Judaism

The official teachings of Judaism approve the death penalty in principle but the standard of proof required for application of death penalty is extremely stringent. In practice, it has been abolished by various Talmudic decisions, making the situations in which a death sentence could be passed effectively impossible and hypothetical. A capital case could not be tried by a normal Beit Din of three judges, it can only be adjudicated by a Sanhedrin of a minimum of 23 judges.^[201] Forty years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in approximately the year 70 CE,^[202] i.e. in approximately 30 CE, the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment,^[203] making it a hypothetical upper limit on the severity of punishment, fitting in finality for God alone to use, not fallible people.

The 12th-century Jewish legal scholar, Maimonides said:

"It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."^[204]

Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice". Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect.^[205]

The state of Israel retains the death penalty only for Nazis convicted of crimes against humanity.^[206] The only execution in Israeli history occurred in 1961, when Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal organizers of the Holocaust, was put to death after his trial in Jerusalem.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-03