Botched Execution in Tennessee and Justice & the Death Penalty Discussion

WEBVTT
1
00:00:03.410 --> 00:00:06.690
Welcome back to the Bully Pulpit Podcast, where two pastors,
2
00:00:06.950 --> 00:00:10.650
an ethics professor, and a political operative discuss news and
3
00:00:10.689 --> 00:00:17.120
politics from a Christian and conservative perspective. Boys, we are together,
4
00:00:17.780 --> 00:00:19.600
minus a mayor, but we are together.
5
00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:22.859
Minus the mayor, but what I'm thinking about right now
6
00:00:23.820 --> 00:00:26.719
is what bad choices did I make in my life
7
00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:30.679
where I'm sitting here in a tie and And I'm
8
00:00:31.019 --> 00:00:36.109
sharing a co-host with guys wearing the gray t-shirts and like,
9
00:00:36.670 --> 00:00:38.649
I don't, I don't even know what Tietzel's wearing, like
10
00:00:38.729 --> 00:00:44.090
a sweatshirt and a t-shirt on a weekday at 4 PM.
11
00:00:46.100 --> 00:00:48.479
I've got a back to the future shirt on says
12
00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:51.060
save the clock tower with a mustache. You know, I'm
13
00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:51.600
living right.
14
00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:58.609
You look very nice, Andrew. You look very nice in
15
00:00:58.649 --> 00:01:05.870
your normal tie. Normal attire, but someone has to LARP
16
00:01:06.109 --> 00:01:07.030
at having a real job.
17
00:01:07.450 --> 00:01:11.049
You're looking very Dean-ish. Not Dean and Sarah-ish, but very
18
00:01:11.129 --> 00:01:17.569
Dean of Theology-ish. Speaking of, I think we've all, too,
19
00:01:17.629 --> 00:01:21.989
been kind of jet-setting around different places, different events. Did
20
00:01:22.030 --> 00:01:26.010
I see, Andrew, that you're doing something at a Heritage
21
00:01:26.069 --> 00:01:28.109
event or some kind of invite to that?
22
00:01:28.959 --> 00:01:33.560
Yeah, so everything's still getting sorted out, but there's supposed
23
00:01:33.579 --> 00:01:41.620
to be a big intramural conservative confab in November in D.C.
24
00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:44.469
with a bunch of different conservative groups. It's supposed to
25
00:01:44.489 --> 00:01:47.010
be like 700 people at this thing called The Forum,
26
00:01:47.109 --> 00:01:51.390
I think. And I got an invitation to what was
27
00:01:51.569 --> 00:01:56.150
advertised as a friendly debate about the common good, which
28
00:01:56.250 --> 00:02:01.310
Bully listeners will Recall, we spent many an episode talking
29
00:02:01.349 --> 00:02:04.329
about this concept of the common good. So I don't
30
00:02:04.370 --> 00:02:07.700
know who I'll be debating because it doesn't seem like
31
00:02:07.719 --> 00:02:10.819
this is a very libertarian event.
32
00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:14.219
Are we getting a Jonah Goldberg, perhaps?
33
00:02:14.500 --> 00:02:16.650
Oh, I don't know. I don't think that he would
34
00:02:16.659 --> 00:02:20.719
do anything in the vicinity of heritage these days. So, yeah,
35
00:02:20.740 --> 00:02:22.939
I don't know. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
36
00:02:23.419 --> 00:02:27.039
You're kind of the father and the author and originator
37
00:02:27.189 --> 00:02:33.110
of this debate. So it's only fitting that you get invited.
38
00:02:33.370 --> 00:02:40.729
One random flippant tweet in late July and spins off articles.
39
00:02:40.949 --> 00:02:42.909
Now look what you've done. Next thing you know, somebody's
40
00:02:42.930 --> 00:02:43.870
going to ask you to write a book.
41
00:02:44.750 --> 00:02:47.129
I'm just surprised Andrew told me he was coming to town.
42
00:02:48.280 --> 00:02:48.979
I am too, honestly.
43
00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:53.379
Typically, he just comes in, texts me as he's at
44
00:02:53.419 --> 00:02:54.659
the airport on the way home.
45
00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:56.340
It's true.
46
00:02:56.370 --> 00:02:58.169
You know I live here. We could hang out.
47
00:02:59.610 --> 00:03:02.030
Except for when I gave you a heads up that
48
00:03:02.069 --> 00:03:05.590
I was in D.C., you magically had plans and couldn't connect.
49
00:03:05.669 --> 00:03:09.250
So I think Andrew's probably just anticipating the snub.
50
00:03:10.129 --> 00:03:12.949
Well, no, Tietzel knows this. I make it an active
51
00:03:12.990 --> 00:03:15.310
goal in my life to avoid going to D.C. as
52
00:03:15.370 --> 00:03:17.949
much as possible. Lived there for like a year.
53
00:03:17.969 --> 00:03:18.669
I love DC.
54
00:03:18.689 --> 00:03:20.889
And one of the reasons I left is because I
55
00:03:21.750 --> 00:03:24.960
am not DC compliant. I love DC.
56
00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:25.699
I love the capital.
57
00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:32.379
It's a fine city. It really is. Like the Capitol
58
00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:36.849
Hill District is really cool. But just like the lifestyle
59
00:03:38.050 --> 00:03:41.650
is not for me. I'm too suburban. You dress like
60
00:03:41.669 --> 00:03:42.250
you belong here.
61
00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:43.300
You do.
62
00:03:43.340 --> 00:03:44.259
That's fair enough.
63
00:03:44.740 --> 00:03:45.280
I do not.
64
00:03:45.460 --> 00:03:48.240
I do not belong there with my address, but here
65
00:03:48.259 --> 00:03:51.259
we are. Well, guys, there's so many things going on
66
00:03:51.310 --> 00:03:54.490
these days. A lot of news, a lot of conversations
67
00:03:55.069 --> 00:03:57.930
in a lot of directions. I want to start and
68
00:03:57.949 --> 00:03:59.550
I want us to kind of hang here for a while.
69
00:03:59.729 --> 00:04:02.949
It's with a story that's happening in my home state,
70
00:04:03.750 --> 00:04:06.599
about 30 miles down the road for me. And that's
71
00:04:06.659 --> 00:04:13.030
the story of this botched execution, um, of this woman
72
00:04:13.229 --> 00:04:16.839
who is on death row, has been, she is a
73
00:04:17.819 --> 00:04:21.560
dangerous person. She has even tried to do awful things
74
00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:25.560
while incarcerated. Like this is not a good woman. And
75
00:04:25.879 --> 00:04:32.480
they attempted to end her life with lethal injection. And
76
00:04:32.620 --> 00:04:34.939
somehow or another, I don't, guys, I don't know. I
77
00:04:35.740 --> 00:04:37.980
don't know how you botch it, but they botched it.
78
00:04:39.019 --> 00:04:45.750
And in botching it, they, They basically ran everybody. They
79
00:04:45.790 --> 00:04:48.709
closed the curtain. The families that were there watching, the
80
00:04:49.009 --> 00:04:53.740
witnesses that were there, they closed the curtains and everybody
81
00:04:53.750 --> 00:04:58.620
had to leave. And then they proceeded to revive her,
82
00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:02.120
to keep her alive, to give her life-saving support, which
83
00:05:02.139 --> 00:05:02.959
I'm like, hold on a minute.
84
00:05:03.199 --> 00:05:03.980
What are we doing?
85
00:05:04.100 --> 00:05:06.399
Isn't the whole purpose of what we're doing here to
86
00:05:06.519 --> 00:05:09.620
end her life? And now it's this whole thing. It's
87
00:05:09.660 --> 00:05:13.839
a nationwide story. not just about an execution of a
88
00:05:13.879 --> 00:05:17.430
woman on death row, but about a botched execution, about
89
00:05:17.459 --> 00:05:21.910
the merits of capital punishment, and even the means by
90
00:05:21.970 --> 00:05:25.329
which we carry out capital punishment. Andrew, I want to
91
00:05:25.350 --> 00:05:28.649
start with you because you wrote something pretty quickly on this,
92
00:05:28.810 --> 00:05:29.540
I think for World.
93
00:05:30.069 --> 00:05:30.879
Is it for World?
94
00:05:31.019 --> 00:05:32.579
National Review. Oh, sorry.
95
00:05:32.660 --> 00:05:33.759
I forgot. I forgot.
96
00:05:34.019 --> 00:05:34.300
Yes.
97
00:05:34.540 --> 00:05:34.740
Yeah.
98
00:05:34.779 --> 00:05:41.519
Tietzel's first subscription he gets every day. Andrew, talk. talk
99
00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:44.860
about your article.
