An Interesting Book

[Gregory Matthews]

When Innocence Is Not Enough: Hidden Evidence and the Failed Promise of the Brady Rule:  This is a book authored by a SDA pastor and attorney who had personally tried some 25 homicide cases.  The book is for sale on Amazon.  For more information see:

https://spectrummagazine.org/arts-essays/2023/sam-and-grace-and-me

[Hanseng]

6 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

who had personally tried some 25 homicide cases. 

"What I didn’t understand was this: now that he was an Adventist like everybody else in Loma Linda, now that he had repented of his sins, and now that he had become a godly Sabbath-keeper, why should he be executed? Why couldn’t we find some way for him to use his life to help and bless others, even behind bars, instead of just killing him? " [From the article].

The world is not Loma Linda. 

When Mr. Tannyhill was executed in 1956, he had been incarcerated for about a year. Karla Faye Tucker was a young woman who was converted while in custody. She spent more than 14 years incarcerated before she was executed in 1998.

Possibly if I had been a lawyer who had tried death penalty cases, I'd think differently. The Bible both Old and NT, especially the Old, are very clear about execution. It was a sin to not execute murderers. Bloodguilt was accumulated when murderers were not executed. California, for example, has hundreds of people on death row who should have been executed.  Instead of executing them, a moratorium on the death penalty has been declared. When there are droughts, wildfires, earthquakes in a State that has accumulated bloodguilt, people shouldn't be surprised. The "Big One" shouldn't surprise anyone either. People who kill others should be put to death. It's not about church, it's about society.

 

[Gregory Matthews]

Let us be clear:  He tried the 25+ death cases as the public defender.  Did you read the information source provided?

At the time the death sentence was pronounced there was no repentance.  Following the death sentence, only the State Governor could commute the sentence.  The Governor did not do that.  So, the sentence was carried out.