[Avodah] No Right of Pardon in Halacha

[Achdut18]

There may be "no right of pardon," but RSRH's comments need to be understood both in context for the milieu in which he was writing (19th C apologetics for an assimilating community) and in context of how capital punishment is treated in halacha.  "No right of pardon" presupposes a system in which all halachic requirements regarding procedure in a capital case are followed.  Were these same strictures imposed on capital cases in the United States, it is highly likely that not more than a small handful of the thousands currently sitting on death row, today, would have ever been convicted of a crime. "No right of pardon" presupposes a far higher bar that must be hurdled to obtain a conviction than that which is contemplated by American jurisprudence.  

Avram Sacks
Skokie, IL


Sunday, February 14, 2010, 3:09:57 AM, R. Yitzchak Levine wrote:


RSRH writes in his commentary on Shemos 21

14 But if one deliberately plots against another, to kill him with premeditation, then you must take him away [even] from My altar
that he may die.

The whole idea of the right of pardon is absent in the code of law
of the Jewish state. Justice and judgment are God’s, not man’s. When
the precisely defined Law of God — which leaves no room for human
arbitrariness — ordains death for a criminal, the execution of the sentence
is not a harsh act ...it is an atonement, just as an offering upon the altar is an atonement.