An Eye for An Eye...
jakehurwitz pondered:
“the death penalty seems to mainly be about justice, you take a life, the government takes yours. But it’s not really an eye for an eye. A murder victim doesn’t usually get to have a last meal of his or her choice, they don’t get to say goodbye to loved ones, they don’t have the opportunity to leave the world with thoughtful final words. I don’t know that there’s any way I would try to improve the process, it just seems weird.”
I like the interpretation that Exodus 21:23-27 isn’t about retaliatory minimums. If you read it thinking ‘exactly’ or worse, ‘at least,’ should precede ‘an eye for an eye,’ (leaving aside practical obstacles thwarting such exacting justice and the fact this maxim is specifically countermanded in the Christian Gospels) you may come to a radically more harsh retribution.
That interpretation best suits street gangs and ongoing fights, like Malone said in The Untouchables:
They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way!
If you instead assume the words ’at most’ should precede it, you come to a restrained measure of justice, one that - while by no means turning the other cheek - permits alternative punishments (clinical execution, indefinite confinement, or pink underwear chaingangs for examples). Ideally these punishments will remove a threat to society while respecting the very human dignity flouted by the convict.