The value of something is reflected by the punishment given for destroying it.
Two very different death penalty cases have been in the news recently. Each raises a different objection to capital punishment. At the end of last month, Tennessee officials gave Christa Pike what was supposed to be a lethal injection. Pike survived. She has left the hospital and is back in prison. What went wrong and whether Tennessee will execute her — again — is unclear.
This case is an example of the logistical objections to the death penalty. Some object to the cost of executing an inmate and the time it takes. In 1995, Pike, then 18, and two other students tortured and murdered Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old. Pike even took a piece of Slemmer’s skull. It took 30 years from the trial to even attempt an execution.
But the delays and botched attempt aren’t inherent problems with the death penalty.
In the fall of 1780, Gen. Benedict Arnold agreed to hand over West Point to the British. On Sept. 23, 1780, American troops stopped British Maj. John Andre, who had been coordinating with Arnold. In miraculous fashion, the plot was stopped, although Arnold escaped. A military board determined that Andre deserved execution, and Gen. George Washington gave the order. It was done on Oct. 2, 1780.
The whole process took around 10 days, not decades.
In 2024, nearly 16,500 people in Canada died from physician-assisted suicide. If counted separately, it would have been the fourth highest cause of death in that country. This should raise an obvious question. How can euthanasia kill thousands but prison officials botch a lethal injection?
What’s happening is that death penalty opponents have long worked to make it functionally difficult to execute violent criminals. They push a seemingly endless parade of judicial challenges and pressure drug companies not to supply these drugs. This is why Nevada had a hard time finding the drugs to execute Scott Dozier, who later committed suicide.
You can probably see the game. Death penalty opponents create the logistical hurdles they then use to argue against the death penalty.
In December, the military is scheduled to execute Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. His 2009 rampage killed 13 people and wounded dozens more. He is to die by firing squad although hanging would be a more fitting punishment. Leaders in the Catholic Church objected to capital punishment on principle.
“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” Pope Leo XIV wrote on X.
This seems like a consistent application of the Catholic Church’s pro-life stance. Catholics have long defended the sanctity of preborn life. It’s an objection that should be taken seriously.
But that doesn’t mean it’s correct. For one, God prescribed capital punishment throughout the Old Testament. Look at Joshua 7. At the Lord’s behest, Israel stoned Achan and his family after he stole from Jericho. This action didn’t violate the Ten Commandments, which forbid murder, not killing.
Go back further to Genesis 9. God created civil government with this command: “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.”
This principle is why the death penalty isn’t a rejection of human dignity. It’s the highest defense of it. Human life is so valuable that in some cases the only just response to its intentional and unjust taking is taking the life of the one who committed such a grave offense.
The best argument against the death penalty remains the potential for dishonesty and incompetence among government officials.
But in cases where guilt is clear and egregious, the death penalty is paradoxically a pro-life position.
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