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Samuel kills Agag
Artist: MERIAN, Matthaeus the Elder
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Left-Wing Anti-Death Penalty Petition Misstates Jewish Position
February
25, 2016
The left-wing group Uri L'Tzedek, a
product of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, which has made smearing and harassing religious
Jews into its specialty, has a petition out attacking the death penalty. True
to form, the petition authored by Uri L'Tzedek boss, Shmuly Yanklowitz,
misstates the Jewish position on the death penalty.
The rabbis taught that a court that often puts others to death is deeply problematic. How often? Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says, "Every 70 years." Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say, "If we were in a court, no person would ever be executed," (Makkot 7a). While not categorically opposed to capital punishment, the rabbis saw the death penalty as so extreme a measure that they all but removed it from their system of justice.
First, Mr. Yanklowitz leaves out the conclusion because
it doesn't fit his thesis.
The Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years is called "murderous." Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah says that this extends to one execution in seventy years. Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say, "If we had been among the Sanhedrin, no one would ever have been executed." Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel responds, "Such an attitude would increase bloodshed in Israel."
Refusing to include an authoritative
rebuttal changes the whole context.
Furthermore the "Rabbis" did
not "remove" the death penalty, the Sanhedrin had ceased to sit in
judgment on such cases due to the Roman occupation. The discussion sounds
hypothetical because it is. Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva had arguments that
could have potentially prevented any death penalty case from going forward. But
such a practice would have emboldened murderers.
The death penalty was not extreme. The
topic was the high standard of proof being proposed for conviction.
The reference here is not to a generic
court, but to a Jewish court which was obligated to advance every possible
argument for finding defendants innocent in a number of ways. Since the judges
are required to find ways to exonerate the defendant, a Jewish court that fails
to do so is being destructive in that it appears to be refusing to even
consider the innocence of a defendant. A court of judges who unanimously found
a suspect as guilty are seen as proof that the court system embodied in the
judges is flawed and therefore their verdict is set aside. It's the equivalent
of what would happen in our legal system if a defendant's lawyer began acting
like the prosecutor and condemning his own client because then the defendant
would have never received a fair trial.
It was never meant to apply to other
legal systems, particularly ones that are structured differently so that the
defendant benefits from entirely different forms of legal support.
The entire dialogue quoted is meant to
represent a range of views of the kind that should be found among the judges of
a court. They are not meant to be a final statement.
The Jewish legal system was certainly
quite generous to defendants, the beginning of this particular Mishna lists a
singular form of double jeopardy, but it was also a religious system and so
operated on the premise that only absolute certainty of guilt justified
executing a defendant since even if he were set free despite being guilty, G-d
would provide the proper punishment.
"In contrast, our American system
today lacks the highest safeguards to protect the lives of the innocent and
uses capital punishment all too readily." the petition claims.
There were 28 murderers executed last
year in a nation of 318 million. That probably comes out to less than the 1 per
7 years in the population of Israel cited above.
"We do not naively believe that everyone on death row is completely innocent of any crime. Yet, it is time to see the death penalty for what it is: not as justice gone awry, but a symptom of injustice as status quo. "You must rescue those taken off to death!"(Proverbs 24:11)!"
If Mr. Yanklowitz had troubled himself
to read a little further, he would have found a more relevant statement.
"He that says to the wicked man: 'Righteous art thou', peoples shall curse
him and nations shall revile him." (Proverbs 24:24). That's a good summary
of the whole pro-crime movement that the left is running with. And there's
nothing Jewish about it, except in the cynical way that social justice
activists attempt to siphon off moral authority from religions whose
traditional moral authority they do not actually accept.
Speaking of, signers of the Uri
L'Tzedek petition include Sharon Brous, a veteran of anti-Israel groups such as
J Street and Rabbis for Human Rights. No doubt, Ms. Brous also has a great deal
of compassion for murderers, particularly the murderers of Jews.
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