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July 18, 2008
Rabbi, Delegate, On Death Penalty Bond
Neil Rubin
Editor
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Gov. Martin O’Malley’s new Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment will have among its 23 members an area rabbi and a local state legislator, both of whom oppose the state’s execution of convicted murderers.
While noting that he is not formally representing the Jewish community, Rabbi Mark G. Loeb said, “I represent what the Jewish attitude to the death penalty is because there’s credible support for the view that it no longer be applied in our time when one looks at both classical Jewish text and the Jewish state today.”
Del. Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg (D-41st), another commission member, in the 2008 General Assembly co-sponsored the unsuccessful House Bill 1328, which was entitled “Criminal Law-Death Penalty-Repeal.”
As for an official Jewish community position, the Baltimore Jewish Council on Nov. 8, 2001, passed a resolution that stated in part, “As a Jewish organization, devoted to pursuing the values of equality and social justice, the Baltimore Jewish Council has serious concerns about the imposition of the death penalty in Maryland … Judaism does not equate state-sponsored execution with murder. However, our religion values life so highly that we insist on a criminal justice system that practices the utmost caution in carrying out the ultimate penalty.”
While Torah law commands execution in certain circumstances — such as the violation of Shabbat — sages from the talmudic era made it increasingly difficult to carry out such a sentence, even declaring that a court that invokes such a penalty once in seven years must be disbanded.
“They had too much respect for the Torah as the word of God to forbid it, but they could effectuate procedure,” said Rabbi Loeb, rabbi emeritus at Congregation Beth El.
He added that the State of Israel does not have the death penalty, with the exception of “crimes against humanity”; the only time it was used was in the 1962 execution of Nazi official Adolf Eichmann.
“Israel has dozens, if not hundreds, of people in prison for life who are terrorists and these people have murdered hundreds of innocent people, but Israel understands the value of human life in the fullest,” Rabbi Loeb said.
Others on the commission include an African Methodist minister, a Catholic priest, law enforcement officials, an exonerated former prisoner and family members of murder victims.
The commission must make recommendations by Dec. 15, 2008, that address: racial, jurisdictional and socio-economic disparities; the risk of innocent people being executed; a comparison of the costs and effects of “prolonged court cases involving capital punishment” versus cases involving life imprisonment without the possibility of parole; and “the impact of DNA evidence in assuring fairness and accuracy in capital cases.”