Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Perry on the death penalty

By Rob Vischer

Should we be concerned by this exchange about the death penalty from last night's debate?  Should we be troubled that a GOP front-runner for President has never even struggled "at all" with the possibility that one of the 234 human beings whose executions he has presided over may have been innocent?  More significantly, should we be troubled by a political climate in which the mere mention of those 234 executions draws cheers from the crowd? 

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/09/perry-on-the-death-penalty.html

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Yes, we should be concerned. I think the principles John Paul II laid out in Evangelium Vitae are sound—execution only if necessary to protect society, and in countries with modern penal systems, such executions would be exceedingly rare if not practically nonexistent. I don't think it is necessary to be a Catholic to accept his position. This does not rule out executions altogether, but I don't see any way to argue that each and every one of the 234 persons for whom Perry signed death warrants was so dangerous that life in prison was not sufficient to protect society. I believe Perry commuted one death sentence, and George Bush signed every one of the 152 death warrants put before him.