some fifteen years ago I was asked to go to the Texas Death Row to lead a Bible study.  This request came from Death Row inmates.  I applied for and received permission to be a Voluntary Chaplain at the Ellis Unit in the Huntsville system.

There I was furnished the time and access to the Death Row inmates from which I came to understand some of the problems of capital punishment.  I came to know with a broad degree of familiarity about 30 inmates and by introduction at the least all who were awaiting execution. 

At this point I need to state that I support capital punishment.  I do this for the same reason I oppose abortion.  I find both to be a clear Biblical mandate. 

Early on in my time at Ellis Unit I met and became friends with a man named Michael who was one of the founders of­ Prisontalk, a Death Row monthly paper.  This paper had a circulation and contribution throughout the U.S.  Michael was the first man whom I knew well that was executed.  He was a serial killer.  And he was man whom I found to be a very sincere Christian.  He was also the most articulate opponent of capital punishment that I have ever known.  You might say it was a matter of life or death with him. 

The argument he represented and the only Biblical argument I know was based on opposition to the application of the 5^th commandment in the Mosaic Law.  This argument stated that support for capital punishment based on the Mosaic Law put the supporter in an indefensible position.  If he supported the death sentence for murder then he must support it for all the offenses to which it is applied in the Mosaic code.  As this is not done and few would ever argue for this thorough application, R. J. Rushduny excepted, you cannot argue for its application in selected instances. 

I found two things about this argument.  First it is compelling and if it is argued well undefeatable.  Secondly I see it as a straw man.  The Mosaic Code does furnish some case law, but it is not the basis for capital punishment. 

There are two Biblical supports for capital punishment that are undeniable.

The first is in Genesis 9:5-6  Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.  ⁶ “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God  He made man.

  This statement is in the context of the Rainbow Covenant, 9:9-16.

⁹ “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you,

¹⁰ and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.

¹¹ Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

¹² And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

¹³ I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.

¹⁴ It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud;

¹⁵ and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

¹⁶ The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

¹⁷ And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.” 

In 9:12-13 both the perpetuity and scope of the covenant is established.  It is forever to be applied and in VSS 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, it is extended universally to all flesh.  I think that this lies behind the Mosaic demand of death for the shedding of blood. 

Again in Romans 13:4 the “sword” which is put in the hand of “governing authorities” must under any fair intention of sound exegesis extend to capital punishment.  The whole idea of “the sword” is the right of government to punish.  The words in VS 4 indicate the most extreme power of punishment.  Look at Paul’s warning; “be afraid”, “an avenger”, and “executes wrath”.  For anyone to say this stops short of the most extreme penalty is naïve to say the least. 

With this in view I found a bias in the application of an unsound law.  I say unsound because I assure you fully one half (and probably more) of the murders in Texas do not come under the capital punishment code.  The bias I find is not racial or educational.  It is economic.  This is not to say the law is baised against poor people.  But the system is.  Poor people cannot afford good legal representation.  Therefore they overwhelmingly furnish the population of Death Row. 

This is not to say that the rich get away with murder.  This does not seem to me to be so.  But they very rarely are given capital sentences.  Their legal representation is good enough that it is able to keep them off the table.

Of all the men I met on Death Row – bank robbers, burglars, child-killers, murder-for-hire, mass murders, and serial killers, I know of only one who there was any chance of him having decent legal representation. 

I never met an inmate whom I sincerely thought was innocent.  I am not saying there are not some innocent men there but they are scarce as hen’s teeth. 

This leaves me to one personal observation.  I do not believe, “that it is better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to die”.  I might change my mind if I was the innocent man.  If this philosophy is extended through society, we cannot have firemen, police, a standing army, or any who put themselves in harm’s way for the greater good.  There is a transcendental good.  Society is preserved by the law being upheld.  This is not a perfect world and there can be some terrible injustices.  The wicked will go free, but they should never have a free pass. 

I wonder if you have ever looked around and said, “What the dickens has happened to us?” 

For Mike Sharp 

Life is sometimes hard and always brief,

Often bringing unbearable difficulties and filled with grief.

Why is it we hang on to this frail tent with such desperation?

When it is so much easier to let go without a question. 

There was a man I knew, young and strong,

A man strong of heart and quick in thought.

Desiring equity and justice, he wrote from a lonely cell.

But truth cannot be bound and justice will prevail. 

This man doesn’t live here anymore.

We do not and will not say he does not live.

For he, by grace, has received his reward,

“To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”.