100
00:05:45.660 --> 00:05:49.759
And even just high level, I want to get into
101
00:05:49.779 --> 00:05:51.959
some particulars because I've had people ask me about this
102
00:05:52.379 --> 00:05:54.779
and I'm like, this is a good bully conversation because
103
00:05:54.819 --> 00:05:59.459
there's some ethics here, not just about capital punishment, but means.
104
00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:04.060
And what do you do if you have a botched situation?
105
00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:07.290
What's the ethical response? And as Christians, how should we
106
00:06:07.389 --> 00:06:10.459
parse out all of these questions. And I want to
107
00:06:10.500 --> 00:06:13.879
start with just teeing it up high level, your reactions
108
00:06:14.439 --> 00:06:16.579
as you've seen this story, and then we'll kind of
109
00:06:16.860 --> 00:06:17.860
get granular, okay?
110
00:06:19.189 --> 00:06:25.509
So before I jump into the particulars with Tennessee, last night,
111
00:06:25.529 --> 00:06:28.930
so we're recording this on Thursday afternoon. On Wednesday evening,
112
00:06:29.649 --> 00:06:39.579
Texas successfully executed a convict, which was the first execution
113
00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:47.600
since the botched execution. There were questions about whether or
114
00:06:47.639 --> 00:06:50.720
not this execution last night would go on because lawyers
115
00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:53.850
for this individual were making the case, as they always do,
116
00:06:53.930 --> 00:07:00.870
that these drugs are not reliable to end someone's life. So, goodness,
117
00:07:01.009 --> 00:07:04.649
where do we start here? The first thing I would
118
00:07:04.670 --> 00:07:09.490
simply say is I am a strong advocate of for
119
00:07:10.370 --> 00:07:14.139
the death penalty. I think it is a biblical concept.
120
00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:19.040
I think it's originally grounded in Genesis 9, 5, and 6,
121
00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:23.259
that if you shed man's blood, by man shall your
122
00:07:23.300 --> 00:07:27.959
blood be shed. And so behind that in Genesis 9, 5,
123
00:07:27.959 --> 00:07:31.759
and 6 is what I would call a combination of
124
00:07:31.810 --> 00:07:38.300
both reciprocal and retributive justice. The idea that in some sense,
125
00:07:38.399 --> 00:07:41.980
it's an eye for an eye. It's not meant to
126
00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:49.009
be disproportionate. It's meant to be the type of punishment
127
00:07:49.670 --> 00:07:53.910
that is proportionate to the nature of the original offense.
128
00:07:54.829 --> 00:07:58.670
And the reason that matters is because some individuals will
129
00:07:58.730 --> 00:08:02.759
argue that capital punishment is disproportionate. And I don't think
130
00:08:02.779 --> 00:08:07.000
that it is disproportionate. It's trying to rebalance the scales
131
00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:10.779
of justice. And so you have it, I think, grounded
132
00:08:10.920 --> 00:08:15.000
in a natural law justice perspective, that if someone's life
133
00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:20.699
has been wantonly taken, then the necessary response is someone
134
00:08:20.779 --> 00:08:24.100
forfeits their own right to life. And why is that?
135
00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:26.529
And this is where it gets really interesting from a
136
00:08:26.850 --> 00:08:32.370
biblical ethics perspective, is some will say that capital punishment
137
00:08:32.549 --> 00:08:35.700
undermines the Bible's human dignity ethic. that if you're for
138
00:08:35.740 --> 00:08:38.919
human dignity, why would you allow for life to be
139
00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:45.500
taken in any circumstance? And the reason that we would
140
00:08:45.570 --> 00:08:48.830
argue for capital punishment is that in its own way,
141
00:08:48.950 --> 00:08:55.309
capital punishment serves to reinforce the preciousness and dignity of
142
00:08:55.370 --> 00:08:59.809
human life. It's saying that life is so dignified, so precious,
143
00:09:00.610 --> 00:09:06.340
that if you wantonly murder someone, The only way the
144
00:09:06.419 --> 00:09:09.779
law and the scales of justice can be balanced is
145
00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:12.700
for someone to forfeit their own right to life. And
146
00:09:12.740 --> 00:09:15.059
so rather than this being an attack on human dignity,
147
00:09:15.460 --> 00:09:19.379
you have to understand it as a reaffirmation of human dignity.
148
00:09:19.820 --> 00:09:22.059
Now, Andrew, real quick, I would know the answer to
149
00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:25.279
this as a pastor and theologian, but I want you
150
00:09:25.299 --> 00:09:28.659
to just expound on it. I've had people ask me
151
00:09:29.120 --> 00:09:33.110
about why the command to not murder....
152
00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:36.740
Is not violated.
153
00:09:36.340 --> 00:09:40.000
In the act of carrying out capital punishment. Yeah, no,
154
00:09:40.039 --> 00:09:44.620
that's a great, that's a wonderful question to ask. The
155
00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:49.139
Bible distinguishes between killing and murder. So both have as
156
00:09:49.179 --> 00:09:54.009
their end the taking of life, but killing, I would argue,
157
00:09:54.129 --> 00:09:58.389
can be lawful, or it can be moral and thus lawful.
158
00:09:59.429 --> 00:10:06.480
And so the boundaries around killing would, in my opinion,
159
00:10:06.539 --> 00:10:09.399
I think kind of deduced from scripture, is that it
160
00:10:09.519 --> 00:10:13.759
needs to be administered through courts of law, through due process.
161
00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:19.360
There needs to be a clear demarcation of guilt. in
162
00:10:19.379 --> 00:10:23.620
these particular instances. And you juxtapose that. You'll often hear
163
00:10:23.659 --> 00:10:27.200
it said that, well, there's a contradiction amongst Christians. They
164
00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:32.129
are pro-life, they're anti-abortion, but they're for capital punishment. And
165
00:10:32.590 --> 00:10:35.029
this is actually apples and oranges, and it speaks to
166
00:10:35.070 --> 00:10:38.610
that killing versus murder distinction, is that an abortion is
167
00:10:38.690 --> 00:10:41.409
actually a murder. And why is it a murder? It's
168
00:10:41.450 --> 00:10:45.529
a murder because it's the unjustified taking of human life.
169
00:10:45.629 --> 00:10:50.080
It's the lethal application of violence on unjust grounds and
170
00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:55.710
for unjust ends. And the distinction here with lawful killing
171
00:10:56.399 --> 00:11:01.070
is that first and foremost, the Bible lays down grounds
172
00:11:01.129 --> 00:11:07.850
for lawful killing. Exodus 20, 13 says, thou shalt not murder.
173
00:11:09.210 --> 00:11:11.750
It doesn't say thou shalt not kill. And the reason
174
00:11:11.769 --> 00:11:14.789
that that is vindicated in scripture is you go to
175
00:11:14.830 --> 00:11:18.179
Romans 13, verse four, It says the state does not
176
00:11:18.259 --> 00:11:21.360
bear the sword in vain. And some people will try
177
00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:24.600
to interpret the sword as, well, that's just the state's...
178
00:11:25.179 --> 00:11:28.570
That's kind of a broad, comprehensive statement for the state's
179
00:11:29.230 --> 00:11:33.850
act of judgment. The problem, though, is that the sword
180
00:11:33.870 --> 00:11:38.509
is speaking in... That's not just metaphorical. It's speaking in
181
00:11:38.570 --> 00:11:42.320
visceral terms. What does a sword do? The sword pierces.
182
00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:46.600
The sword inflicts pain. in a context in which the
183
00:11:46.639 --> 00:11:49.799
sword would have been being used in biblical times, it
184
00:11:49.820 --> 00:11:53.419
would have been an instrument of death. Right. And so
185
00:11:53.659 --> 00:11:59.299
it's a massive apples and oranges difference between murdering an
186
00:11:59.419 --> 00:12:04.690
innocent unborn child and then killing someone who is morally
187
00:12:04.789 --> 00:12:09.850
culpable for having engaged in the unlawful taking of life.
188
00:12:10.549 --> 00:12:14.250
And Andrew, I think you highlighted this just a moment ago,
189
00:12:14.850 --> 00:12:17.129
But when you think about Exodus 20, which is the
190
00:12:17.190 --> 00:12:21.929
giving of the Ten Commandments, what follows that are chapters
191
00:12:22.730 --> 00:12:26.149
of the law broken down all the way into civil
192
00:12:26.190 --> 00:12:29.990
life for Israel in which God commands the killing of
193
00:12:30.049 --> 00:12:34.509
certain individuals around questions of justice and injustice. And so
194
00:12:35.110 --> 00:12:38.879
God's not contradicting himself in those commands because there's a
195
00:12:38.929 --> 00:12:39.659
distinction here.
