This question was raised at a time when many states were restoring the death penalty after it had been abolished for many years. The new trend began when Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in Utah in 1977. Our Texas lawmakers, soon thereafter, proposed lethal injections as another way for a government to take a life. Why this swelling support for the death penalty?

In our country we have become increasingly frustrated by the rise in the crime rate. We are aggravated by the failure of our legal system to punish criminals adequately. Many of us also have a pressing desire for revenge, vindictiveness, and retribution. Some have even proposed televising executions. They obviously gain a sadistic delight from such gory spectacle.

The last public hanging took place in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1936 when a Black man was sent to the gallows. After that, executions were held within the confines of a prison. At the public hanging, in Owensboro, 20,000 people stood on rooftops and telephone poles to witness this barbarism. Before we rush to endorse capital punishment, we should realize that it is often motivated by baser human impulses.

How then have we Jews viewed the death penalty? Of course, our Bible is replete with instances where the death penalty is mandated. If the people of a city turn to idol worship, the city is to be razed and its citizens destroyed. Both a stubborn and rebellious son (ben sorer umoreh) and an adulteress were to be stoned to death.

However, later jewish teachers inform us that these harsh laws were never carried out. They are in the Bible primarily to underscore the gravity and the seriousness of these sins. In fact, the talmud states that a Sanhedrin (Rabbinic legislature) who executes a criminal even once in seventy years is considered cruel.

In that same passage, Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiba assert that if they had been part of that Sanhedrin, they never would have allowed the execution of a criminal even that infrequently. Their colleague, Shimon ben Gamliel, disagrees with their position and argues for the death penalty. He claims that if such death penalty opponents as Rabbi Tarfon and or Rabbi Akiba would have their way, they would be responsible for the proliferation of murders in israel. Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel thus sees capital punishment as deterrent to crime and an effective way to prevent violence and murder.

However, to me, the arguments favoring capital punishment are not compelling. It is not a sound preventive against crime. For example, in England, people were executed in the Middle Ages for picking pockets. Interestingly enough, the crowds who gathered to watch the hanging of pickpockets were favorite targets for pickpockets to do their work.

A sociologist, Karl Levi, conducted a study of "icemen," which is the street name for killers. He discovered that most murderers do not even consider the consequences of their acts of killing. They rarely ponder the possibility of being put to death by the state. A lover may kill his friend, during a spontaneous outburst of anger. An armed robber will often murder because of panic.

Not only is the death penalty ineffective, but, over the years, its chief victims have been members of poor minority communities. The rich and the influential can obtain good defense attorneys and avoid the death penalty. Michael DiSalle, who was once governor of Ohio, found that men on death row had one thing in common: they were penniless. There were other common denominators, as well: low mental ability, little or no education, few friends, and broken homes.

Advocates of the death penalty also overlook the possibility of error. Once the judgment to execute is made and carried out, the result is irrevocable. There is no greater tragedy than the loss of even one human life. We can't correct it even when we later discover that the person was innocent.

There is still another problem with capital punishment. It brutalizes the ones who administer it. A nineteenth-century Vilna rabbi, known as the Netziv, perceived this phenomena in the story of Phinneas, in the Book of Numbers. In this narrative, the men of Israel had engaged in relations with the women of Moab, a pagan tribe. Incest led to idolatry, and the leaders of Israel were hanged.

Soon thereafter, Phinneas, a zealot of God, saw an Israelite man consorting with a woman of Midian, a related pagan tribe. Phinneas pulled out his spear and entered the chamber where they were lying. He thrust his spear into the man and pierced the woman through her belly. God commended Phinneas for his zeal and for averting further calamities to his people.

Then something strange happened. God made a b'rit shalom, a covenant of peace, with Phinneas. The Netziv pointed out that, because Phinneas killed, even with the approval of God, he probably would develop a tendancy for more hostile, destructive behavior. God made a covenant for peace with him to assure him of peaceful and gentle behavior in the future.

Thus, we recognize that killing, even on behalf of the state, arouses violence. It cheapens human life. It heightens our need to vent our wrath upon the criminal. It undermines our respect for human life.

Thus we return to our original question: "Should a Jew serve on a jury which inflicts the death penalty?" I believe that, if a Jew does serve on such a jury, he or she should do everything within his or her power to prevent the death sentence from being issued. In Judaism, we see as our goal, the rehabilitation of life, not the destruction of life. Many criminals, with proper counseling and therapy, can be restored to wholesome and productive lives, as we saw in the case of Nathan Leopold.

I believe that if the Sanhedrin were functioning today, it would ban the death penalty as contrary to the spirit of Judaism, except in the case of genocidal criminals, like Adolf Eichmann. In fact, both the Reform Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly of America have condemned it.

The death penalty is outmoded, unspiritual, and ineffective as an instrument of punishment. According to one contemporary Jewish leader, it also "stands in defiance of our efforts to work for a better society through non-violent means."