Sir, - On May 16th Timothy McVeigh, bomber and mass murderer, will be executed by lethal injection. The full procedure will be shown on American television. This has given rise to many questions, such as: "Why would anyone want to watch someone being put to death?" It has also given rise to the ultimate question, to wit: "Can capital punishment ever be justified in a Christian country as it is not a deterrent and serves no purpose whatever?" My answer to that is a very positive "Yes". It most certainly is a deterrent.
There is nothing unchristian about capital punishment because without it Christianity would not exist. It is an undeniable fact that Christ was a victim of it, and had this not been so he would not have had the opportunity to rise from the dead, which is what Christianity is all about. Consider what the situation would have been with regard to Christianity had the Romans sentenced him to life imprisonment instead. It would not have come into existence.
Furthermore, Christ allowed the "good thief" and the "bad thief" to be executed, also at a time when Caesar claimed the right to capital punishment. Christ said: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," and where a paedophile was concerned he said: "Better that a millstone be tied around his neck and he be dropped in the depths of the ocean." In effect, capital punishment by drowning.
The death penalty was dispensed with in the UK in 1963. During the next 30 years 124 people were murdered by men sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and then released after eight to ten years to murder again, some not just for the second but for the third time. Had they been executed, 124 people would have lived out their normal life spans. This seems like an excellent deterrent and purpose to me. I rest my case. - Yours, etc.,
W.G.A. Scott, Friars Hill, Wicklow.