(יח) שֹׁפְטִ֣ים וְשֹֽׁטְרִ֗ים תִּֽתֶּן־לְךָ֙ בְּכׇל־שְׁעָרֶ֔יךָ אֲשֶׁ֨ר ה' אֱלֹקֶ֛יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לְךָ֖ לִשְׁבָטֶ֑יךָ וְשָׁפְט֥וּ אֶת־הָעָ֖ם מִשְׁפַּט־צֶֽדֶק׃...(כ) צֶ֥דֶק צֶ֖דֶק תִּרְדֹּ֑ף ...
(18) You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that your God ה' is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. ... (20) Justice, justice shall you pursue...
Interestingly, the responsibility to create a justice system is seen by the rabbis as one of the 'universal' responsibilities incumbent on all civilizations. The instruction not to take a human life is also listed as one of these seven fundamental "Noahide" laws.
תנו רבנן שבע מצות נצטוו בני נח:
דינין
וברכת השם
ע"ז
גילוי עריות
ושפיכות דמים
וגזל
ואבר מן החי
§ Since the halakhot of the descendants of Noah have been mentioned, a full discussion of the Noahide mitzvot is presented. The Sages taught in a baraita: The descendants of Noah, i.e., all of humanity, were commanded to observe seven mitzvot: The mitzva of establishing courts of judgment; and the prohibition against blessing, i.e., cursing, the name of God; and the prohibition of idol worship; and the prohibition against forbidden sexual relations; and the prohibition of bloodshed; and the prohibition of robbery [or possibly kidnapping]; and the prohibition against eating a limb from a living animal.
(6) A person shall be put to death only on the testimony of two or more*more Lit. “three.” witnesses; no one shall be put to death on the testimony of a single witness.
Elsewhere in the Torah we have already seen some instructions about capital punishment - notably for things we would definitely not consider capital crimes (such as publicly breaking Shabbat, having non-approved sex or worshipping the moon). We have also already seen some instructions about the importance of having multiple witnesses.
However, here parshat Shoftim adds a new element: those involved in the conviction have to themselves participate in the execution. This was particularly interesting to me in light of what I recently learned about jury selection in connection with the trial of the Tree of Life mass-murderer.
(14) Take the blasphemer outside the camp; and let all who were within hearing lay their hands upon his head, and let the community leadership stone him.
Q. Why do you think Jews, along with Catholics and Black Americans, might be statistically the least likely citizens to support the death penalty?
By human [hands] shall that one’s blood be shed;
For in the image of God
Was humankind made.
Obviously there is some tension in requiring murder as response to murder - though due to our own sociological conditioning we generally find it fairly easy to see the taking of human life as categorically different from murder when it is performed by an impersonal "agent" of power - such as a soldier, police officer or executioner.
In his lecture “Politics as a Vocation” (1918), the German sociologist Max Weber defines the state as a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” As the use of the term legitimate underlines, this concept does not imply that the state is the only actor actually using violence but rather that it is the only actor that can legitimately authorize its use. The state can grant another actor the right to use violence without losing its monopoly, as long as it remains the only source of the right to use violence and that it maintains the capacity to enforce this monopoly.
from
https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-monopoly-on-violence
Jewish tradition mostly leans to the side of being opposed to exercising that power; though in fairness, Jewish leaders in the period of the Talmud frequently did not have the civil authority to perform executions: ie they weren't the civil government; the Babylonians or Romans - or whoever - were.
(י) מִ סַנְהֶדְרִין הַהוֹרֶגֶת אֶחָד בְּשָׁבוּעַ נִקְרֵאת חָבְלָנִית.
רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן עֲזַרְיָה אוֹמֵר, אֶחָד לְשִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה.
רַבִּי טַרְפוֹן וְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אוֹמְרִים, אִלּוּ הָיִינוּ בַסַּנְהֶדְרִין לֹא נֶהֱרַג אָדָם מֵעוֹלָם.
רַבָּן שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן גַּמְלִיאֵל אוֹמֵר, אַף הֵן מַרְבִּין שׁוֹפְכֵי דָמִים בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל:
(10) A Sanhedrin that executes once in seven years is considered bloodthirsty. Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya says: once in seventy years.
Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say: If we had been in the Sanhedrin, no person would have ever been executed.
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Then they would increase murderers among the Jewish people.
Q. Why do Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say say that they would never allow capital punishment? What is their reasoning?
Q. What is the reasoning of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel? Is deterrent the only way to understand his position?
One classic opposition to the death penalty is that it may result in the [state-legitimated] murder of someone wrongfully convicted. This is one of Rambam's list of mitzvot: it's a mitzva NOT to convict someone if you don't have total certainty of their guilt based on multiple corroborated eye-witness testimonies:
(א) הזהיר הדיין שלא לחתוך הגדרים באומד הדעת החזק ואפילו היה קרוב לאמת כגון שאדם ירדפהו שונאו להרגו ולהנצל ממנו יכנס בבית אחד והרודף יכנס אחריו ונכנסו אחריו ומצאו הנרדף נהרג והוא מפרפר ושונאו שהיה רודפו עומד עליו והסכין בידו ומנטף דם
הרי זה הרודף לא יהרגוהו סנהדרין על צד חתוך הגדר אחר שאין עדים מעידין עליו שראו ההריגה, ובאה האזהרה בתורה מהרוג זה, והוא אמרו ונקי וצדיק אל תהרוג.
ובמכילתא אמרו ראוהו רודף אחר חבירו להרגו והתרו בו ואמרו ישראל הוא בן ברית הוא אם הרגת אותו תהרג והעלימו עיניהם ומצאוהו הרוג ומפרפר והסייף מנטף דם ביד ההורג שומע אני יהא חייב תלמוד לומר ונקי וצדיק אל תהרוג.
ולא תרחיק זה ותפלא מזה הדין. כי הדברים האפשריים מהם קרובי האפשרות ומהם רחוקי האפשרות ומהם אמצעיים בין זה לזה ולאפשר רוחב גדול ואילו התירה תורה לחתוך דיני נפשות באפשר הקרוב מאד שאפשר שיהיה קרוב מהמציאות כגון זה שהמשלנו היינו חותכין הגדר במה שהוא רחוק מזה מעט ובמה שהוא רחוק מאד ג"כ עד שיחתכו הגדרים וימיתו האנשים במעט אומד לפי דמיון הדיין ומחשבתו ולכן סגר יתעלה את הפתח ואמר שלא יחתוך גדר העונש אלא כשהיו העדים מעידים שהם ידעו בודאי שזה עשה המעשה ההוא בלא ספק ובלא דמיון כלל,
וכאשר לא נחתוך הגדרים בדמיון חזק מאד הנה תכלית מה שיהיה שנפטור החוטא, וכאשר חתכנו הגדרים (?*ר"ל העונשים.) בדמיון ובאומד הנה פעמים נהרוג נקי.
וכן כשהעידו שני עדים עליו בשתי עבירות בכל אחת מהן דין מיתה, כגון אחד משניהם לבדו ראה אותו עובר על אחת והאחד ראה אותו עובר על אחרת הנה לא יהרג, והמשל בזה כגון שהעיד עליו עד אחד שהוא עשה מלאכה בשבת והתרו בו והשני יעיד עליו שעבד ע"ז והתרה בו, זה לא יסקל,
אמרו ז"ל אחד מעידו עובד לחמה ואחד מעידו עובד ללבנה שומע אני יצטרפו תלמוד לומר ונקי וצדיק אל תהרוג. (ואלה המשפטים, הלכות סנהדרין פ"כ):
Maimonides (Rambam):
...If we do not inflict punishment even when the offense is most probable, the worst that could happen is that someone who is really guilty will be found innocent. But if punishment was given based on estimation and circumstantial evidence, it is possible that someday an innocent person would be executed. And it is preferable and more proper that even a thousand guilty people be set free than to someday execute even one innocent person.
The execution of innocents is always a risk with the death penalty, and is a major problem in the USA today. It is thought that as many as 1 in 9 prisoners on death row is innocent. Many have had their convictions overturned, sometimes before execution and sometimes not.
