Ashland Theological Seminary Discovering
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ASHLAND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY DISCOVERING FORGIVENESS IN EXECUTING JUSTICE THROUGH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ASHLAND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF MINISTRY BY ALAN W. JOHNSON ASHLAND, OHIO MARCH 25, 2020 Copyright © 2020 by Alan W. Johnson All Rights reserved Dedication To Tim and Gary who taught me the meaning of injustice Epigraph “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Jesus in Matthew 5:38-39 APPROVAL PAGE Accepted by the faculty and the final demonstration examining committee of Ashland Theological Seminary, Ashland, Ohio, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Ministry degree. ____________________________ ____________________ Academic Advisor Date ____________________________ ____________________ Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program Date ABSTRACT The purpose of this project is to discover how forgiveness contributes to the feeling of resolution among murder victim families and inmates convicted of murder in the state of Ohio. A survey of family members of murder victims and men on Death Row found both groups understand the value of forgiveness to overcome the pain of loss and agony of bitterness. The survey also found that two in three respondents would consider meeting with the murderer or victims, and seven in ten said they believed they could forgive the killer without forgetting the victims. CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………..............vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………….…………….…..viii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION AND PROJECT OVERVIEW.…………....................1 2. BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS......28 3. REVIEW OF LITERATURE………………………………………………61 4. DESIGN, PROCEDURE, AND ASSESSMENT………………………..98 5. REPORTING THE RESULTS..…..……………………………………. 107 6. SUMMARY AND REFLECTIONS………………………….…………...121 Appendix 1. PROPOSAL……………………………………………………...................140 2. ASSESSMENT TOOL AND COVER LETTER…………………………..165 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………..…..171 vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Table 1. Goal Number Seven – Forgiveness and Healing.…….108 2. Table 2. Goal Number Four – Forgiveness and Loss………....109 3. Table 3. Goal Number One – Attitudes about Murder....…...…111 4. Table 4. Goal Number Six – Murder and Resolution……..……..112 5. Table 5. Goal Number Five – Capital Punishment Attitude……..114 6. Table 6. Goal Number Two – Capital Punishment Support……..116 7. Table 7. Goal Number Three – Revenge as a Factor..…………..117 8. Table 8. Qualitative Results….………….…………………………..119 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I am grateful to God. I am also grateful to my family, including my daughter, Kara, my son, Connor, and granddaughter, Amelia, who put up with the loss of so much of my time to studying, and to my mother and late father, Berniece and Lloyd Johnson, who put me on the Christian path at an early age. I am grateful to professors at Asbury Theological Seminary and Ashland Theological Seminary who taught me how to study after my long “sabbatical.” I especially thank Dr. Matthew Bevere for helping me cross the finish line with this dissertation. I am grateful to my former employer, The Columbus Dispatch, for the flexibility to study while I was working fulltime, and to my fellow employees who supported me along the way. Last but far from least, I am grateful to two long-time friends whose help has been invaluable: Andrea Carson, my field adviser, and Pat Huston-Holm, my editor. viii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION AND PROJECT OVERVIEW “If we believe that if murder is wrong and not admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well.” Sister Helen Prejean “From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.” Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun These quotes, one from the religious perspective, the other from the secular justice system, succinctly summarize my view on capital punishment after studying it for three years as a doctoral candidate and reporting on it for 20 years as a journalist. I believe that all human life is sacred, created Imago Dei, made in the image of God, and that only God has the ultimate right to decide when a life should end. I engaged in this project, Discovering Forgiveness in Executing Justice Through Capital Punishment, to test the theological soundness of my opposition to capital punishment and to see if the great power of forgiveness can help heal this most grievous of wounds. The purpose of this project was to discover if forgiveness contributes to the feeling of resolution among murder victim families and inmates convicted of murder in the state of Ohio. The research question was: How does forgiveness 1 contribute to the feeling of resolution among murder victim families and inmates convicted of murder in the state of Ohio? Overview The purpose of this project focused on how forgiveness impacts people directly affected by murder in Ohio. To do this, I looked at two related groups: families of murder victims and men on Death Row who have a capital punishment sentence. The participants were surveyed with the same questionnaire, with victim families using either an online assessment or via the same questions asked by telephone. The Death Row inmates in the custody of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction were surveyed only on paper with the cooperation of the state agency. In both cases, participation was voluntary and the results were anonymous without any identifying names or case information. This was done to respect the privacy of the individuals surveyed and to ensure the integrity of the research. My goal was first to evaluate if forgiveness is a factor in how people in the two target groups cope with grief and guilt in their lives after a murder is committed. In the larger view, I sought to determine how forgiveness can be cultivated though the heart of Jesus to help heal wounds and improve lives. Foundations The pillars of my project come from personal involvement with capital punishment over a period of two decades, buttressed by foundations of biblical, theological and historical research. Each of these four areas contribute to a solid understanding of the subject of the death penalty and forgiveness. 2 Personal Foundation For nearly half of my 44 years as professional newspaper journalist, I researched and wrote about capital punishment in Ohio and the United States. For the last fifteen years of that period, I was on my Christian walk, including nine years as a seminary student. In those roles, I observed the incalculable, agonizing impact of the crime of murder on victim families, the offenders, the prison staff, and the public at large. Moreover, it became apparent that God was there, sorrowful but active, as man’s instrumentality of justice ground relentlessly forward. I became a part of the process, pulled into the “machinery of death,” as the late Justice Blackmun said. I knew the mechanics of the lethal injection procedure as well as many prison employees. I learned though my research that capital punishment has existed as long as the crime of murder; taking the life of another human being resulted in a sentence of death for more than two millennia. While the number of executions declined dramatically in recent years in the U.S., it remains the law of the land in 28 states, including Ohio, where 56 men have been lethally injected since 1999 (Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction 2019). I wanted to know how, or if, forgiveness plays a role in the lives of a family dealing with sorrow, bitterness and anger over the loss of a loved one. Proponents of capital punishment argue that executing the killer brings justice and closure to the situation, but does it really? Does the death of another person, an eye for an eye, remove any of the sorrow over the loss of a loved one? I found evidence that is not the case in most situations. 3 At the same time, my goal was to find how the person convicted of murder and sentenced to die for their crime dealt with the guilt and regret for their actions, assuming they feel guilt and sorrow. Can they find forgiveness for the horrible act they did while they live in solitary confinement for what can be fifteen or twenty years prior to an execution? We know that Jesus forgives all sins, but forgiveness does not come easily in such horrific circumstances. I found there was more bitterness, anger and guilt than desire for forgiveness expressed by the inmates surveyed. My personal experience with capital punishment began months before the Feb. 19, 1999, execution of Wilford Berry, a mentally ill Cleveland man who became known as “the volunteer” because he voluntarily waived several layers of legal appeals that would have prolonged his life behind bars by years. As a state government reporter for The Columbus Dispatch newspaper from 1989 to 2017, my assignment included coverage of state prisons and, by default, writing about executions. The potential for an execution in Ohio was a significant news event in the 1990s. At the time, no one had been put to death in the state since 1963, a 36-year hiatus during which the capital punishment law was found unconstitutional by the federal courts before being reinstated in 1973, overturned again, and finally put in place again in 1981 in Ohio. I have been a Christian my entire adult life, but drifted in my faith for many years beginning in my twenties. In 1999, I was ambivalent about capital punishment; I knew, from my research, the horror of what murderers had done and I was confident that the death penalty, while troubling, was appropriate 4 because it was then and still is now the law of the land in Ohio.