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January 7, 2000/29 Tevet 5760, Vol. 52, No.18
Death-row inmate cites Jewish law
MICHAEL SHAPIRO
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - A man who will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court this year that his planned execution in Florida's electric chair constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" can point to a 2,000-year-old Jewish law when he pleads his case.
A friend-of-the court brief filed last month in the Supreme Court by the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs, which advocates the position of the Orthodox community, and the American Section of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, backs Anthony Bryan's position. In citing only Jewish law and excluding any reference to previous Supreme Court decisions, the brief is believed to mark a first for America's highest court.
The brief, written by the father-daughter team of Nathan and Alyza Lewin and reviewed by former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Menachem Elon, delves into the biblical and talmudic texts relating to execution in Jewish law. The brief does not address the legality of the death penalty itself, but it does refer to the same Jewish text that an interfaith group has used to justify abolishing the penalty.
Alyza Lewin said her father decided to write the brief because he thought the court would find it interesting as they consider the case.
The brief supports Bryan's contention that execution in an electric chair violates the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment. It concludes that the Sanhedrin, or High Court, during the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem rarely imposed the death penalty. However, when a death sentence was imposed, the rabbis said the execution must be done in a painless and quick manner with as little disfigurement as possible.
That apparently has not been the case with Florida's electric chair. During two executions in the 1990s, flames and smoke erupted from the headpieces worn by two convicted killers, and the smell of burning flesh reportedly filled the execution chamber, according to Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism Web site.
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