The death penalty, dignity and the good of all

I have been pondering this question: What can be done to make the dignity of the human person great again?

True, the question does not lend itself to a catchy acronym.

But the question of human dignity, and therefore of the inherent value of human persons, is central to the organization of a society and its laws.

The contemporary Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, has raised important questions in his investigations into sovereign power and modern political systems.

In particular, he has noted that the sovereign is the one who decides which lives have value and which lives do not.

Agamben refers to the lives deemed as not having value as “bare life.”

This term means that some humans have been subtracted of all rights and ultimately compressed into sheer biological existence. Bare life. No person. Just a mere thing that’s alive.

A sovereign, then, has power over life and death. Agamben astutely contends that the decision to render a life bare is without legal consequence and appears to act outside of the law.

A sovereign, in other words, can have a person killed without it being deemed a murder.

Agamben refers to this as a “state of exception,” which identifies a situation when normal or typical legal orders are suspended.

Sovereign power is exercised by deciding what the state of exception will be and what is allowed to occur outside the normal limits of the law.

Former President Joe Biden decided which lives had value and which ones did not last December, when he commuted 37 of 40 federal inmates who were on death row.

Their sentences were changed to life imprisonment without parole.

Three inmates were not commuted and remain on death row.

Biden cited the nature of their crimes (terrorism and hate-motivated mass killings) as the reason for not commuting them.

According to Agamben, he still reduced them to bare life and removed their inherent dignity.

He also demonstrated sovereign power by deciding to keep them on death row thereby suspending the illegality of murder.

But is it possible that the extreme violence of their crimes removed their dignity?

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in 2018, announced a revision to the Catechism of the Catholic Church concerning the death penalty.

The revision states that even when a person commits a heinous crime, their dignity-value is not forfeited.

Sanctity of human life is the basic principle that guided the revision.

Cardinal Ladaria further contends that social conditions are now favorable for managing criminals to safeguard the common good.

The inherent dignity of the aggressor and the protection of the common good can both be maintained.

While the heinous crimes of criminals can never be excused and are deplorable acts against the inherent dignity of the victims, the Church maintains that God’s redemption is open to all who repent.

When a sovereign exercises the death penalty, the possibility of the criminal’s redemption is nullified.

Atonement for violent crimes ultimately comes from a divine source. No sovereign has a right to interfere with that.