Capital Punishment

This story wrings my heart. Some will say that I'm being soft on a murderer and a drug dealer, that my namby-pamby left-bent feelings on the issue ignore the real truth that this man had murdered another man and deserved to die for it.

Yet I don't think having compassion on a man who was scared of dying is of any particular ideology. Part of it is that if I put myself in that man's place, I'd be terrified myself. I have utter faith that my soul will live on, and that one day the Resurrection will restore a body to me, but death itself scares me. No matter what assurances we have, death is a great unknown. We leave this life for a completely different one--one marked for a time by disembodiment (is that uncomfortable? is the transition painful? how utterly foreign will that be to us?), and then marked either by a return to the flesh, and then either eternal torment in Hell, or eternal bliss in Heaven. We're told time and again that "eye has not seen, nor ear hard, what God has prepared" for us.

Worse, in the case of this felon, is that this is a cold, premeditated process. This isn't the heat of the battle, where death is a possibility but still comes as a surprise. This isn't laying down one's life for a great cause. This is having one's life deliberately snuffed out for actions that can't be changed, for a past that is fixed, for sins that--while they can be repented of and forgiven--are an indelible part of the past.

Some will say that he deserves death for the pain and grief he caused his victim's family. Some will say that we should have no pity on him. Indeed, he proclaimed his innocence to the grave, which shows that he was definitely unrepentant of his deeds. (Although there will always be that grain of doubt. Did he really do it? I don't know the particulars of this case at all, so I don't know how compelling the evidence was.)

Yet I can help but feel compassion. He is still one of God's children. His soul was created at the moment of conception. God knew the extent of his life, and still chose to allow him to exist. God's love is so vast that we cannot even comprehend how great it is, yet we can at least try to fill our lives with that love. We know we are called to love our enemies, to forgive them their misdeeds, to help them. Of course we aren't called to be stupid about it. A criminal needs punishment and correction, and if he proves too dangerous to release from prison, he deserves to remain there. But we are still called to offer our love and our mercy.

May God have mercy on the soul of Edward Nathaniel Bell, and may His grace comfort Bell's family and friends, and bring peace to the family of Ricky Timbrook, whom Bell killed. May He move their hearts to love and forgiveness, and may He guide them back to His fold.