I was doing a little reading last night in a great book called "God and Ronald Reagan" by Paul Kengor, PhD., when I came to a passage about how Ronald Reagan dealt with capital punishment as governor of California.
Reagan was a deeply Christian man (though Reagan is my greatest hero, even I didn't realize the depth of his faith until I read this book), and had given a lot of thought to the death penalty and found it to be Biblically sound. Yet...
...while Reagan seemed confident that the death penalty had a biblical basis, during his governorship he was compelled to pray for guidance at least once over the issue. When thirty-seven-year-old Aaron Mitchell was sentenced to death for killing a Sacramento police officer (and father of two, as Reagan usually noted) during an armed robbery, the question of clemency reached Reagan's desk. He would later recall the night before that decision, which he tried to postpone, as the worst of his governorship. He said no part of a governor's job is approached "more prayerfully" than a death penalty decision. As Reagan agonized over the matter, Donn Moomaw flew in to counsel him; the two knelt together by Reagan's coffee table to pray over the issue. Even after Moomaw said "amen," Reagan jumped in, asking for help to learn God's will and do what was right.
In the end, Reagan refused to grant clemency to Mitchell, and the killer was put to death at 10:00 A.M. the following day in San Quentin's gas chamber...That he ultimately chose not to prevent the execution suggested how firm his convictions were"
Unlike convicted murderers, the taking of a life--even a guilty murderer's life--is not something good people do lightly. That's part of what makes the execution of someone who has disregarded the value of life different from the murderer's act.
Though it is a great burden, though it isn't easy, if we truly believe in the sacred, precious nature of life, and if we believe in justice, then we know what it is we must do.
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