196
00:12:40.500 --> 00:12:46.429
Well, and also— A part of this comes down to like,
197
00:12:46.529 --> 00:12:50.919
it's not only that it's biblically warranted as far as
198
00:12:50.940 --> 00:12:54.559
from a reciprocal and retributive justice perspective, there's also like
199
00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:58.840
a political justice perspective in terms of capital punishment. And
200
00:12:58.879 --> 00:13:01.200
we have to ask the question, what is the state
201
00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:04.600
doing when it puts someone to death? The state is
202
00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:10.860
signifying that it has the lawful authority to inflict punishment
203
00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:13.870
on against the backdrop of why does the government exist
204
00:13:14.009 --> 00:13:20.230
at all? Government exists to protect and preserve the lives
205
00:13:20.269 --> 00:13:24.330
of citizens, to live the lives that justice demands that
206
00:13:24.350 --> 00:13:28.629
they be able to live in a political community. And
207
00:13:28.669 --> 00:13:34.809
so when you think about why is murder something that
208
00:13:34.870 --> 00:13:39.690
is uniquely eligible for capital punishment, it's because if If
209
00:13:39.830 --> 00:13:45.980
murder goes unchecked, it jeopardizes the stability of society itself.
210
00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:52.059
Because if you're saying that we're not going to bring
211
00:13:52.100 --> 00:13:55.519
the fullest extent of the law down on someone, you're
212
00:13:55.539 --> 00:14:00.649
basically saying we're not going to police the boundaries of society.
213
00:14:00.669 --> 00:14:03.870
Which only spirals into worse behavior.
214
00:14:03.889 --> 00:14:08.649
Which spirals. And so here's a really interesting... example of
215
00:14:08.789 --> 00:14:13.629
why this really matters even today. I've had students from
216
00:14:13.750 --> 00:14:19.980
Africa in my classrooms, and they'll talk about in some
217
00:14:20.019 --> 00:14:23.019
of their countries, you can't rely on the judicial system
218
00:14:23.039 --> 00:14:28.179
because it's corrupt. You can't rely on police because you
219
00:14:28.200 --> 00:14:30.500
have to pay off the police to come and actually
220
00:14:31.620 --> 00:14:35.309
do the job of a police officer. And so they
221
00:14:35.350 --> 00:14:39.590
literally have no ability to safeguard their community. And so
222
00:14:39.629 --> 00:14:42.090
I had two students tell me that it's not uncommon
223
00:14:42.629 --> 00:14:46.509
in like remote villages in Africa where there'll be someone
224
00:14:46.529 --> 00:14:50.509
who is threatening the safety of the community. There's no police,
225
00:14:50.590 --> 00:14:54.110
there are no law courts. And so basically tribal elders
226
00:14:54.649 --> 00:14:57.450
serve as a jury and they try to go through
227
00:14:57.470 --> 00:15:00.990
a process of due process. And then the community itself
228
00:15:01.129 --> 00:15:06.649
passes judgment on the alleged. And then literally you have,
229
00:15:08.029 --> 00:15:13.149
the individuals being executed at the hands of the community,
230
00:15:13.610 --> 00:15:16.470
not the state per se, because there really is no
231
00:15:16.789 --> 00:15:20.559
state in this situation. And why is that happening? It's
232
00:15:20.580 --> 00:15:25.620
because the idea of living together in society is done
233
00:15:25.679 --> 00:15:28.019
on the basis of trust. And if you can't have
234
00:15:28.379 --> 00:15:34.019
trustful interactions, you're not going to have a society anymore whatsoever.
235
00:15:34.509 --> 00:15:38.860
And capital punishment in that way becomes a deterrent to
236
00:15:39.019 --> 00:15:42.759
others from capitulating some of the things that they've seen
237
00:15:42.919 --> 00:15:46.419
others do, right? So when you see someone punished, it
238
00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:49.990
is a deterrent in itself from you doing heinous things
239
00:15:50.850 --> 00:15:53.970
that otherwise you may feel there's no consequence for doing.
240
00:15:55.850 --> 00:15:56.529
I have a question.
241
00:15:57.549 --> 00:16:00.250
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the official
242
00:16:00.289 --> 00:16:03.840
teaching of the Catholic Church is that the death penalty
243
00:16:03.899 --> 00:16:10.419
is wrong. Where does Reformed theology come into play here,
244
00:16:10.759 --> 00:16:13.860
or whatever other divide there is between the Protestant and
245
00:16:13.899 --> 00:16:15.639
Catholic interpretations of Scripture?
246
00:16:15.899 --> 00:16:18.580
So, I know we probably have some Catholic friends who
247
00:16:18.620 --> 00:16:23.440
listen to this, and so they may shudder at what
248
00:16:23.460 --> 00:16:27.210
I'm going to say, but this is actually an area
249
00:16:27.929 --> 00:16:33.129
where I think the Catholic Church opens itself up to
250
00:16:33.149 --> 00:16:38.620
a lot of criticisms for contradiction, because the latest teaching
251
00:16:38.909 --> 00:16:43.799
from the popes is that capital punishment is immoral. But
252
00:16:43.879 --> 00:16:47.059
if you go back and look at the full catalog
253
00:16:47.100 --> 00:16:51.740
of Catholic history, it's very clear that the Catholic Church
254
00:16:52.419 --> 00:16:55.240
endorsed capital punishment. And so the whole idea within Catholic
255
00:16:55.259 --> 00:16:59.389
teaching is that it can't contradict itself. Its doctrine... Its
256
00:16:59.429 --> 00:17:03.399
doctrine can develop, but the development of doctrine is not
257
00:17:03.460 --> 00:17:07.559
considered the contradiction of doctrine. Now, I'm a Protestant, and
258
00:17:07.619 --> 00:17:10.279
this would be one of those areas that is very
259
00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:14.220
demonstrable of why I'm a Protestant, because my Catholic friends
260
00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:16.769
will say, well, the church hasn't contradicted itself because it's
261
00:17:16.829 --> 00:17:20.470
not necessarily teaching this as an ex cathedra or like,
262
00:17:21.549 --> 00:17:23.549
I forget the exact term that they would use. It's
263
00:17:23.589 --> 00:17:26.910
not like a magisterial teaching. It's kind of a secondary
264
00:17:26.950 --> 00:17:32.029
level teaching. The problem is that the church has changed
265
00:17:32.490 --> 00:17:36.210
its position in some form or another on the topic.
266
00:17:36.309 --> 00:17:40.339
The Catholic argument today is that we no longer need
267
00:17:40.380 --> 00:17:43.559
capital punishment because we have the ability to incarcerate someone
268
00:17:43.619 --> 00:17:47.680
reliably for the rest of their life. And so, Tietzel,
269
00:17:47.980 --> 00:17:54.069
to your point, this is where I think... And let
270
00:17:54.890 --> 00:17:57.049
me nuance this a little bit more. I think there's
271
00:17:57.069 --> 00:18:00.720
an open debate and divide within Catholicism today. So like
272
00:18:01.380 --> 00:18:07.259
John Finnis, Robert George, heroes of mine are against capital punishment.
273
00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:11.789
But then you have Catholic theologians like Ed Fazer, who
274
00:18:12.089 --> 00:18:15.650
is a staunch proponent of capital punishment. And they all
275
00:18:15.690 --> 00:18:18.809
have their own unique ways to parcel out whether the
276
00:18:18.869 --> 00:18:21.210
Catholic church has contradicted itself. I want to be charitable
277
00:18:21.230 --> 00:18:24.970
to my Catholic friends on this subject. But there is
278
00:18:25.029 --> 00:18:27.940
discussion on that side. But here's what I would simply say, Tito,
279
00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:31.440
to your question. This is where I think the Protestant
280
00:18:31.500 --> 00:18:36.029
emphasis on sola scriptura shines through, is that we're not
281
00:18:36.049 --> 00:18:38.630
going to go to philosophy. We're not going to go
282
00:18:38.650 --> 00:18:41.410
to political theory. We're not going to look at what
283
00:18:41.450 --> 00:18:44.230
a magisterium has or has not taught or has or
284
00:18:44.250 --> 00:18:47.049
has not developed over a couple thousand years. We're going
285
00:18:47.069 --> 00:18:51.579
to look at the text of Scripture. And I... Listen,
286
00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:54.460
I think that there are some valid arguments against how
287
00:18:54.500 --> 00:18:57.759
we practice capital punishment today. Yeah, I want to get
288
00:18:57.779 --> 00:19:02.410
into that. Yeah, we can discuss that. I am utterly
289
00:19:02.670 --> 00:19:06.529
unpersuaded by someone who wants to make the case that
290
00:19:06.670 --> 00:19:10.710
the Bible does not justify or permit capital punishment. The
291
00:19:10.750 --> 00:19:15.700
Bible absolutely does. You would leave space for liberty.
292
00:19:16.190 --> 00:19:20.299
Protestants who disagree, you're not binding anyone's conscience by saying
293
00:19:20.339 --> 00:19:22.599
we must have capital punishment.
