2266
The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.
2267
Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."
In a country like America there is hardly a need for the death penalty. Crime rates in America have not actually gone up with the decreased use of the death penalty (from any statistics I've heard). But I have very particular views on when it should be used:
1st: The death penalty may be necessary for more murder cases in third world countries, where prisons may be less of a viable option.
2nd: In a country like America, with secure prisons, the death penalty still must be kept as an option for severe (and murderous) crimes against our justice system itself, or for people who are dangerous even while in prison. By this I mean the murder of witnesses, jurors, judges, or police officers involved in your case should result in the death penalty. Also, leaders of criminal or terrorist organizations may be too dangerous to hold, because their followers may commit crimes in order to seek their leader's release.
3rd: Reserving the death penalty for the murders most harmful to our justice system may help serve as a deterrent for those who are facing a life sentence and might otherwise feel they have nothing left to lose.
4th: the death penalty should be reserved for cases where a person is convicted not just because there is no reasonable doubt, but only when guilt is abundantly clear. I have heard too many disturbing cases of (mostly Southern) prosecutors who cared more about convictions than about guilt, and callously sent men they believed to be innocent to prison.
For these reasons(and possibly others), I believe the death penalty needs to be kept on the table, but that it needs to be used rarely.
It's also important to note that this is considered a "life issue," so I want to quickly add that the Church sees legitimate uses of the death penalty as possible, but does not approve of any case of abortion. The killing of a criminal and an innocent child are very different matters. This has been the teaching of the Church since the beginning.
