Faith, Justice, and the Death Penalty
Finding Humanity on Death Row
I am an attorney. For 35 years I have represented death-sentenced clients.
In 2002 one of my clients, Abu Ali Abdur’ Rahman, was heading towards an execution date. Three days before that date, prison guards extracted Abu from his cell and placed him on “death watch” in an isolated cell in another building.
There, he was under constant surveillance by two guards seated just outside the bars of his cell. They never permitted him out of his cell, and they took notes of everything he did, even when he went to the toilet in full view. As he approached the time of death, they allowed him no contact visits with anyone except for his spiritual advisor.
On the evening before death watch, four members of our legal team (including my wife Cindy) made what we expected to be our last visit with him. On our way to the prison, Cindy pulled from our garden a sprig of lavender and a leaf of sage. She asked me to smuggle that contraband into our visit, which I nervously did.
When Cindy gave those herbs to Abu, he smelled the aromas and tears welled up in his eyes. He was speechless. During the decades Abu spent on death row, he never felt grass or picked a flower.
Abu was granted a stay of execution hours before the scheduled time. Two years later, he faced another execution date. Leading up to that date, the prison allowed me to enter his cell to inventory his personal items. I saw the dried lavender and sage on a metal table affixed to the walls in his corner.
Fortunately, Abu was granted another stay of execution, and 21 years later a court finally vacated his conviction on constitutional grounds. He then pled guilty in exchange for a life sentence which he is serving.
Abu tells me he still treasures the lavender and sage.
Abu Ali Abdur’ Rahman singing “Amazing Grace”.
Unjust, Ineffective, & Inhumane
Every person on death row is a unique individual with feelings, the capacity to love, an appreciation of beauty, and a yearning for connection. They all possess goodness in their hearts. They are all children of God, just like you and me.
Every death row inmate is indigent, requiring court appointed lawyers for their defense. Every capital case I have reviewed over the past three decades is replete with violations of the defendant’s constitutional rights.
In the modern era, more than 60% of Tennessee’s death sentences have been vacated by the courts on constitutional grounds.
There are plenty of arguments against the death penalty. As Rev. Eric Mayle points out, it makes no sense to kill to show that killing is wrong. Our death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious, fraught with error, and expensive.
The funds the State uses to maintain its machinery of death could better be spent helping victims, improving prison conditions, and reforming our broken criminal legal system. The death penalty serves no legitimate purpose.
Studies show that it is not a deterrent to crime, and it does not aim to rehabilitate criminals. In fact, there is evidence that the death penalty brutalizes our culture and tends to increase violent crime.
It probably is no coincidence that states carrying out death sentences have the highest murder rates. The only justification for the death penalty offered by the courts is “retribution,” which is legalese for vengeance. Our death penalty system is not driven by sound policy.
A Spiritual Case for Abolition
But there are deeper spiritual reasons for opposing the death penalty.
Bryan Stevenson, one of the nation’s leading death penalty lawyers, points out that we often ask whether a capital defendant “deserves” to die. But, Bryan says, that is the wrong question. Instead, we need to ask whether we deserve the right to kill.
This echoes the saying of Jesus when he intervened to halt an execution: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7). (Stoning was the method of execution back then.)
One prominent death penalty abolitionist has argued, before you decide your position on the death penalty, you need to ask whether you would be willing to pull the switch. If not, then you cannot consistently support executions. A rabbi responded by writing that, if a death-sentenced person had committed a horrendous murder, he might want to pull the switch.
I feel the same way. If someone brutally and ruthlessly raped and killed my daughter, I would want to kill him. But the rabbi went on to say, that is why he (and I) must oppose the death penalty. We do not wish to nurture the part of ourselves that would want to kill. Instead, in the spirit of God’s love, we must check our revengeful impulses which corrupt our souls.
What You Can Do
Tuesday, August 5, 2025 Byron Black is scheduled to be executed by the State of Tennessee (despite being intellectually disabled). Donald Middlebrooks is scheduled for execution September 24. Harold Nichols is scheduled for execution December 11.
As people of faith, we should all vocally oppose the death penalty and demand our elected officials do the same. We should contact Gov. Bill Lee and tell him we do not wish to nurture that part of ourselves. We do want the State of Tennessee to kill in our names.