Religion and capital punishment

[8][clarification needed] This is likely due to the belief in Ahimsa, or non-violence, which became very apparent during Gandhi's time[9] and was supported by India's ancient Buddhist emperor Ashoka, who is the only leader in the country's history to openly oppose the death penalty.

To dissuade others from comminiting such a crime again, Abdu’l-Bahá, a prominent religious figure in the Baha’i religion, conceded that society has a right of capital punishment if only for the ability to show others of its consequences and not for individual revenge.

For this reason, rulers do not necessarily have to worry about being punished by God for not following them, and some leaders may choose to simply ignore these guidelines when trying to run a country.

[18][19][20] The Catholic Church generally moved away from explicit condoning or support of capital punishment and has adopted a more disapproving stance on the issue, especially by the mid-20th century.

[18][19] Historically and traditionally, however, the Church has at certain times (and often cautiously) condoned and classified capital punishment as a form of "lawful slaying", a view which was defended by theological authorities such as Thomas Aquinas.

[21][22] The 1566 Roman Catechism states this teaching thus: Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent.

Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which are the legitimate avengers of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence.

[27]However, in 2004, Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) suggested that the assessment of the contemporary situation advanced by John Paul II was not necessarily binding on the faithful, arguing that: If a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father (i.e., the Pope) on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion.

[33]Some Catholic writers, such as the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin of Chicago, have argued against the use of the death penalty in modern times by drawing on a stance labelled the "consistent life ethic."

"[34] Other Catholic writers, such as Joseph Sobran and Matt Abbott, have criticised this approach, contending that it minimises the issue of abortion by placing it on the same level as the death penalty – the latter of which the Church does not consider intrinsically immoral.

Francis argued that the death penalty is no longer justified by a society's need to defend itself and has lost all legitimacy due to the possibility of judicial error.

He further stated that capital punishment is an offense "against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person, which contradicts God's plan for man and society" and "does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance.

Furthermore, capital punishment is a frequent practice to which totalitarian regimes and fanatical groups resort, for the extermination of political dissidents, minorities, and every individual labelled as “dangerous” or who might be perceived as a threat to their power or to the attainment of their objectives.

"[32] The Archbishop stated: Considering the practical circumstances found in most States ... it appears evident nowadays that means other than the death penalty 'are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons [...] We should take into account that no clear positive effect of deterrence results from the application of the death penalty and that the irreversibility of this punishment does not allow for eventual corrections in the case of wrongful convictions.

At the United Methodist General Council, church leaders released a statement saying, "We stand for the application of the redemptive principle to the treatment of offenders against the law, to reform of penal and correctional methods, and to criminal court procedures.

Long experience in rendering service within the criminal justice systems of many lands, and in ministering to both offenders and victims, and to their respective families, has confirmed the Army's belief in the possibility of forgiveness and redemption for all through repentance toward God, faith in Jesus Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

[47] Early in the Protestant Reformation, several of its key leaders, including Martin Luther and John Calvin, followed the traditional reasoning in favour of capital punishment, and the Lutheran Church's Augsburg Confession explicitly defended it.

In both sermons, Christ tells his followers to turn the other cheek and to love their enemies, which these groups believe mandates nonviolence, including opposition to the death penalty.

The doctrine has no relation as to the reason why, until recently, Utah gave convicts sentenced to death a choice to be executed by firing squad rather than other methods such as lethal injection.

[49] This issue received significant public attention when Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was convicted of robbery, murder, and escaping from jail, chose to die by firing squad, citing the blood atonement as the reason for his decision.

According to the Quran, the death penalty is recognized as a necessary form of punishment for some "Hudud" crimes in Islam, because it is believed that these acts go directly against the word of Allah and are seen as a threat to society.

[52] However, in pre-modern Islam, capital punishments for these crimes were rarely enforced because the evidentiary standards were so high as to make convictions more difficult to obtain.

[57] In a controversial case, an Iranian woman named Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged in Tehran in October 2014 for the murder of a man who she claimed attempted to rape her.

The Mishnah states: Rabbinic tradition describes a detailed system of checks and balances which exists in order to prevent the execution of an innocent person.

The law requires that: The 12th-century Jewish legal scholar Maimonides famously stated that "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.

"[64] Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice."

In Conservative Judaism the death penalty was the subject of a responsum by its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards: Reform Judaism has formally opposed the death penalty since 1959, when the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union for Reform Judaism) resolved “that in the light of modern scientific knowledge and concepts of humanity, the resort to or continuation of capital punishment either by a state or by the national government is no longer morally justifiable.” The resolution goes on to say that the death penalty “lies as a stain upon civilization and our religious conscience.” In 1979, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the professional arm of the Reform rabbinate, resolved that, “both in concept and in practice, Jewish tradition found capital punishment repugnant” and there is no persuasive evidence “that capital punishment serves as a deterrent to crime.” [69] Even though Hinduism has historically not taken a stance on the death penalty and it has little influence on the Indian governments opinion of it,[3] India (an 80% Hindu nation)[7] has the lowest rate of execution of any other country.

[3] Hinduism preaches ahimsa (or ahinsa, non-violence),[9] but also teaches that the soul cannot be killed and death is limited only to the physical body,[70] explaining the difficulty in choosing an exact position on capital punishment.

Many people who oppose the death penalty go back to the beliefs of their enlightened ancestors who preached non-violence and that we should respect human rights and the gift of life.

"[8] In 1980, the Indian Supreme Court made it very clear that it does not take capital punishment lightly and as a result of Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab ruled that the death penalty should only be utilized in the "rarest of rare cases.