The murderers of Channon Christopher and Christopher Newsom will face the death penalty when their cases finally make it to trial. The case received national attention because of the brutality involved. The two college kids (who happened to be white) were on a date and endured a car jacking, kidnapping, torture, sexual abuse, murder and dismemberment by the creatures (who happened to be black) facing execution. [And by the way, you can read the details of the crime here. But be warned, it's not for the squeamish. I think you'll agree with my assessment below once you read the facts of the case for yourself.]
There’s been a lot of debate here locally as to whether or not it was a hate crime. But of course it was! Those animals who so brutalized their victims hated them- hated their skin or their affluence or their privilege or their faces or something or they wouldn’t have killed them. Had they simply wished to steal their car they could have left them on the side of the road and gone off. But, moved by hate, they did the unthinkable.
In general I’m not a fan of the death penalty. There are, though, cases where it most certainly should be made use of. First, when the victim of a heinous crime (whether it be sexual molestation or abuse or murder) is a child. Child murderers and abusers should be executed no questions asked. Second, persons who perpetrate the sort of crime which occurred against Channon and Chris should be executed. Persons who behave in that way are beyond redemption. Their lives in prison will be a walk in the park compared to what their victims and their victims families have and will always endure. They aren’t worthy of being kept up on the state dime. Society is best served by being utterly relieved of the existence of such creatures.
If, though, redemption is a possibility for them- that’s between them and God. Send them on straightaway to meet him and let him deal with them as he sees fit. Cobbins, Coleman, Davidson and Thomas deserve to die at the hands of the State. Right away.
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I don’t have any sentimental feelings for brutes who commit such crimes. I do think our justice system is fallible enough and our political system is politicized enough that I don’t want to trust them with decisions of life and death. We do have to have a real life sentence though.
If we are going to have a death penalty it should be for all murders. And if we want to follow the Old Testament, executions should not be carried out by the state, but by the next of kin, the Avenger of blood, who should perform the execution with his (or her) own hands. As I said, I distinguish between my own feelings and my thinking about what a Christian ethical decision should be.
If I were the parent of a murdered child and I followed my heart, I would certainly execute vengeance with my own hands and feel righteous and sanctified in doing so.
I remember the execution in Tenn of the monster who killed an 8-year girl in Memphis who reminded him that Jesus loves him. I don’t remember his name, and it’s probably appropriate that his name has disappeared into oblivion as far as I’m concerned.
If you ask me how I feel about capital punishment and what I think about it, you will get two different answers.
Thanks for giving us something to think about.
Hi Jim-
How can we know that those who “behave in that way are beyond redemption”? A major pro-life (usually used in anti-abortion, anti-euthenasia, anti-assisted suicide arguments) is that we cannot know how people will behave or be used by God in the future to impact others.
God is free to do as he wishes. In my estimation however persons who will sexually abuse a young girl- clean her mouth out with abrasive cleansers after the deed to erase their DNA, chop her up, toss her in a bag, and put her in a garbage can are not worth saving and nothing they can do in life will make up for what they have done. I cannot imagine her horror as she experienced these things. My heart breaks for her and her family, and Christopher’s too. And so frankly I think hell is too good for her killers. And any hint of charity towards them or support for them makes me sick to my stomach.
I don’t think what I feel is charity toward them or support for them, which is good, becuase I don’t want to make you sick!
If we kill someone then, indeed, we are actually making it so that God is not “free to do as he wishes.”
I don’t see how capital punishment limits the freedom of God to do anything. God can use the years of waiting on death row to bring the lost soul to repentance, he can intervene with a jail break, he can influence the jury, there are lots of things God can do . . .
My reason for opposing the death penalty is not because I believe murders (or revilers, slanders, disobedient to parents–see Rom 1) deserve to live. It is because capital punishment gives the state too much power.
The Old Testament never gave that power to the state. It gave it to the individual and to the family (with village courts to ensure that there were two witnesses and otherwise to make sure there was due process). As far as I read the NT, God took the right of vengeance away from the individual and family and reserves it for himself.
It is true the NT recognizes the “Sword” as the power of the state to restrain evil and maintain order. I think it is a stretch to say that Romans 13 gives states the right to kill criminals (or to launch preemptive invasions of other nations, as far as that goes).
Maybe Paul was right to trust Nero and the empire with the power of the sword. God can use organized crime, youth gangs, warlords, and whatever to bring some order and a form of justice and due process where there would otherwise be chaos. I don’t see how that would lead a Christian to endorse lethal violence from the hands of the state.
For three hundred years, nearly all Christian leaders who wrote about military service said that Christians cannot take up the sword. They were not only opposed to war, but they opposed military service because the Roman army carried out capital punishment.
As a matter of Christian discipline and discipleship–I admit it is a bitter pill to swallow–I have to reject capital punishment. As a citizen who believes in democracy and the rule of law–but also the American principle of distrusting government–I have to oppose capital punishment.
i don’t think that Paul or Jesus would have any conception of a government without captital punishment. Also, it does not seem that the OT presents all deaths as at the hands of the offended. the community offense at blasphemy or adultery demonstrates that death in the OT is not simply tit-for-tat.
It seems to me that the OT legal codes (which is the only place capital punishment can be argued for) is in a theocratic setting. therefore, any attempt to argue for the death penalty in a non-theocratic society must be argued by political (non-theological) means. Which, by the way, I don’t find compelling.
I agree with Mark
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