294
00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:27.460
I mean, I wouldn't put it at the same level
295
00:19:27.480 --> 00:19:31.779
of the commitment to being anti-abortion. Because as I said,
296
00:19:31.839 --> 00:19:34.730
I do think that there are legitimate, reasonable cases to
297
00:19:34.750 --> 00:19:37.930
be made for not practicing it based on what I
298
00:19:37.950 --> 00:19:43.569
think are some perhaps socio-economical realities that we should be
299
00:19:43.630 --> 00:19:49.880
sensitive towards. but I'm talking at the principled basis. I
300
00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:53.769
have absolutely no principled objection to capital punishment. And that's
301
00:19:53.789 --> 00:19:57.150
going to probably get into bigger questions about why I
302
00:19:57.210 --> 00:19:58.970
object to how we practice it today.
303
00:19:59.069 --> 00:20:01.630
And it's not for the reasons you're going to think. Yeah,
304
00:20:01.670 --> 00:20:03.660
I want to get into that in just a moment.
305
00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:05.759
Let me make one statement, and then I want to
306
00:20:05.940 --> 00:20:09.680
send some questions downrange to Tietzel here. One thing I
307
00:20:09.720 --> 00:20:12.859
would say as we talk about the state having the
308
00:20:12.920 --> 00:20:17.509
authority to exercise capital punishment, we are not saying that
309
00:20:17.529 --> 00:20:21.750
they have unlimited license or freedom to express capital punishment
310
00:20:21.809 --> 00:20:23.970
for anything they deem necessary, right?
311
00:20:24.269 --> 00:20:26.509
So in other words, we don't want to see.
312
00:20:26.390 --> 00:20:29.450
Some regime that comes in and thinks there should be
313
00:20:29.490 --> 00:20:33.069
capital punishment for having a different philosophy than them, a
314
00:20:33.089 --> 00:20:36.450
different political ideology than them, right? So you can't use
315
00:20:36.509 --> 00:20:39.559
excessive force for things that don't deserve that. I don't
316
00:20:39.579 --> 00:20:41.200
know what the term is for that, but we're not
317
00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:44.339
saying unlimited exercise of capital punishment.
318
00:20:45.460 --> 00:20:48.180
I think that's generally correct, and I know I'm kind
319
00:20:48.200 --> 00:20:51.240
of inserting myself where Tietzel needs to talk here.
320
00:20:51.420 --> 00:20:53.599
No, no, no, I'm going to send Tietzel some questions, yeah.
321
00:20:54.059 --> 00:20:59.319
Yeah, I do think, and I'll admit, guys, I'm pretty...
322
00:20:59.900 --> 00:21:04.809
I don't want to use the word radical. I'm open
323
00:21:05.069 --> 00:21:13.029
to capital punishment being a factor far more than it
324
00:21:13.130 --> 00:21:16.019
is than it's currently practiced. And what I mean by
325
00:21:16.039 --> 00:21:20.440
that is there are crimes that are not murderous that
326
00:21:20.500 --> 00:21:24.940
I still think can, not necessarily should or must, but
327
00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:26.720
can warrant the death penalty.
328
00:21:26.900 --> 00:21:27.660
I agree with that.
329
00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:31.430
The free state of Florida. In DeSantistan, if Dean were here,
330
00:21:32.569 --> 00:21:36.519
they have now passed a law. DeSantistan. DeSantistan. They have
331
00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:40.160
passed a law in Florida that if you are convicted,
332
00:21:40.180 --> 00:21:44.740
I believe, of child rape, that that is a crime
333
00:21:44.839 --> 00:21:49.180
eligible for capital punishment. Sign me up. I'm all for that.
334
00:21:49.819 --> 00:21:52.930
I'm absolutely fine for that. I just want to make
335
00:21:52.990 --> 00:21:56.930
sure that it is done in a system of due process.
336
00:21:57.210 --> 00:21:58.750
And I would say even here we have to draw
337
00:21:58.829 --> 00:22:03.170
some some distinctions. Yeah. Like I think obviously all rape
338
00:22:03.349 --> 00:22:06.130
is horrific. Like, you know, I'm not trying to lessen
339
00:22:06.150 --> 00:22:09.630
the significance of rape by any stretch. Um, but like,
340
00:22:10.309 --> 00:22:13.569
I think, I think there's even differences when it's a
341
00:22:13.650 --> 00:22:17.019
child versus when it's an adult. because of those questions
342
00:22:17.180 --> 00:22:19.660
about what we're seeing in the Cornell case right now.
343
00:22:19.900 --> 00:22:22.490
What does consent mean in all these? And please hear me,
344
00:22:22.549 --> 00:22:26.950
I'm not making light. Well, the law calls these aggravating factors, right?
345
00:22:27.009 --> 00:22:30.990
Aggravating factors. We have space to consider those kinds of things. Yeah,
346
00:22:31.089 --> 00:22:35.470
and so I do think, I mean, perhaps I'm happy
347
00:22:35.490 --> 00:22:38.039
to be wrong on this. Like, I just think generally
348
00:22:38.140 --> 00:22:42.019
pedophilia is something that, I would be open to the
349
00:22:42.079 --> 00:22:44.319
idea of there being capital punishment for, because there are
350
00:22:44.380 --> 00:22:49.980
certain things so egregious to what defines a humane society
351
00:22:50.319 --> 00:22:52.980
that in the interest of protecting the humaneness and sanctity
352
00:22:53.019 --> 00:22:55.539
of society, and by the way, how do you define
353
00:22:56.140 --> 00:22:59.549
the humaneness and sanctity of a society most viscerally? I
354
00:22:59.569 --> 00:23:01.730
think it's how you treat its children. Now, that raises
355
00:23:01.750 --> 00:23:04.130
a question about abortion today and whether we are a
356
00:23:04.369 --> 00:23:08.049
just society. But I think in the interest of protecting
357
00:23:08.069 --> 00:23:11.769
the most vulnerable population, it sends a signal to would
358
00:23:11.789 --> 00:23:17.089
be offenders. This is absolutely outside the boundaries of.
359
00:23:17.390 --> 00:23:20.579
Of, of the common good of justice.
360
00:23:21.079 --> 00:23:22.180
Absolutely. Yep.
361
00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:22.920
Okay.
362
00:23:22.940 --> 00:23:24.000
So I want to, I want to ask you a
363
00:23:24.019 --> 00:23:26.319
few questions and I want some opinion on this. And
364
00:23:26.339 --> 00:23:30.019
then if you have some other historical grounds that you
365
00:23:30.039 --> 00:23:34.420
want to bring in, great. So obviously capital punishment has
366
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:39.000
declined significantly over the last, you know, not several decades,
367
00:23:39.059 --> 00:23:41.720
but even last several centuries. It used to be something
368
00:23:42.099 --> 00:23:45.799
I think far more common than is today. And not
369
00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:49.289
only has it become less frequent, the ways in which
370
00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:53.470
we are trying to execute capital punishment has changed significantly.
371
00:23:53.950 --> 00:23:57.410
Give me your opinion on why you think we've become
372
00:23:57.490 --> 00:24:00.890
allergic to capital punishment. And why do you think when
373
00:24:00.930 --> 00:24:03.730
we do it, we're doing it in the ways that
374
00:24:03.779 --> 00:24:07.420
we are? versus some of those more traditional ways. What
375
00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:08.339
are your thoughts on that?
376
00:24:09.240 --> 00:24:10.640
Man, that's a great question.
377
00:24:10.809 --> 00:24:16.869
I don't know why we've become allergic to capital punishment.
378
00:24:19.650 --> 00:24:23.329
There is this principle that sort of sits at the
379
00:24:23.369 --> 00:24:26.119
heart of the American judicial system that says it's better
380
00:24:26.200 --> 00:24:28.720
for a thousand guilty men to go free than for
381
00:24:28.839 --> 00:24:30.339
one innocent man to go to prison.
382
00:24:31.420 --> 00:24:35.730
And I think that's a right and good principle.
383
00:24:35.930 --> 00:24:39.670
It is fundamentally unjust for an innocent person to be
384
00:24:39.710 --> 00:24:44.700
punished for something that they didn't do. Um, that being said, I,
385
00:24:45.069 --> 00:24:46.869
I do think it's fair to say that the justice
386
00:24:46.890 --> 00:24:49.670
system as a whole has become much more lenient when
387
00:24:49.710 --> 00:24:54.430
it comes to crime. Um, yeah, largely born, I think
388
00:24:54.569 --> 00:24:57.960
out of several ideologies, all kind of coming together. You
389
00:24:57.980 --> 00:25:03.259
have this, um, race uber alice ideology that um would
390
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:05.109
say born you know the same thing that has given
391
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:07.670
birth to dei and crt and all this other stuff
392
00:25:07.690 --> 00:25:11.589
that says race is the driving force behind every every
393
00:25:11.690 --> 00:25:16.349
institution in society we are fundamentally racist the police are
394
00:25:16.390 --> 00:25:22.039
fundamentally and unalteringly and unavoidably racist and that fact explains
395
00:25:22.099 --> 00:25:28.789
the discrepancies in um uh uh criminality because it's simply
396
00:25:28.829 --> 00:25:33.230
that racist white cops are arresting young black men for
397
00:25:33.269 --> 00:25:35.359
no other reason than the color of their skin, right?