Racial disparities are extremely evident in the criminal punishment system in general, and highlighted in capital cases.
https://eji.org/bryan-stevenson/
Bryan Stevenson [founder of Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy] argues that the history of slavery and lynchings has influenced the subsequent high rate of death sentences in the South, where it has been disproportionately applied to ethnic minorities.
ACLU, https://www.aclu.org/other/case-against-death-penalty :
"We believe that the state should not give itself the right to kill human beings – especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law or in the name of its people, and when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion."
“The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?” - Bryan Stevenson
Rabbi Shais Rishon. https://forward.com/opinion/554162/death-penalty-capital-punishment-tree-of-life-shooter-sentencing-jewish-bowers/
In today’s America, 75% of those sentenced to death are people convicted of killing white people, even though more than half of all homicide victims in the country are Black. At the same time, Black and Latinx Americans make up 55% of the current death row population.
Partiality is not limited to deliberately taking a bribe or being overtly influenced by someone's wealth - or lack of wealth. (Access to adequate legal defence being one of the key determinants in whether someone accused of a capital crime will be sentenced to death). Another perhaps even more challenging form of partiality is unconscious bias - the belief that certain people, eg Black people, are "dangerous."
Ohioans to Stop Executions:
According to a report by the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE), most of the exonerations in the United States in the past 28 years have been of black defendants. Black people convicted of murder are 50 percent more likely to be innocent than white people convicted of murder and black people are more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder when the victim was white. These findings are consistent with Ohio’s experience. While people of color make up less than 15% of Ohio’s population, they make up 56% of Ohio’s death row, 33% of those executed, and 72% of those exonerated.
American Civil Liberties Union
The Death Penalty: Questions and Answers (Emphasis mine)
Document Date: April 9, 2007
Q: Doesn’t the Death Penalty deter crime, especially murder?
A: No, there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws. And states that have abolished capital punishment show no significant changes in either crime or murder rates.
The death penalty has no deterrent effect. Claims that each execution deters a certain number of murders have been thoroughly discredited by social science research. People commit murders largely in the heat of passion, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or because they are mentally ill, giving little or no thought to the possible consequences of their acts. The few murderers who plan their crimes beforehand — for example, professional executioners — intend and expect to avoid punishment altogether by not getting caught. Some self-destructive individuals may even hope they will be caught and executed.
Death penalty laws falsely convince the public that government has taken effective measures to combat crime and homicide. In reality, such laws do nothing to protect us or our communities from the acts of dangerous criminals.
Important to discuss though all of this is, the issue of potentially executing an innocent person is not relevant to the case of the Tree of Life, where multiple eye-witnesses survived and testified against the shooter.
So are Jews in favor of the death penalty in such cases as these -- not only where the accused is unequivocally guilty of the charges, but where the acts are themselves extreme hate crimes?
Obviously there are lots of Jews and even more opinions, but here is some discussion from L'Chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty - no website, but active as a FB group - in The Times of Israel:
@Jews4Abolition
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/lchaim-jews-against-the-death-penalty-beg-for-the-life-of-rich-glossip/
Still, what about “the worst of the worst” of offenders? Paradoxically, the shadow of the Holocaust itself can help dispel any lingering doubts on this issue. Indeed, the main form of execution that we use here in the United States – lethal injection – is a direct Nazi legacy. Lethal injection, which would be used on our penpal Rich, was first implemented in our world by the Third Reich as part of their infamous Aktion T4 protocol, used to kill people deemed “unworthy of life,” as developed by Dr. Karl Brandt, personal physician of Adolf Hitler. If this were not enough, some American states continue to build gas chambers throughout our land, with at least one state utilizing Zyklon B to kill its inmates.
Jewish human rights luminaries such as Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem and many others grasped the danger of giving the state the power to kill its prisoners long before I was born when they opposed Israel’s 1962 execution of Nazi perpetrator Adolph Eichmann. None other than renowned Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel also famously said of capital punishment: “Death is not the answer.” Prof. Wiesel also stated the following, which has become our anthem in L’chaim: “With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory I oppose the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don’t think it’s human to become an agent of the angel of death.”
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" - MKS Ghandi