Capital punishment is once again under public scrutiny. First came the botched execution in Tennessee of Christa Pike on Sept. 30. Then the U.S Department of Defense under Pete Hegseth announced that the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan would be livestreamed on Dec. 3 — the first public execution in the U.S. since 1936.
The latter event was such a spectacle, with an estimated 20,000 who came to watch, that most people of good conscience found it abhorrent, putting an end to the practice. I can think of so many reasons for why restarting this morally despicable practice is such an extraordinarily bad idea, I don’t know where to start.
The trauma it will induce upon so many victims of violence alone should be reason enough to not display it for the world to see.
In 2013, the UNESCO Institute for Intercultural Dialogue at the University of Oregon presented a series of lectures on capital punishment from different religious perspectives. I was asked to present a Christian view, appropriately on Valentine’s Day. I say appropriately because St. Valentine was himself the victim of capital punishment in 269 C.E.
After surveying the usual scriptures often cited on the topic and debunking those used for justification of the death penalty, I concluded the lecture with this personal reflection:
No one knows the pain of losing a loved one like those families who have been through a murder. It is sudden, brutal, unnatural. It rips your inside right out of you and leaves a hole that may grow smaller in time, but never goes away.
I know these things because my mother was murdered 15 years ago just a few miles away from this place. She literally gave her life trying to help her mentally ill nephew. I think of her every time there is a mass shooting or another report of someone harmed by a mentally ill person, though I know the mentally ill are victims of violence more often than perpetrators of violence.
I think of her every time I try to help someone with mental health issues, which in my profession is frequent. I think of her every time I hear someone talk about our severely underfunded system for mental health. Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.
I think of her every time I cross the street on which she was killed in north Eugene. I think of her every time our family gathers for family celebrations and holidays, another family event she has missed. I think of her every time I see a little dog that resembles her little dog, the only family member with her to comfort her on the night she bled to death, confirmed by Mom’s blood caked in his fur.
Almost 15 years and I still think of her a lot.
As fate would have it, two weeks later I gave testimony in Salem before the House Judiciary Committee on a bill to repeal the death penalty. I used that opportunity to share my perspective as a family member of a murder victim who is opposed to capital punishment.
Why? Because my faith demands it. Because I knew Mom would want me to. Because nothing can be gained by adding to death. Because you can fight evil with evil, but you can never win. Because only good can overcome evil. Because love is stronger than hate, forgiveness is better than anger. Because we add nothing to the sacrifice of others by adding more death. Because Mom died for her killer, as did Jesus.
Early in the fantasy tale Lord of the Rings, Frodo laments that his uncle Bilbo did not kill Gollum when he had the chance, saying that the dreadful Gollum certainly deserved death. Gandalf responds as only a wise wizard could:
“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it.”
In the end, of course, it is Gollum who, though unintentionally, saves the world from doom.
There is a chance that we too can be cured of our desire for retribution and death, but we will not do it with a public execution from which nothing good can come. I hope we will take that chance before Gollum becomes us.
Dan Bryant is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). His mother was killed in Eugene on Sept. 16, 1998. Her nephew was found guilty except for insanity and died in the state mental hospital five years later.