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"Religion and the Death Penalty: Can't have one without the other?"

By Douglas A. Berman

I have long admired the thought-provoking writings of Walter Berns on the death penalty, particularly his great Harper's piece from nearly 30 years ago, titled "For capital punishment: The morality of anger" (excerpts here).  Showing that he can still raise fascinating perspectives on capital punishment, Berns now has this new piece in the Weekly Standard with the same title as this post.  Here are just a few excerpts from a piece that deserves to be read in full:[I]t can be said that the death penalty is more likely to be imposed by a religious people.  The reasons for this are not obvious.  It may be that the religious know what evil is or, at least, that it is, and, unlike the irreligious, are not so ready to believe that evil can be explained, and thereby excused, by a history of child abuse or, say, a "post-traumatic stress disorder" or a "temporal lobe seizure...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 29, 2008 (boomark / email).