Karla Faye and Capital Punishment
By Joe E. Trull, Editor
On January 3, 1998, Karla Faye Tucker was executed, the 145th person put to death by the state of Texas since 1982 and the 436th execution in the United States since then. At that moment 3355 persons were on death row (447 in Texas) awaiting execution.
Witnesses to her execution said she looked at them and said, "I love you all. I am going to be with Jesus." She also apologized to the victim`s family, asking for their forgiveness.
Her case brought again into the spotlight the moral question of capital punishment. The details of her crime were horrendous. Yes, she was young. Yes, while an adolescent her mother had forced Karla into prostitution. Yes, she was in a drug stupor when she and an older companion killed a man. Yes, the man turned evidence on young Karla Faye-he received prison time, she the death penalty. But she was guilty of murder.
While awaiting her execution, an amazing thing happened. Karla Faye Tucker became a follower of Jesus. Prison officials who watched her over the years swear her conversion was real. Her life changed. To be in her presence was to experience God, testified guards and prisoners alike. One of the chaplains who led her to faith in Christ, arranged for her baptism by his brother, then pastor of FBC, Temple, Texas.
At the time of her execution, David Crosby was now pastor of FBC, New Orleans. He spoke to our faculty at New Orleans Baptist Seminary. As a doctoral graduate in Christian ethics, he thought he had developed a rational defense of capital punishment. When Karla Faye was executed, he had to rethink his belief, for now capital punishment had a face-and it was the face of a Christian who ministered behind prison walls.
Televangelist Pat Robertson pleaded for the Texas governor to commute her sentence to life imprisonment saying, "Because of her Christian faith, she is a totally different person than the one who committed the crime." But in Texas the Parole Board must first recommend commutation, and since that meant eventual parole, they didn`t.
The Baptist Director of Missions in New Orleans countered with the Bible. Quoting Numbers 35:30, "The murderer shall be put to death," he told the television interviewer that whoever takes a life, forfeits his own. She should die.
Sister Helen Prejean, minister to prisoners on death row and author of Dead Man Walking argued, "What value is there for the state to execute this woman? What good will it do? Is it revenge? Will society be better off with Karla Faye dead?"
The issue of capital punishment, like other life-death issues (abortion, war, poverty, euthanasia), is one no ethicist can avoid. I have struggled to develop for myself and for students a response that is Christian and consistent.
In his Consistent Ethic of Life, Cardinal Bernardin introduced a helpful idea: the need for a "seamless garment ethic." The phrase, utilizing the analogy of Jesus` seamless undergarment (Jn. 19:23), underscores the need for consistency in moral deliberation. For example, a Christian cannot at the same time be pro-capital punishment and pro-life, or pro-choice and pro-euthansia, without being inconsistent. In the opening article one of our brightest and best Baptist ethicists, David Gushee, explains this approach.
Both sides of this issue have favorite biblical passages. Fuller seminary professor Glen Stassen notes, "Those who support the death penalty take Genesis 9:6 as their authority: `Who sheds man`s blood will have his blood shed.` This becomes their hermeneutical key . . . . Those who oppose the death penalty take Jesus as Lord guiding their interpretation, Jesus` teachings and cross become their hermeneutical key." [See the full article "The Ethics of Execution" on Sojourners Online: www.sojo.net ]. Noted Lutheran theologian John Swomley addresses biblical teachings in his article inside: "An Eye for an Eye?"
Messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000 approved their first ever statement supporting capital punishment. Bishop Michael Pfeifer, president of the Texas Conference of Churches called capital punishment a "morally flawed, broken legal-social system." The Governor of Illinois stopped executions in his state when DNA evidence indicated many on death row were innocent.
On January 10 in the Texas death chamber the first execution of 2001 took place. Last year Texas carried out a record 40 executions. The governor claims the death penalty deters, but the evidence contradicts that claim. My state leads the nation in police officers killed and number of inmates in prison-160,000 in 111 facilities. Ardent defenders now appeal to retribution as an adequate justification. Christians are uncomfortable with that.
Add unjust trials, inadequate representation in court, and errors in the criminal justice system, and you understand why 2 of 3 death penalty cases now get set aside. However, the continuing result is that only the poor get executed.
After Karla Faye`s death, I presented three case studies to my students: (1) A man with political influence who murdered a person for beating up one of his relatives; (2) a high government official who ordered the death of a military officer to cover up his affair with the officer`s wife; and (3) a religious leader who was an accomplice to the killing of a member of a cult-group. The majority of the students said if they witnessed the murder, they would report the crime, would testify against the assailant, and supported the death penalty for each.
You already know the answer: the three are Moses (Exod. 2:11-15), David (2 Sam. 11:14-17), and Paul (Acts 7:54-8:1). My exercise did not intend to justify the crimes of each, but to remind the students of the power of forgiving love. God transformed and redeemed these three murderers, even as he did Karla Faye Tucker. It is not too simplistic also to ask, "What would Jesus do?" After all, we are His children.
"Baptists and Religious Liberty"
Have you ever read George W. Truett`s classic sermon preached from the steps of the U.S. Capitol on May 16, 1920? Now you can, in its entirety. To our knowledge, seldom if ever in the last eighty years has the entire sermon appeared. Be sure to read it.
Baptists and Religious Liberty By George W Truett, May 16 1920 – Issue 032 p.
Quote of the Month
In response to the new Fox television drama "Temptation Island," which tempts "committed couples" to stray from their romantic partners by surrounding them with seductive singles, Rabbi Kenneth Roseman in the Washington Post said: "Every human being is faced with moral choices, but we`re not faced with people who deliberately set out to undermine or distort our morals, particularly for ratings and profit. This is really offensive."—- Feliz Nuevo Anno, J.E.T.
