Moral Depravity and the Death Penalty

Yesterday the Supreme Court rejected the use of the death penalty in child rape cases.  While a large portion of the opinions for and against the decision concerned “national consensus” and Court precedents, there was one part that caught my attention.  On both the sides of the discussion the use of the death penalty seemed to hang, in large part, on the “moral depravity” of the perpetrator of the crime.  Both opinions referenced this term when speaking of the death penalty, though reaching opposite conclusions.

The Court’s opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, declared that the crime of rape did not reach the moral depravity of murder because of the fundamental difference between a crime that ends a life and one that does not.  To quote:

Consistent with evolving standards of decency and the teachings of our precedents we conclude that, in determining whether the death penalty is excessive, there is a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape, on the other. The latter crimes may be devastating in their harm, as here, but “in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public,” Coker, 433 U. S., at 598 (plurality opinion), they cannot be compared to murder in their “severity and irrevocability.”

Similarly, in his dissenting opinion, Justice Alito labels the crime of child rape as “the epitome of moral depravity” and thus punishable by death:

Nor is this case comparable to Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982), in which the Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty where the defendant participated in a robbery during which a murder was committed but did not personally intend for lethal force to be used. I have no doubt that, under the prevailing standards of our society, robbery, the crime that the petitioner in Enmund intended to commit, does not evidence the same degree of moral depravity as the brutal rape of a young child. Indeed, I have little doubt that, in the eyes of ordinary Americans, the very worst child rapists—predators who seek out and inflict serious physical and emotional injury on defenseless young children—are the epitome of moral depravity.

Arguing for the death penalty based on the moral depravity of the criminal is a very compelling argument.  (Note that Alito’s dissent applies the term “epitome of moral depravity” to the perpetrator, not the crime.)  The idea of child rape rightly raises a revulsion in our minds when we consider it.  There is no denying that such acts must be punished, and severely.

Yet, when we approach this argument from a Christian perspective it becomes significantly less compelling.  To understand this we must recognize the concept of the fall of man.  The entirety of Christianity (meaning mainstream Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox), has embraced some version of this doctrine.  For those unfamiliar, it is rooted in the disobedience of man after creation.  In Genesis 3:14, God declares the effects of this fall:

So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.

While the implications of such a curse are not obvious from this verse, they are detailed more thouroughly both in the New and Old testaments.  Isaiah 53:6:

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

And Romans 3:23:

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

The exact ramifications of this idea for human salvation have been hashed out over centuries in the Pelagian heresy and other disputes. While various Church groups may disagree on the exact doctrine of original sin, the idea of fallen humanity has persisted.  Clearly every human is sinful in a Christan worldview.

Now we return to the argument of exceptional moral depravity as a reason for the use of the death penalty.  With the idea of fallen humanity in mind, we are forced, as Christians, to question our ability to label any person as more morally depraved than another.  Indeed, we must recognize that we are as morally depraved as the child rapist.

This is not an easy idea to come to terms with.  It feels so evident that there is clearly some difference, however small, between us and such an individual.  At the very least, he or she carried through on their depravity and we did not.  The same feeling is evidenced in references to particularly evil people, such as Hitler, as having “a special place in hell.”  They are worse than we are.

Yet Matthew 5:21-22 reminds us:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother without cause will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Or, even more powerfully put in verse 28:

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Perfection is a position that once lost cannot be regained.  Sin is a condition that once considered has occurred.  There is no distinction in depravity here, there is only perfect and not perfect.  To the Christian there are no classes of sinners.  You and I are just as deserving of eternal separation from God as Hitler is.  (And what will we do if we get to heaven and discover that Hitler is there?  His actions were in no way good, yet we cannot deny the possibility of salvation because of them; to do so would be to deny the radical power of God’s grace.)

Prescribing death for an individual based on moral depravity is extremely problematic.   As Christians we are all equally depraved; to sentence one person to death based on this depravity is to sentence everyone to death.

(Note: The idea expressed here is not intended to deny the death penalty entirely.  There may be other arguments for the death penalty which can be justified, such as crime deterrence or the state’s right to violence. A complete consideration of the issue is more than I have the capacity to engage tonight, if ever.)

Tags: Christianity, death penalty, moral depravity, Supreme Court