On November 6, 2012 voters in California will decide whether the death penalty will remain legal in this state. Proposition 34 seeks to abolish the death penalty in California, reducing the maximum punishment for convicted criminals to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. [1] The bishops of California, in league with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have come out in support of this initiative. [2] Christ the King Law Center (CKLC) respectfully disagrees.

First, the death penalty is good public policy. The bishops argue that in “modern times the state can incarcerate those convicted of a capital crime for the rest of their lives-with no chance they will ever join society.” [3] This is false. In modern times, violent criminals who remained in prison do indeed routinely kill again. For example, in 1981 Donna A. Payant, an officer in the New York State Department of Corrections, was brutally murdered by inmate Lemuel Smith. Smith was serving two life sentences for murder. If he had been executed, Donna would not have been murdered. [4] Further, in the U.K. it was recently reported that “nearly 30 killers released from jail have gone on to kill again on Britain’s streets in the last decade.” [5] The bishops argue that the “application of the death penalty can be irreversibly wrong” because innocent persons can be executed.  However as illustrated above, the failure to apply the death penalty can also be “irreversibly wrong” if murderers who are not executed murder again.

Second, according to the traditional teaching of the Church, legitimate civil authority has both the right and duty to punish deliberate murder (and other grave crimes) with the penalty of death. The Roman Catechism states:

     "Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to 
      whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious 
      exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. 
      The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is 
      an act of paramount obedience to this [the Fifth] Commandment 
      which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment­ is the 
      preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments 
      inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of 
      crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by 
      repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the 
      morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off 
      all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord." [6]

Thus permitting the application of the death penalty in California as the ultimate punishment for the gravest crimes is both good public policy and in harmony with our Catholic faith. For these reasons, we urge Catholics to vote no on Proposition 34.

[1] Los Angeles Times, “California death penalty foes to try for ballot initiative”, August 26, 2011.

[2] See: http://www.cacatholic.org/index.php/issues2/reverence-for-life/death-penalty/538-prop-34-support

[3] Ibid.

[4] New York Times, “Two-time murderer accused of killing a prison guard”, June 7, 1981. 

[5] See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7147662/Killers-freed-to-kill-again.html.

[6] See: http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/trent/tcomm05.htm. 

By: Jackson K. Eskew, Esq.


The word liberty, like  so much of our language today, has been pitifully abused and debased. (Other examples include spiritual, genius, legendary, gay, courageous, heroic, tragedy, literally.... The list goes on and on.) It now seems undeniably true that the breakdown of language precedes the breakdown of civilization - not, as many think, vice-versa.

Due in no small part to the mass absorption of - and perversion of - the utilitarianism preached by the likes of Bentham and Mill, the cheapening of liberty has now been going on for centuries. This situation thus demands a preliminary question: what is liberty not? Simply the absence of restraint. Nor does it involve anything like the “right” to hire surgical hitmen to snuff out our unwanted children. 

True liberty involves a certain ordering of soul. Where there’s disorder in the soul, there can be no liberty. More specifically, where there’s slavery to one’s passions, there is no liberty.

Thus a prisoner in solitary confinement may be freer than the “free” man who’s abandoned himself to pornography, as long as the rule of reason prevails in that prisoner’s soul. He may be shackled, gagged, beaten and hosed on a daily basis – yet he may remain free while the pornofanatic remains a slave.

Now think of all the vices to which men, whom the world sees as free, are enslaved. Behold the myriad of new electronic devices forging stronger chains of slavery every day. Observe the legions of men – grown men! –  now hooked on video games. Can a permanent adolescent be a free man?

Think of the herds of “individuals” today who brand themselves with tattoos. Can slaves to bovine fashion be free? 

In the political world, think of Paul Ryan shamelessly declaring before us all during the Republican National Convention that “my iPod starts at AC/DC and ends at Zeppelin.” Assuming his sincerity, can a free man ever make such a declaration? O shame, where is thy blush? 

As for a state, how does it secure and preserve liberty? In accord with the hierarchical nature of true liberty, it must first acknowledge that government does not derive its just powers from below, but from above. Thus, contrary to the Declaration of Independence, the consent of the governed is not the test of governmental legitimacy. Rather, the test is the extent to which the laws of the state conform to the laws of God. Only where there is such conformity may a body politic rightly be called free.

This reminds me of another abused and debased word: theocracy. We'll have to save this for another time. 

In the meantime, I suggest the following reading:

-Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

-St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

-Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei

-Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum donum 

-Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas

Jackson K. Eskew is a California lawyer and Christ the King Law Center (CKLC) contributor. He also holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in political philosophy. Reach him at [email protected].