[Avodah] halachic attitude to the convicted

[Samuel Svarc]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:16pm EDT, R Samuel Svarc wrote:
> : On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:35 AM,  <Saul.Z.Newman at kp.org> wrote:
> :> should the general rule be that if someone, is jailed, for whatever
> :> reason, we should be praying for his release?
> :> is there any crime where that is NOT true?
>
> : Sure. Any person that halacha feels should be imprisoned.
>
> Does that include people incarcerated under secular law? The existence
> and enforcement of civil law is one of the 7 mitzvos benei Noach. So
> what if they prohibit something we don't, and set the punishment to
> be imprisonment?

========================

R' Daniel M. Israel:
Do you mean where he is actually sentenced k'halacha (i.e., by beit
din), or where the facts, were they to be heard by a beit din would
warrant his imprisonment?

If the former, given that there is no such beit din that is authorized
to sentence people today, then this will never occur.

If the latter, so who gets to decide that the court's sentence was
okay k'halacha?

And are you allowing for the possibility that a particular crime might
not be subject to imprisonment by beit din (after all, imprisonment is
not a penalty in the Torah), but the halacha would be maskim to the
malchus imprisoning the person?

I tried to raise this issue several month ago, and IMO no one really
was willing to speak to the ikar issue.
=========================

(Disclaimer: The following are my thoughts only.)

1. All that I meant was the following, "If there was a person
presently incarcerated, who poskim tell you shouldn't be; in that case
100% percent we should be davening for the release, regardless through
which process put him there."

2. All those ways that were mentioned above, are ways that someone can
be incarcerated al 'pi halacha'.

3. Who decides if something is OK l'halacha? Hint, hint: Whoever
decides all the other halacha shailos.

KT,
MSS