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The Death Penalty


The maximum penalty given in the courts was death in one of four ways (beheading, strangling, stoning, or burning). Although the death penalty was an available punishment, only very particular crimes could be punished by it, which included murder, idolatry or sorcery. Every effort was made to minimize the practice of capital punishment. If a death verdict was reached, every legal effort was made to allow for a last-minute reversal. If despite this, the execution was to go ahead, the criminal was given an opiate before dying, so that no pain would be felt.
             Although the Jews in Israel so long ago abolished this outrageous punishment, many Jews still agree with this barbarous act. Many Jews still die from the death penalty and many still administer a needle for putting a criminal to death.
             It is outrageous! Doctors, the people that are supposed to save life are destroying life. It goes against their oath, which calls for the preservation of life and not the obliteration of it. When someone is convicted and sentenced to death, there is no way of really knowing with the evidence presented whether or not he or she committed the crime. The following are several examples of this.
             Back in 1959, Steven Truscott, a young boy, aged fourteen, was convicted of murdering and raping a young girl and was set to hang. Even though the Prime Minister at the time eventually reversed this decision, Truscott spent over ten years in prison for a crime that he did not commit. Truscott was sentenced to a lifetime in prison, but was eventually paroled. He was to live a new life, under a new name in a new town. .
             Ever since Truscott got out of prison he has maintained his innocence, but only now has he come out of hiding to share his story. New evidence has been found that the investigation from over forty years ago was flawed. A chief suspect who knew what really happened, was not investigated whatsoever. A young teenager was almost wrongfully executed.


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