Bishop backs death penalty: CEN 2.01.08 p 8. February 2, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Crime.trackback
The Bishop of Trinidad and Tobago has affirmed the government’s right to reinstitute the death penalty in that Caribbean country, but has urged it to consider other means of deterring crime.”
Life imprisonment is an option,” the Rt. Rev. Calvin Bess said, as “one of the major Christian pillars is the redemption of man.” No one was “beyond redemption” he argued, and “we cannot lose hope.”
Last week the Prime Minister of Trinidad Patrick Manning said the government would reintroduce hanging for those convicted of murder and treason. Trinidad and Tobago’s last execution was in 1999 when nine men were hanged for murder.
Of the 78 prisoners on death row, 15 have exhausted their appeal rights and can be executed. However, the government has commuted the death sentences of a number of prisoners in response to a 1994 Privy Council decision that set a five-year limit for execution from the time sentence was imposed.
In the case of Pratt & Morgan v. Jamaica, the Privy Council also ruled that the mandatory application of the death penalty was an abuse of law. However, an appeal by the governments of Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago led the Privy Council to reverse itself and permit mandatory death sentences.
Bishop Bess said the Church in the West Indies had not taken a formal position on the death penalty. The Church’s debates focused on fighting crime, rather than debating the morality of capital punishment, he told a Port of Spain newspaper.
Bishop Bess noted the Church’s formularies as well as Scripture gave a warrant for the state to execute criminals, he said, noting “I would have to argue that what I see in the New Testament suggests capital punishment is” permissible.
“When Jesus hung on his cross, there were two people executed with him, one on each side. And one of them realised his erring ways and asked for forgiveness. He was pardoned by Jesus of the crimes he had done but he was not spared the penalty,” he said.
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