398
00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:38.859
And I think an objective read of all of the
399
00:25:38.900 --> 00:25:42.720
data would show that that's utter nonsense and that the
400
00:25:42.779 --> 00:25:47.650
reason that there's a disparity between racial crime rates is
401
00:25:47.750 --> 00:25:50.769
because young black men commit more crime than young white
402
00:25:50.789 --> 00:25:53.910
men as a percentage of the population. Not overall, there
403
00:25:53.970 --> 00:25:57.599
are more young white men in America, therefore the total
404
00:25:57.640 --> 00:25:59.720
number of crimes that they commit is greater. But as
405
00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:03.160
a percentage of the population, um, young black men tend
406
00:26:03.180 --> 00:26:06.400
to commit more crime. Um, and we could get into
407
00:26:06.420 --> 00:26:08.220
all the reasons why that might be. And there are
408
00:26:08.279 --> 00:26:11.640
legitimate questions there. Why is it that young black men
409
00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:13.500
tend to commit more crime than young white men?
410
00:26:13.619 --> 00:26:16.079
But that's where you're getting into fathers and family.
411
00:26:16.099 --> 00:26:20.460
Yeah. All over police explanations that aren't cops are racist.
412
00:26:20.619 --> 00:26:20.829
Right.
413
00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:23.809
Um, which is just insufficient as an explanation for that.
414
00:26:24.210 --> 00:26:27.480
So then you look at, um, The same basic kind
415
00:26:27.509 --> 00:26:32.450
of a principle underlying an approach to justice that's not retributive.
416
00:26:32.690 --> 00:26:35.450
The kind that Andrew's talking about. Yeah, precisely.
417
00:26:35.470 --> 00:26:38.130
And this is the idea that says we don't need
418
00:26:38.170 --> 00:26:43.049
to punish people for doing bad things. We need to
419
00:26:43.210 --> 00:26:48.509
rehabilitate them, find their inner being. sort of psychoanalyze them
420
00:26:48.569 --> 00:26:51.269
and fix what has been broken inside of them. And
421
00:26:51.309 --> 00:26:53.490
then they can just be released back into society and
422
00:26:53.509 --> 00:26:54.549
they're going to be fine.
423
00:26:54.990 --> 00:26:58.190
How long has that rehabilitated justice? How long has that
424
00:26:58.210 --> 00:26:58.670
been a thing?
425
00:26:59.529 --> 00:27:04.650
Perfect segue. Tietzel named it. I think one of the
426
00:27:04.690 --> 00:27:06.930
reasons our society has grown averse to this are for
427
00:27:07.009 --> 00:27:12.220
all the reasons Tietzel just mentioned, but also a therapeutic
428
00:27:13.279 --> 00:27:17.240
aspect to society. And this goes back to an essay
429
00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:20.400
that C.S. Lewis wrote in the 40s or 50s on
430
00:27:20.500 --> 00:27:25.819
I think it was called Against the Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.
431
00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:29.640
And there was a there was a philosophy developing in
432
00:27:29.660 --> 00:27:35.069
the mid 20th century that basically said we can treat
433
00:27:35.710 --> 00:27:41.170
criminality through better psychology and sociology. So if we just
434
00:27:41.579 --> 00:27:46.359
train individuals and we repair them and heal them, they
435
00:27:46.380 --> 00:27:50.019
can be released back into society. And the problem with that,
436
00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:54.759
as Lewis says, is twofold. It fails to reckon with
437
00:27:54.799 --> 00:27:56.099
the depravity of human nature.
438
00:27:56.119 --> 00:27:56.559
Sin and evil.
439
00:27:56.579 --> 00:27:57.660
It does not reckon with it.
440
00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:00.509
There are some individuals who are really just interested in
441
00:28:00.549 --> 00:28:05.450
doing evil. And then secondly, Lewis makes a really provocative argument.
442
00:28:06.210 --> 00:28:10.400
He says that that actually fails to respect the dignity
443
00:28:11.180 --> 00:28:15.819
of the criminal as a morally responsible human being who's
444
00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:18.319
accountable for their own actions. Because you think about what
445
00:28:18.359 --> 00:28:23.900
therapeutism says, it says that you're actually not really fully
446
00:28:24.019 --> 00:28:26.880
at fault for what you did. You're simply the byproduct
447
00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:30.180
of an unjust society. Now, we're not denying that there
448
00:28:30.220 --> 00:28:34.549
can't be social components to how people behave. live their lives.
449
00:28:34.569 --> 00:28:35.190
We can't deny it.
450
00:28:35.210 --> 00:28:38.549
We just talked about how like, like fatherlessness is at
451
00:28:38.609 --> 00:28:40.710
the root of, so like, that's.
452
00:28:40.509 --> 00:28:43.269
A real, that's a real thing. It's a real thing.
453
00:28:43.529 --> 00:28:45.809
Yeah. But you also have to hold out who were
454
00:28:45.869 --> 00:28:47.690
born into a family without a father.
455
00:28:47.930 --> 00:28:49.910
They didn't have a choice. Right. Yeah.
456
00:28:50.369 --> 00:28:52.130
Did you all see the video of the, the little
457
00:28:52.170 --> 00:28:54.619
boy that, the, um, that's been making its way around
458
00:28:54.640 --> 00:28:56.160
the internet in the last couple of days?
459
00:28:56.319 --> 00:28:59.910
Did you see this? I think, uh, recite it.
460
00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:02.559
So there, there was a case three years ago where,
461
00:29:02.950 --> 00:29:05.329
I actually was in Virginia where a six year old
462
00:29:05.369 --> 00:29:08.730
boy stole a gun from his mother, took it to
463
00:29:08.789 --> 00:29:13.910
school and shot his teacher and she survived. But, um,
464
00:29:14.509 --> 00:29:18.430
they just released, uh, the, the body cam footage from
465
00:29:18.450 --> 00:29:21.440
the police officers who responded to this three years after
466
00:29:21.480 --> 00:29:24.319
the fact, cause they'd been sealed. And what it shows
467
00:29:24.559 --> 00:29:27.059
is a six year old boy, literally sitting in the
468
00:29:27.140 --> 00:29:30.259
lap of a teacher and waiting for the police to come,
469
00:29:30.259 --> 00:29:33.779
who is, um, There's no other way to put it.
470
00:29:33.779 --> 00:29:35.539
He is a wild animal.
471
00:29:35.539 --> 00:29:40.130
He he is using language that no child should, should know.
472
00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:44.759
He is, um, threatening his teacher. He's threatening the police.
473
00:29:44.819 --> 00:29:47.900
He's, he's, he's baiting them to fight him even as
474
00:29:47.960 --> 00:29:49.079
he's literally sitting in.
475
00:29:49.059 --> 00:29:53.319
The lap of a lady. Um, it's heartbreaking.
476
00:29:53.339 --> 00:29:53.839
Hmm.
477
00:29:54.200 --> 00:29:57.180
That kid does not stand a chance. He doesn't stand
478
00:29:57.220 --> 00:29:57.539
a chance.
479
00:29:57.619 --> 00:29:59.140
But I think, Andrew, sorry to cut you, I think
480
00:29:59.160 --> 00:30:02.000
this is where you're going, is it can be true
481
00:30:02.740 --> 00:30:08.160
that you're born into circumstances that are awful, sinful, where
482
00:30:08.200 --> 00:30:10.940
you don't have a chance, and that you are still
483
00:30:11.789 --> 00:30:14.569
morally culpable for the decisions that you make.
484
00:30:14.690 --> 00:30:15.700
That's right. You have to be.
485
00:30:15.710 --> 00:30:18.650
Correct. You have to be. And that notion of moral
486
00:30:18.730 --> 00:30:26.660
culpability is paramount in Christian ethics. Because moral responsibility means
487
00:30:26.740 --> 00:30:30.759
that as a part of bearing God's image, it means
488
00:30:30.779 --> 00:30:34.220
you actually have moral capacities to know right from wrong,
489
00:30:34.259 --> 00:30:38.450
which is crucial for our humanity in order to be
490
00:30:39.049 --> 00:30:43.309
understanding ourselves as having violated God's moral law. And so
491
00:30:43.509 --> 00:30:50.890
this push towards therapeutism, I think, actually serves to undermine
492
00:30:50.910 --> 00:30:53.640
the the dignity of those who have done wrong, because
493
00:30:53.660 --> 00:30:56.990
you actually, a part of punishment is in hopes that
494
00:30:57.009 --> 00:31:00.109
the person recognizes that they come to grips with the
495
00:31:00.150 --> 00:31:03.230
nature of what they did actually being wrong.
