Rhetoric of Fear The Death of the California Dream Health Care in Perspective The Discipline Leave No Child Behind No Daddy, No! Unconditional Equal Justice under the Law Thank God I Am Not A Woman Infallible "Don't ask, don't tell" Thou Shalt Not Kill Irreconcilable Differences My Will Positive Reinforcement Changing My Name After Sixty Years Copyright © 2000-2009 Thomas E. Rosenberg. All right reserved. Essays may be reproduced with written permission. tomr@inaword.org

The elimination of negative words brings clarity to speech Thou Shalt Not Kill On May 4 the State of California took the life of a mentally ill man. Governor Gray Davis is making good on his pledge to uphold capital punishment The Bible tells us that some 3,000 years ago, God passed on to Moses the commandments that became the ethical doctrine that guides our lives. If a test of a law is whether it works, I often wonder why God passed on a set of laws sure to fail. Consider the Sixth Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Kill. The commandment has failed to stop wars, or people killing themselves through passion. Indeed, there appear to be as many references in the Bible supporting the taking of a life as prohibiting it. The Old Testament imposed restrictions that made imposing capital punishment very difficult. The execution of Manny Babbit failed four of these restrictions. It failed the test of premeditation. The murder was committed in the course of a senseless robbery. Babbit was a traumatized combat veteran of the Viet Nam war. This crime failed the test of whether the defendant knew what he was doing. His mental state was glossed over in the penalty phase of the trial. Two jurors filed affidavits stating that they would have opposed capital punishment had they known Babbit was mentally ill. Capital punishment, under the guidelines established in the Old Testament, should only be imposed after a fair trial. Two former employees of the attorney assigned to represent Babbit have filed affidavits saying the attorney drank excessively during the trial. To impose the death sentence, early Jewish law said that a killer had to know the nature of his act and the proscribed punishment, had previous hatred for his victim, must have used a deadly weapon and lain in wait. Two reliable witnesses had to witness the murder. A state execution qualifies on all counts. The Old Testament says that an execution should be the last resort. Manny Babbit should have been hospitalized rather than put to death. In the aftermath of the tragedy at Littleton, as the nation engages in a massive debate over violence in our society, our Governor panders to those fearing of crime and the base instinct for retribution. By the senseless taking of a life, the state cheapens life. Honoring the sanctity of life seems implicit in the Sixth Commandment. 5/4/1999