Originally written on August 6, 2001 - by Shonda M. Ponder
The Death Penalty seems to be gaining a lot of attention these days from those who would like to see it removed from our society. Let me ask you...is death worth the consequence of a life taken?
On Tuesday, August 7 at 2:30pm at the old courthouse at 111 Main St. in Hickory, Ted Cummings, one of the trial attorneys for Ronald Frye, and Robert Null, one of the jurors in Frye's trial, will talk about their concerns with the scheduled execution of Mr. Frye.
Mr. Frye is scheduled to be executed on August 31st for the murder of his landlord. Serious concerns have recently been raised about the trial of Mr. Frye and the quality of defense he received. During the penalty phase of the trial, the jury was never told about Mr. Frye's past which would help explain his actions. Members of the jury have signed sworn affidavits saying they would have voted for life in prison rather than the death penalty, had they known about Mr. Frye's troubled past - which includes his mother's turning him over to strangers when he was four, and being beaten so badly that pictures of the wounds have been used in North Carolina police training on child abuse.
If you are a Christian, you will note that in the Bible's old testament there were many crimes that are punishable by death. Including adultery and fornication. God wanted his people to be a pure people at any cost. And, at the time, it was necessary for His work to be done the way He wanted it to be done.
In the New Testament, Jesus forgave an adulteress, knowing what her sins were, and that she was guilty of the crime in which the scribes and Pharisees had accused her. He told her to go and sin no more. Not to go and take the opportunity to sin more. However, in so doing, he did exactly what he set out to do: turn mother against daughter, father against son, and brother against sister. The forgiving society that Jesus would have had has given way to a society where slaps on the hand are acceptable punishment.
"They know they did wrong because I told them so. So now that they know, leave them alone." Somehow, I don't think this is what Jesus had in mind.
So let me attempt to straighten some people out here: Jesus forgave the woman because he COULD. He is God. He had the authority. And, she did exactly what He anticipated that she would do, and served Him from that day forward. He didn't do it to show us an example of how to live, he did it to show the scribes and the pharisees that they did not have the authoritative conscience inside them to be in the offices that they held. Don't tell your brother about the moat in his eyes until you get the one in your own out.
Only when you can own up and pay for the sins that you yourself have committed, have you any right whatsoever to condemn someone else.
Our government is full of murderers today...is it any wonder that they would wish to do away with the death penalty?
When a wrong has been committed there are ways in which you are supposed to react. It has been laid out in the Bible in both the old and the New Testament. The first step is to take your complaint to your brother in private. If the complaint has not been settled in private there, you take it to your brother in the face of two or three witnesses who are called to try to mediate between the two of you before any harm is done to either of you. If, in the face of two or three witnesses the dispute or complaint cannot be handled, there is only one place left to go--court.
A righteous judge has the power to oversee any sentence that is placed on the criminal. Most of the people in a jury trial setting have never committed cold-blooded murder or raped a four year old. I don't care what their past is like. A normal human being learns from other's mistakes, and from the past. My parents spanked me when I was a child. Sometimes they went overboard. This has not caused me to murder anyone. If anything, it has caused me to not spank my children unless they understood perfectly what they were getting the spanking for to begin with. And, many times, I find that spanking isn't necessary when they show remorse for the
wrongdoing--rather than the fact that they are going to get the punishment for doing it.
The death penalty is reserved, today, for those who have no regard whatsoever to any life whatsoever, other than his own--for whatever reason. If my son were raped and killed by a man who had a really horrible childhood, do you think I would care whether he was beaten as a child or not? I dare say, if my son were Mr. Frye's landlord, and he were murdered, the punishment should equal the crime. The crime was the murder of someone's son. Mr. Frye, therefore, should die regardless of what his childhood was like.
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