496
00:31:03.710 --> 00:31:05.650
And you're elevating, like you said, the dignity and the
497
00:31:05.789 --> 00:31:07.609
honor of the one that was sinned against.
498
00:31:07.849 --> 00:31:11.339
Yeah. So let me add one other caveat, and then
499
00:31:11.380 --> 00:31:14.460
maybe we'll talk about why this is wrong, how we
500
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:19.000
do it today. Chuck Colson is a really interesting person
501
00:31:19.019 --> 00:31:22.720
in this conversation because He went to prison because of Watergate.
502
00:31:23.880 --> 00:31:27.319
If there's anyone who could potentially be against prison, it
503
00:31:27.339 --> 00:31:29.690
would be Chuck Colson, a hero to Eric Tietzel and I,
504
00:31:29.740 --> 00:31:33.960
for that matter. And Chuck Colson- Mostly because of his
505
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:40.279
work with Nixon, but that's neither here nor there.
506
00:31:40.319 --> 00:31:40.700
There we go.
507
00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:41.609
Tietzel's gonna Tietzel.
508
00:31:41.619 --> 00:31:45.430
Speaking of moral culpability.
509
00:31:45.849 --> 00:31:51.190
So what did Chuck Colson do in his professional ministry career.
510
00:31:51.470 --> 00:31:55.369
It was to help restore prisoners, but he wasn't trying
511
00:31:55.430 --> 00:31:58.349
to erase or eliminate the wrongdoing of what the prisoners did.
512
00:31:58.369 --> 00:32:01.299
It was for them to own up as a part
513
00:32:01.380 --> 00:32:06.640
of their being reintroduced into society to try to actually
514
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:07.819
make amends with those.
515
00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:08.319
It took ownership.
516
00:32:08.339 --> 00:32:11.000
To make restitution, to take ownership of it. Now, here's
517
00:32:11.019 --> 00:32:14.930
what's really fascinating about Chuck Colson. He was, I'm 95%
518
00:32:14.930 --> 00:32:22.890
confident of this, a strong proponent of capital punishment. And
519
00:32:23.019 --> 00:32:27.099
he wrote an article, oh, sometime in the 90s, where he,
520
00:32:27.460 --> 00:32:28.960
this is going to sound like a little bit of
521
00:32:28.980 --> 00:32:31.579
a stretch, but I actually agree with this. And the
522
00:32:31.619 --> 00:32:35.299
theologian Carl F.H. Henry, I believe, said something similar, where
523
00:32:35.319 --> 00:32:40.450
he argues that societies that have clearer boundaries between right
524
00:32:40.529 --> 00:32:44.589
and wrong, and one of the clearest boundary markers that
525
00:32:44.630 --> 00:32:47.430
demonstrates right and wrong in a society is a society
526
00:32:47.470 --> 00:32:51.289
that's willing to actually take the life of murderers because
527
00:32:51.329 --> 00:32:55.849
it's demonstrating the absolute final straw in what the law
528
00:32:55.890 --> 00:32:59.500
will do to protect life. He says that those societies
529
00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:06.420
that can more accurately name right and wrong as right
530
00:33:06.460 --> 00:33:10.400
and wrong are societies that are actually more open to
531
00:33:10.420 --> 00:33:13.599
the gospel. And the reason he says this is because
532
00:33:14.130 --> 00:33:18.599
The gospel itself relies upon the categories of justice. That
533
00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:23.960
to come to Christ, one must acknowledge their wrongdoing. One
534
00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:28.950
must acknowledge the just desert and punishment that ought to
535
00:33:29.029 --> 00:33:31.509
fall on you, and the fact that it doesn't fall
536
00:33:31.569 --> 00:33:34.650
on you and it falls on Christ. We talk about
537
00:33:34.769 --> 00:33:39.819
penal substitutionary atonement. The word penal substitutionary, the word penal
538
00:33:40.079 --> 00:33:45.680
is punishment. It means something is being poured out in
539
00:33:45.789 --> 00:33:51.609
order to rectify the scales of justice. And so I
540
00:33:51.630 --> 00:33:55.190
think there's a very interesting correlation to be studied here
541
00:33:55.930 --> 00:34:01.299
between those countries that practice capital punishment and those that
542
00:34:01.380 --> 00:34:08.019
have a clearer understanding of just deserts and moral rights
543
00:34:08.059 --> 00:34:08.460
and wrongs.
544
00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:10.360
So Andrew, to that point, and I think this is
545
00:34:10.420 --> 00:34:14.340
a great segue into this question, So how do we
546
00:34:14.380 --> 00:34:20.679
make sense of a nation that has not stopped sentencing
547
00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:23.590
people to the death penalty? I mean, we have not
548
00:34:23.699 --> 00:34:26.250
slowed down our sentencing of people to the death penalty.
549
00:34:26.969 --> 00:34:30.070
What we have stopped and slowed down is the actual
550
00:34:30.309 --> 00:34:34.929
execution of the death penalty. Nowadays, somebody gets sentenced to
551
00:34:36.670 --> 00:34:39.110
the death penalty and they're going to sit on death
552
00:34:39.170 --> 00:34:43.659
row for 30 years. They'll likely die in prison before
553
00:34:43.699 --> 00:34:45.659
they die at the hands of an executioner.
554
00:34:46.429 --> 00:34:49.150
And what is that doing to our society?
555
00:34:49.769 --> 00:34:54.230
So I think this gets into the botched execution last
556
00:34:54.309 --> 00:34:57.530
week is that you're right. People sit on death row
557
00:34:57.570 --> 00:35:01.409
for 20 and 30 years, which there's a way to
558
00:35:01.510 --> 00:35:05.780
argue that that's actually more cruel because you're confining someone
559
00:35:06.090 --> 00:35:10.300
to a life of basic complete dependence upon the state.
560
00:35:11.500 --> 00:35:18.269
Perhaps no recognition of their own culpability for having done wrong.
561
00:35:18.289 --> 00:35:25.260
I think one of the reasons for capital punishment traditionally
562
00:35:25.300 --> 00:35:27.820
has been, if you know the day of your death,
563
00:35:28.579 --> 00:35:31.360
it's going to force you to reckon with the claims
564
00:35:31.400 --> 00:35:39.710
of eternity. And delayed capital punishment delays those conversations. In fact,
565
00:35:39.769 --> 00:35:43.849
I've heard Ed Fazer talk or write about how there
566
00:35:43.929 --> 00:35:48.050
is actually an expression of mercy in capital punishment because
567
00:35:48.070 --> 00:35:52.150
a part of the process is someone being given access
568
00:35:52.329 --> 00:35:55.159
to chaplains or to priests or to pastors for them
569
00:35:55.199 --> 00:35:59.300
to come to grips with their looming mortality in the situation.
570
00:35:59.900 --> 00:36:05.619
And so what is, I think, ridiculous is to force
571
00:36:05.639 --> 00:36:09.489
people to languish for 30 years, to gum up the
572
00:36:09.530 --> 00:36:13.730
appeals process, for lawyers to do what lawyers do their
573
00:36:13.769 --> 00:36:14.690
best and worst at.
574
00:36:15.110 --> 00:36:17.389
And is that the primary issue? Is it primarily the
575
00:36:17.449 --> 00:36:20.739
legal system? Is it primarily the appeals? And that's what
576
00:36:20.800 --> 00:36:21.780
is the holdup, right?
577
00:36:21.800 --> 00:36:26.000
That's my understanding. Okay. So then this gets into my
578
00:36:26.039 --> 00:36:28.760
biggest complaint right now. And we saw it last Wednesday
579
00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:29.820
night in Tennessee.
580
00:36:30.219 --> 00:36:30.599
That means?
