Joseph M. Bessette is Alice Tweed Tuohy Professor Emeritus of Government and Ethics at Claremont McKenna College, where he taught courses on American institutions, ethics, and criminal justice. Among numerous other works on government and criminal justice, he is coauthor (with Edward Feser) of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment (Ignatius Press, 2017). He previously served in the Cook County (IL) State's Attorney's Office and was Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the U.S. Department of Justice.
Is Uhlman's position that all executions for murder violate pro-life principles, or only executions for which there is some residual doubt of guilt, however small? In any system run by fallible human beings, however well-intended, mistakes are possible. Is the mere possibility of error enough to reject the death penalty in its entirety? Or is his position that wrongful executions are so common in the United States that the pro-life advocate should reject capital punishment as applied in this country at this time?
Date posted: 2024-11-15