So now society has exacted its pound of flesh from one more victim of a terrible crime, or will one day, but what satisfaction is there in that? For cruelty leads only to more cruelty, and vengeance only to more vengeance, just as death leads only to more death. Only mercy can stop this endless cycle of an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Because, as Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice:
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain
from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives
and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest;
it becomes
The throned monarch better
than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force
of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread
and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show
likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea,
consider this,
That, in the course of justice,
none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray
for mercy.
A horrible crime now has been avenged with a death penalty verdict, but vengeance is scarcely justice. To rehearse the details without inflaming either jury or reader is no small challenge, but it's a necessary task: Mauricio Torres was found guilty of capital murder and first-degree battery in the death of his helpless 6-year-old son back in 2015. The facts are no longer disputable; a medical examiner testified under oath that the boy's death was caused by a bacterial infection after he was sodomized with a stick--after being subjected to continual abuse during his short life.
Brad Karren, a circuit judge, read the death sentence to a silent courtroom, in which it resounded like the footsteps of the angel of death, whose coming may be welcome by the old and infirm, but in these fatal circumstances only caused a shudder to reverberate through the courtroom like the notes of a cathedral anthem.
It took two hours and 20 minutes to deliberate and recommend the verdict after a trial that had gone on for five days. He is scheduled to be killed by a lethal injection of drugs in 2017, though the appellate process may prolong the torture of waiting, waiting, and then waiting some more till all appeals are exhausted. In the end, there may be no end to this case, raising the question of what purpose is served by this act of vengeance. For revenge, as George Orwell observed long ago, is sour. The idea that vengeance is a dish best served cold only confirms its premeditated nature of the act.
How end all these needless complications and ironies? By ending the death penalty itself. Among those ironies is the history of the Jews themselves. Arguably the most persecuted of peoples, Shakespeare--the universal man--could identify with them, too. Here endeth today's lesson in tolerance, a quality perhaps even greater than love. For it doesn't have to be requited to be recognized as the great virtue it is.
Editorial on 11/21/2016