581
00:36:31.480 --> 00:36:34.260
How we practice it. And how we practice it today
582
00:36:35.030 --> 00:36:37.769
is we try to rob the public conscience of what
583
00:36:37.829 --> 00:36:40.909
is really going on. Because we treat it like an
584
00:36:41.010 --> 00:36:45.989
outpatient procedure. There are gurneys, there's white sheets, there's IVs,
585
00:36:46.849 --> 00:36:53.210
and basically we're ostensibly anesthetizing someone, and they just don't
586
00:36:53.250 --> 00:36:59.300
wake up from the anesthesia. I understand from an Eighth
587
00:36:59.340 --> 00:37:03.739
Amendment cruel and unusual punishment perspective that the state is
588
00:37:03.780 --> 00:37:07.440
trying to find the least barbaric ways possible to kill people,
589
00:37:08.380 --> 00:37:11.170
but Like there's a very good argument to be made
590
00:37:11.750 --> 00:37:15.989
that lethal injection can be in its own way, cruel
591
00:37:16.050 --> 00:37:18.699
and unusual punishment. And we just saw it Wednesday night
592
00:37:18.760 --> 00:37:22.460
in Tennessee, which means we need to develop more efficient
593
00:37:22.500 --> 00:37:25.719
ways to do this system, which means going back to
594
00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:28.000
how it used to be practiced, which is with firing
595
00:37:28.059 --> 00:37:32.760
squads and hangings, which are very efficient and very effective
596
00:37:32.900 --> 00:37:36.750
and stop sanitizing this as a medical procedure because it
597
00:37:36.809 --> 00:37:41.929
actually robs people the public good of the natural deterrence
598
00:37:42.289 --> 00:37:46.710
that is capital punishment. Do we know like what happened
599
00:37:47.360 --> 00:37:50.619
in Tennessee? Yeah. She was given two doses of Pinot
600
00:37:50.659 --> 00:37:55.019
Barbitol and it didn't stop her heart and it caused
601
00:37:55.059 --> 00:37:59.019
her arm to like start to burn. And she just never,
602
00:37:59.739 --> 00:38:02.659
the medicine was not effective at stopping the heart. And
603
00:38:02.679 --> 00:38:07.019
so they had to– Was it not the right dose? Yeah,
604
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:11.079
I'm not sure. They're still studying. They're putting together a
605
00:38:11.079 --> 00:38:12.780
review board to discuss what happened.
606
00:38:13.619 --> 00:38:17.480
I understand that there's some debate like because European countries
607
00:38:17.639 --> 00:38:20.400
don't like that America does this, I think there's been
608
00:38:20.440 --> 00:38:25.960
an issue in actually acquiring the drug. Do we know
609
00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:27.480
if that was at all related to this?
610
00:38:28.030 --> 00:38:28.409
To this?
611
00:38:28.590 --> 00:38:30.289
I don't know if it was related, but I think
612
00:38:30.329 --> 00:38:32.690
it is related to the point that Andrew's making, which
613
00:38:32.769 --> 00:38:34.630
is like, why are we doing it this way? What
614
00:38:34.690 --> 00:38:38.250
is the, the idea is we're trying to soften what
615
00:38:38.289 --> 00:38:40.260
it is. And so here's the thing. This is, I
616
00:38:40.449 --> 00:38:42.380
had somebody asked me this and then Andrew, you wrote
617
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:45.039
your article and I was like, well, Holy smokes. Um,
618
00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:49.400
it does help me think through it more clearly. Um, I,
619
00:38:49.840 --> 00:38:51.679
somebody asked me my thoughts on it and I was like,
620
00:38:51.780 --> 00:38:54.250
I think the reason we do injection is we're, we're
621
00:38:54.269 --> 00:38:57.179
trying to uphold even in death. We're trying to uphold
622
00:38:57.260 --> 00:39:01.630
their dignity rather than doing it in these more maybe
623
00:39:01.670 --> 00:39:07.150
grotesque ways of guillotines, firing squads. I mean that's– it's
624
00:39:07.190 --> 00:39:08.369
pretty grotesque.
625
00:39:08.429 --> 00:39:09.829
It's pretty– but.
626
00:39:09.750 --> 00:39:13.030
You made the point. That masks what's going on. It's
627
00:39:13.050 --> 00:39:13.590
the state taking flight.
628
00:39:13.610 --> 00:39:15.739
Yeah, why are we hiding it? Why are we sanitizing it?
629
00:39:15.769 --> 00:39:17.630
Why are we making it less than what it is?
630
00:39:18.510 --> 00:39:21.760
I'm not saying that we glory in bloodlust.
631
00:39:22.119 --> 00:39:22.280
No.
632
00:39:22.300 --> 00:39:25.920
But I'm saying it is visceral, and we should be shocked.
633
00:39:26.360 --> 00:39:28.849
by the state taking life. It should not be clinical
634
00:39:28.929 --> 00:39:32.030
and sanitized and may to look like an outpatient procedure.
635
00:39:32.179 --> 00:39:33.929
Yeah, we're trying to do it almost in a whisper
636
00:39:34.420 --> 00:39:36.420
as if we're embarrassed by it. That's kind of what
637
00:39:36.440 --> 00:39:37.079
it feels like.
638
00:39:38.500 --> 00:39:41.960
Which, you know, as we were getting ready to record
639
00:39:41.980 --> 00:39:47.579
this podcast, news has been breaking that the Army has
640
00:39:47.659 --> 00:39:50.320
announced that that it's going to, for the first time
641
00:39:50.380 --> 00:39:55.840
since 1945, I believe, it's going to execute a soldier,
642
00:39:56.360 --> 00:39:58.059
is it Nadal Hassan?
643
00:39:58.219 --> 00:39:59.239
The Fort Hood shooting guy.
644
00:39:59.320 --> 00:40:03.860
He's a Muslim terrorist who killed a bunch of soldiers
645
00:40:04.099 --> 00:40:06.960
in 2009, which he's been now languishing on death row,
646
00:40:07.079 --> 00:40:09.019
paralyzed for almost 20 years.
647
00:40:09.280 --> 00:40:09.679
Crazy.
648
00:40:09.880 --> 00:40:15.920
And Secretary Hegseth announced that he's going to die by
649
00:40:16.019 --> 00:40:21.679
firing squad. on December 3rd this year, and this is unconfirmed,
650
00:40:22.219 --> 00:40:25.300
but I was seeing reports that it may be live streamed.
651
00:40:26.260 --> 00:40:29.159
And here's the thing. Here's the thing. We all think, oh,
652
00:40:29.219 --> 00:40:31.929
that's completely barbaric and that's horrible.
653
00:40:32.260 --> 00:40:35.070
Public square hangings.
654
00:40:35.309 --> 00:40:40.570
For millennia, executions were public. And why? Because it was
655
00:40:40.630 --> 00:40:44.170
a moment of public justice to serve the public good.
656
00:40:44.849 --> 00:40:47.659
I actually live, I live here in Kentucky and Kentucky
657
00:40:47.699 --> 00:40:51.699
is actually famous for the last public execution in the
658
00:40:51.739 --> 00:40:57.519
United States. That sounds happened, happened and happened in Owensboro, Kentucky,
659
00:40:57.679 --> 00:41:01.960
I believe in the 1920s. So, so I'm always a
660
00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:06.579
big believer. I don't, I don't defer to history, you know,
661
00:41:06.679 --> 00:41:10.280
for everything, but it's worth asking the question if, if
662
00:41:10.360 --> 00:41:15.010
history and millennia have practiced something, Is there something worth
663
00:41:15.090 --> 00:41:19.449
listening to and learning from what history has said should
664
00:41:19.489 --> 00:41:21.199
be done in the interest of public justice?
665
00:41:21.639 --> 00:41:25.880
I think this is where the amount of time it
666
00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:29.659
takes to adjudicate all of this becomes a problem. Because
667
00:41:29.679 --> 00:41:36.679
the Fort Hood shooting two decades ago, and now the
668
00:41:36.739 --> 00:41:39.800
public is supposed to watch this and feel a sense
669
00:41:39.900 --> 00:41:42.239
that justice has been enacted.
670
00:41:42.260 --> 00:41:43.320
That's a great point.
671
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:48.099
There's gotta be a better balance between ensuring that due
672
00:41:48.139 --> 00:41:50.380
process is done, that we're not acting out of a
673
00:41:50.440 --> 00:41:55.539
sense of vigilantism, out of a sense of revenge, right?
674
00:41:55.579 --> 00:41:59.619
The furor of a mob is not justice, but there
675
00:41:59.679 --> 00:42:04.349
is a huge gap between a sufficient due process legal
676
00:42:04.670 --> 00:42:07.409
process that shows that this is not being done out
677
00:42:07.789 --> 00:42:11.530
of pure raw emotion, especially with regard to violent crime.
678
00:42:12.070 --> 00:42:14.989
And 20 years later, where you kind of cease to
679
00:42:15.150 --> 00:42:18.090
feel a sense of justice being done, right?
680
00:42:18.429 --> 00:42:22.670
Hasn't it dissipated? It's 20 years of delayed justice for
681
00:42:22.690 --> 00:42:25.550
the families of the victims. Exactly. That's right. What about
682
00:42:25.590 --> 00:42:28.889
the injustice done to them? Now, this raises the question
683
00:42:28.929 --> 00:42:29.760
of what should be done.
