wfn.org | Karla Faye Tucker Execution

[owner-umethnews@ecunet.org (United Methodist News list)]

Reply-to: owner-umethnews@ecunet.org (United Methodist News list)
"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (594
notes).

Note 592 by UMNS on Feb. 5, 1998 at 17:21 Eastern (4670 characters).

CONTACT: Thomas S. McAnally			65(10-21-71B){592}
	    Nashville, Tenn. (615)742-5470		Feb. 5, 1998

Pastor says Karla Faye Tucker
'put face on capital punishment' 

A UMNS News Feature
by Tom McAnally*

If nothing else, the execution of Karla Faye Tucker in Huntsville, Texas, Feb.
3 "put a face on capital punishment," said the Rev. Boyd Wagner, pastor of the
city's 1,500-member First United Methodist Church.
	In an interview with United Methodist News Service, Wagner said other
individuals, even "born-again Christians", have been executed at the prison in
Huntsville, but none were women and none were as articulate about their faith.
	"I definitely think this case was different," Wagner said. "Men facing
execution have professed to be born-again Christians, but they have not been
able to articulate their faith in such a manner nor have they had the
possibility of media coverage that Karla Faye had. She appealed to the media,
and her faith appealed to the people."
	Wagner hopes the Tucker execution will prompt changes in the Texas judicial
system.
	"Now when a jury is faced with a person dangerous to society, they have a
choice of eventual parole or execution.  Therefore, many jurors decide on
execution to prevent the individual from getting out and executing somebody
else."
	Tucker was not housed in any Huntsville prison but was brought there for
execution, as are all Texas death row inmates. 
	Wagner said he had a conversation at the prison with the chaplain who had
ministered to Tucker on death row.
"We talked about the dualism we face as Christian citizens," Wagner said. "We
live in a nation that is controlled by law, under law, but as Christians we
live under grace. Our particular laws do not give room for grace.
"The appeals were always on the basis of the laws," he said. "The system is
not prepared for a transformation of a life."
	Tucker, he observed, experienced both law and grace in a dramatic way.
"She had to, and did, graciously accept the law in recognizing what she had
done but also accepted God's grace and salvation and was able to experience
what Paul meant when he said, 'For me, to die is to gain.'" 	
The official position of the United Methodist Church is against capital
punishment, but Wagner acknowledges what all pastors know -- that church
members and others are divided on the issue.
	With seven prisons in a community of 30,000 people, Wagner said he suspects
that a majority of the citizens support capital punishment.
"When you deal with violent people all the time, it is easier to support a
violent response," he said. "But people who support capital punishment are
saying many different things. It is a mistake to lump them all into one
category as people wanting to put everyone to death."
	Wagner said the community, 80 miles north of Houston, was embarrassed by the
"media circus" atmosphere surrounding the execution.  
"Among the people who live here, there certainly was not a celebrative mood,"
he said. "It doesn't matter where people stood on the issue of capital
punishment. It is a sad thing when society has to resort to this type of
action."
Tucker, 38, was declared dead by lethal injection at 6:45 p.m. She became the
first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War and the first nationwide
since 1984.
	Wagner was leading a regularly scheduled professional men's Bible study at
the church when the execution took place. "We prayed for Karla Faye and her
family, and we prayed for the victims and their families."
	About the judicial system, Wagner declares, "It's not working.
"The immediate action we need to take in the state of Texas is to provide for
another category for offenders like Karla Faye," he said. "Now we do not
provide for life in prison.  For someone who commits a heinous crime, the law
allows only for the jury to make one choice, and I think that must be
corrected. There is no room in the judicial system for rehabilitation."
	He expressed empathy with the jurors who had to deal in 1983 with the reality
that Tucker and her boyfriend broke into the Houston home of Jerry Lynn Dean
and killed Dean and Deborah Thornton with a pickax.  
"If you can place yourself back in time, it was a terrible thing," he said.
"The jurors made the decision they had to make. It is not that any juror
erred, but our judicial system errs when it does not allow for
transformation."
At the time of her trial, it seemed unlikely that Tucker would ever be
transformed, Wagner said. "One can understand the trial, but the law does not
allow for the change caused by God's grace."
#  #  #
*McAnally is director of United Methodist News Service.
	
		
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 To make suggestions or give your comments, send a note to 
 umns@ecunet.org or Susan_Peek@ecunet.org

 This article sent to both the umethnews list <umethnews-request@ecunet.org>
 and also to the Worldwide Faith News list wfn-news <majordomo@wfn.org>
 Look at the header files to figure out which this is.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------