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On Might 13, the New York Instances published a narrative about discrimination in jury choice in loss of life instances that was stunning, however not stunning. The story recounted longstanding efforts by prosecutors in Alameda County, California, to prevent individuals from serving as jurors in loss of life penalty instances primarily based on their race, gender, and faith.
Final month, a federal choose ordered an inquiry into these allegations. Because the Instances explains, “The inquiry, which can contain as many as 35 instances from way back to 1977, is simply getting underway. However the district legal professional’s workplace says it has already discovered proof that the discriminatory follow was widespread for many years and concerned quite a few prosecutors.”
The Instances article highlighted and paid specific consideration to the systematic exclusion of Jewish individuals from loss of life penalty juries.
Proof from Alameda County suggests that in jury choice in a single Nineties case, the prosecution left handwritten notes about prospective jurors—together with whether or not they have been Jewish. One observe stated, “I appreciated him higher than another Jew, however no approach. Should kick.”
One other referred to as a potential juror, “Banker. Jew?” It continued, “Good man—considerate however by no means a powerful DP chief—Jewish background.”
As well as, the Instances experiences that in 2005, “John R. Quatman, a former prosecutor within the district legal professional’s workplace, gave a sworn declaration that ‘it was normal follow to exclude Jewish jurors in loss of life instances.’”
An Alameda County trial choose suggested Quatman “to be sure that no Jewish jurors have been chosen. ‘He stated I couldn’t have a Jew on the jury and requested me if I used to be conscious that when Adolf Eichmann was apprehended after World Warfare II, there was a significant controversy in Israel over whether or not he ought to be executed….’ Mr. Quatman added that the choose stated, ‘no Jew would vote to ship a defendant to the fuel chamber.’”
That form of stereotyping and prejudice has no place in America’s justice system, not to mention in instances involving capital punishment. However is it true that “no Jew” would vote for a loss of life sentence?
Let’s think about the proof.
A take a look at the Previous Testomony and the Torah, the compilation of the primary 5 books of the Hebrew Bible, would not support the conclusion that Jews should oppose the loss of life penalty. Certainly, the Previous Testomony mentions 36 different capital crimes.
The Torah prescribes loss of life as a punishment for offenses, together with things like “violating the Sabbath, worshiping idols and cursing God; sexual sins, together with incest, adultery, anal intercourse between males and bestiality; and numerous prison acts, together with homicide, kidnapping and giving false testimony in a capital case.”
It calls for “loss of life by stoning within the case of a ‘wayward son’ who doesn’t heed his mother and father’ self-discipline.”
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 says:
If a person have a cussed and rebellious son, which is not going to obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mom, and that, after they have chastened him, is not going to hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mom lay maintain on him, and produce him out unto the elders of his metropolis, and unto the gate of his place; They usually shall say unto the elders of his metropolis, This our son is cussed and rebellious, he is not going to obey our voice; he’s a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the boys of his metropolis shall stone with him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from amongst you; and all Israel shall hear, and concern.
As to strategies of execution mandated in the Bible and Torah, stoning is the most typical. However burning, decapitation, and strangulation are additionally allowed notably for extreme offenses.
Nevertheless, Jewish “law-in-action” was fairly totally different.
As former federal district choose Jack B. Weinstein as soon as explained, “The biblical capital penalty was so hedged with procedural restrictions that execution, because the Jewish legislation developed, grew to become subsequent to unattainable.”
Weinstein says that historic rabbis labeled executions “murderous.” “Limitation on capital punishment,” Weinstein continues, “was achieved by meticulous software of guidelines governing admissibility and sufficiency of proof.”
For instance, rabbis deciphering the Torah said that capital instances “required a 23-judge courtroom, whereas solely three judges sat for non-capital instances…. Two or extra eyewitnesses have been required to testify to the defendant’s guilt, making an allowance for that it was their palms that may, be the primary in opposition to him to place him to loss of life…. In a capital case, a one-vote majority may acquit a defendant, however may not convict. Moreover, if there was a mere one-vote majority or if any choose was undecided, extra judges have been added in pairs till the bulk dominated in opposition to conviction, or till one choose in favor of conviction was persuaded to err on the aspect of innocence….”
Even the place capital punishment survived such hurdles, historic rabbis insisted “that loss of life be fast, comparatively painless and never mutilating.”
And due to their historical past, Jews would appear to have a particular purpose to be cautious of capital punishment. As Choose Weinstein observes, “Jews have been “burned on the stake by Catholics, hacked to loss of life by the Cossacks and gassed by the Nazis.”
On this nation, the Central Convention of American Rabbis and the Union of Reform Judaism came out against the death penalty in 1959. Twenty years later, the Central Convention said that “each in idea and in follow, Jewish custom discovered capital punishment repugnant,” and there’s no persuasive proof “that capital punishment serves as a deterrent to crime.”
Public opinion surveys have documented division amongst American Jews of their views in regards to the loss of life penalty. One examine performed a decade in the past found that 33% of Jewish respondents favored the loss of life penalty, whereas 58% favored a life sentence with out the potential of parole (LWOP) for individuals convicted of homicide.
Jewish assist for capital punishment was decrease than amongst another non secular group apart from Black Protestants, Hispanic Protestants, and Hispanic Catholics.
In 2016, a Gallup Ballot discovered Jews to be less supportive of capital punishment than Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, or individuals with no non secular affiliation, though 54% nonetheless believed it to be “morally acceptable.”
Right now Jewish individuals continue to argue in regards to the compatibility of capital punishment and Jewish values, with some Jews even opposing it after the 2018 mass homicide on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
However no matter their variations, Jewish individuals and different Individuals ought to have the ability to agree on two issues. First, what occurred in Alameda County is typical of the prejudices that course by way of America’s loss of life penalty system.
And second, it’s simply one other instance of why ending capital punishment is lengthy overdue.
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