684
00:42:29.820 --> 00:42:32.239
Hey, real quick, Andrew. Our producer, John, put in the
685
00:42:32.340 --> 00:42:35.559
notes about the Owensboro, Kentucky. It was August 14th, 1936.
686
00:42:35.539 --> 00:42:40.599
Rainy Bethia was publicly hanged before a crowd of 20,000 people.
687
00:42:43.869 --> 00:42:46.449
Yeah. Okay, so this raises the question, like, what should
688
00:42:46.489 --> 00:42:50.110
be done? And so, if you know me, you know
689
00:42:50.170 --> 00:42:52.590
that in almost every ethics class I teach, I bring
690
00:42:52.630 --> 00:42:53.690
up the Nuremberg Trials.
691
00:42:54.170 --> 00:42:54.469
Yeah.
692
00:42:55.409 --> 00:42:59.929
In November of 1945, we're still in the 80th kind
693
00:42:59.969 --> 00:43:02.880
of year in the aftermath of that. And I think
694
00:43:02.889 --> 00:43:03.599
of the Nuremberg Trials.
695
00:43:03.619 --> 00:43:05.320
Trial and swift justice.
696
00:43:05.880 --> 00:43:12.280
So, exactly. So, they did a court of law due process.
697
00:43:13.349 --> 00:43:17.309
They presented their evidence. They ruled. They gave a conviction.
698
00:43:18.269 --> 00:43:21.829
And I want to say within 24 to 36 hours,
699
00:43:22.389 --> 00:43:26.860
they took the convicted criminals to the gallows and hanged them.
700
00:43:27.699 --> 00:43:30.619
And that's what ought to be done in these types
701
00:43:30.639 --> 00:43:33.559
of situations. And now here's something that's very relevant to
702
00:43:33.579 --> 00:43:38.239
this conversation. So I'm here in Kentucky on September 28th,
703
00:43:38.699 --> 00:43:41.980
so like a week and a half ago. We had
704
00:43:42.099 --> 00:43:49.980
a 28-year-old Kentucky State Trooper, Officer Hayden Phillips. If you're
705
00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.650
listening to the podcast, you should go and Google Hayden Phillips,
706
00:43:54.670 --> 00:44:01.050
28-year-old Christian husband and father to three young kids. He's
707
00:44:01.090 --> 00:44:04.010
a police officer who was killed. I'm sorry, he was
708
00:44:04.150 --> 00:44:09.420
murdered here in Kentucky by a lifetime criminal on I-65.
709
00:44:10.989 --> 00:44:16.280
He pulls someone over for a random traffic stop. The
710
00:44:16.360 --> 00:44:20.059
individual in the car pulls a gun and shoots this
711
00:44:20.079 --> 00:44:28.349
28-year-old young husband and father who's a Christian. So the accused,
712
00:44:29.650 --> 00:44:33.309
there's body cam footage. I mean, it's beyond a reasonable
713
00:44:33.349 --> 00:44:37.429
doubt that this is the individual who did it. As
714
00:44:37.780 --> 00:44:40.980
we've been hearing here in Kentucky in the news, The
715
00:44:41.079 --> 00:44:48.019
accused has a rap sheet that's very, very long. Lifetime criminal.
716
00:44:48.599 --> 00:44:54.159
The dude's 51 years old. We have a moratorium on
717
00:44:54.820 --> 00:44:58.679
capital punishment here in Kentucky. He's going to probably be convicted.
718
00:44:59.219 --> 00:45:01.889
He'll probably get the death penalty. He's going to sit
719
00:45:01.949 --> 00:45:04.750
and languish on death row for 30 or 40 years.
720
00:45:04.769 --> 00:45:09.340
And It's ridiculous.
721
00:45:09.639 --> 00:45:11.179
He's going to die of old age in a prison.
722
00:45:11.300 --> 00:45:14.380
Ideally, ideally, he would be convicted in a court of
723
00:45:14.420 --> 00:45:17.360
law by a jury of his peers. And then within
724
00:45:17.360 --> 00:45:20.630
48 hours, he would be justly executed. And that's not
725
00:45:20.690 --> 00:45:21.849
going to happen in this situation.
726
00:45:22.269 --> 00:45:22.449
Yeah.
727
00:45:23.750 --> 00:45:25.590
Well, I think this is a conversation that, by the way,
728
00:45:25.630 --> 00:45:27.250
this has been a fantastic conversation.
729
00:45:27.349 --> 00:45:30.010
Just thinking through this, it's not an easy thing. There
730
00:45:30.170 --> 00:45:31.369
are nuances.
731
00:45:31.489 --> 00:45:35.469
There are circumstances that require lots of conversation. The means
732
00:45:35.550 --> 00:45:39.670
by which these things happen, the speed. To what degree
733
00:45:39.710 --> 00:45:42.340
does a criminal who's convicted have a right to appeals?
734
00:45:42.420 --> 00:45:45.159
But at what point does it become a stall tactic,
735
00:45:45.280 --> 00:45:47.619
a burden on the state, a burden on the taxpayer?
736
00:45:48.059 --> 00:45:51.639
Those are all really legitimate questions in this. And so
737
00:45:51.900 --> 00:45:54.420
I think we'll continue to follow this case. Obviously, if
738
00:45:54.460 --> 00:45:56.889
the Fort Hood thing is happening in December, that will
739
00:45:56.909 --> 00:45:58.429
be in the news. There'll be a lot to be
740
00:45:58.469 --> 00:46:01.789
said about that. I appreciate you guys both kind of
741
00:46:01.809 --> 00:46:04.489
weighing in on these things. There's a lot of other
742
00:46:04.530 --> 00:46:06.070
things in the news we just don't have time to
743
00:46:06.110 --> 00:46:09.630
get to today. You had the Mamdami comment on X
744
00:46:09.650 --> 00:46:16.030
where he basically put a juke on the October 7th memorial.
745
00:46:16.469 --> 00:46:19.190
He essentially was like, yeah, it's sad to see the
746
00:46:19.230 --> 00:46:23.010
Jews get killed there on October 7th. Too bad they're
747
00:46:23.250 --> 00:46:26.250
participating in genocide in Palestine.
748
00:46:26.530 --> 00:46:32.139
It was like, whoa, that was a gotcha. So many things.
749
00:46:32.159 --> 00:46:34.360
You got this Cornell story. happening.
750
00:46:34.699 --> 00:46:37.360
Anything that's been catching y'all's eye related to that? We
751
00:46:37.400 --> 00:46:39.159
won't go into a typical what caught my eye, but
752
00:46:39.579 --> 00:46:41.679
any comments on some of these latest things that are
753
00:46:41.719 --> 00:46:42.420
in the news right now?
754
00:46:43.519 --> 00:46:48.050
Again, this is still active and ongoing, but it seems
755
00:46:48.280 --> 00:46:54.090
that the more details come out in this situation, it's
756
00:46:54.469 --> 00:47:00.010
fraught with a lot of moral gray. This is not
757
00:47:01.269 --> 00:47:05.130
the typical Me Too narrative that I think is kind
758
00:47:05.170 --> 00:47:08.389
of sold in. And listen, we're going to withhold judgment.
759
00:47:08.610 --> 00:47:11.710
There needs to be due process in this situation. But
760
00:47:11.750 --> 00:47:16.130
as details unfold, as text messages and group chats are
761
00:47:16.329 --> 00:47:21.210
getting exposed, this is a dubious situation. It's horrific on
762
00:47:21.269 --> 00:47:27.639
all sides. And one of the lessons here is teaching
763
00:47:27.679 --> 00:47:32.340
the virtue of sexual chastity. Bingo. And a biblical sexual ethic.
764
00:47:32.969 --> 00:47:36.449
That you're never putting yourself in these situations to begin with,
765
00:47:36.869 --> 00:47:40.260
that you're protecting yourself, you're protecting your dignity, you're protecting
766
00:47:40.340 --> 00:47:43.599
your soul, and you're protecting others from ever being put
767
00:47:43.619 --> 00:47:47.900
in situations where they're going to jeopardize themselves or yourself
768
00:47:48.039 --> 00:47:50.400
for that matter. It's a great point. It's a great point.
769
00:47:51.159 --> 00:47:52.559
Well, thanks everybody for listening.
770
00:47:52.619 --> 00:47:56.510
We appreciate you subscribing to the podcast and sharing.
771
00:47:56.230 --> 00:47:56.750
It with others.
772
00:47:57.130 --> 00:47:59.829
We would love for you to leave a review. Let
773
00:47:59.889 --> 00:48:02.860
us know your thoughts on the show. Join the bully
774
00:48:02.889 --> 00:48:06.820
circle and be a part of ongoing conversations. And remember always,
775
00:48:07.300 --> 00:48:09.960
if member angels, no podcast would be necessary.
776
00:48:10.929 --> 00:48:11.429
We love you, Dean.