Jewish Law and the Death Penalty

(5) Know that capital cases are not like monetary ones. In monetary cases, (a false witness) can return the money and achieve atonement. But in capital cases, his blood and the blood of all his future offspring hang upon you until the end of time. For thus we find in regard to Cain, who killed his brother, "The bloods of your brother scream out!" - the verse does not say blood of your brother, but bloods of your brother, because it was his blood and also the blood of his future offspring (screaming out)!

It was for this reason that man was first created as one person (viz. Adam), to teach you that anyone who destroys a life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed an entire world; any any who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world."

(7) If your brother, your own mother’s son, or your son or daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your closest friend entices you in secret, saying, “Come let us worship other gods”—whom neither you nor your fathers have experienced— (8) from among the gods of the peoples around you, either near to you or distant, anywhere from one end of the earth to the other: (9) do not assent or give heed to him. Show him no pity or compassion, and do not shield him; (10) but take his life. Let your hand be the first against him to put him to death, and the hand of the rest of the people thereafter. (11) Stone him to death, for he sought to make you stray from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (12) Thus all Israel will hear and be afraid, and such evil things will not be done again in your midst.

(4) These are [executed by] stoning: [a male] who sleeps with his mother, with the wife of his father, with his daughter-in-law, with a male, [or] with an animal; a woman who causes an animal to sleep with her; the blasphemer; the idolater; one who gives of his children to Molekh [a particular form of idolatry], the ba'al 'ov [necromancer] and yid'oni [soothsayer]; one who desecrates the Sabbath; one who curses his father or mother; one who sleeps with a betrothed maiden; the mesit [one who entices an individual to commit idolatry]; the mediach [one who entices a city to commit idolatry]; the sorcerer; and the wayward and rebellious son. One who sleeps with his mother - [he] is liable [for violating two prohibitions, for the prohibition of sleeping with his] mother and for [the prohibition of sleeping with] his father's wife. Rabbi Yehudah says, he is only liable for [sleeping with] his mother. One who sleeps with his father's wife- [he] is liable for his father's wife and for a married woman, whether [the act occurs] in his father's lifetime or after his father's death, whether [she is his father's wife] through betrothal or through completed marriage. One who sleeps with his daughter-in-law- [he] is liable for his daughter-in-law and for a married woman, whether in his sons's lifetime or after his son's death, whether [she is his son's wife] through betrothal or through completed marriage. One who sleeps with a male or with an animal, or a woman who causes an animal to sleep with her- [even] if a person has sinned, how has the animal sinned [such that it also receives execution by stoning]? Rather, since [the animal] caused a person to commit an offense, Scripture therefore said, [the animal] should be stoned. Another explanation: [the animal is stoned] so that the animal not be passing through the market-place and [lead people to] say, "This is the one that caused so-and-so to be stoned."

(10) A Sanhedrin that would execute somebody once every seven years is a bloody court. Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah says: "Once every 70 years." Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi 'Akiva said: "If we were on the Sanhedrin we would never have killed anyone!" Rabban Shim'on Ben Gamliel said: "They would have increased violence in Israel."