Originally posted by Jefferson
Knight, you wrote:
Yes. The punishment for the criminal should change if the victim forgives the criminal. This would not apply to murderers since the victim is not capable of forgiving since he is dead.
There is a strong principle in the Bible for victim's rights. The victim of a crime is the one who decides whether the allowed penalty will be enforced or not. The death penalty for adultery, for example, would not be automatic.
When the State is the prosecuting agent of Biblical laws that have been violated where a pleonasm is in the verse (eg. "dying he shall surely die"), the State is required to enforce the death penalty upon conviction with no judicial discretion in imposing sanctions. There is a reason why some penalties have pleonasms in the verse and others do not. The differences in the verses exist to point out differences in the surety of punishments for different crimes.
When the victim is the prosecuting agent, victims rights prevail. For example, the Bible commands the death penalty for adultery. However, an innocent husband in a particular case may decide that his preschool children need their mother (slut though she may be) much more than he needs justice. The father's decision to allow the slut to live would stand.
A specific example from the Bible is Joseph's refusal to prosecute Mary when he found out she was pregnant before they were married. The Bible calls Joseph a "just" man. (Matthew 1:19 - "But Joseph, her husband to be, being JUST, and not willing to make her a public example, he purposed to put her away secretly.")
How could the Bible possibly call Joseph "just" in the very same verse where he sinned against a Biblical command that calls for the execution of an adulteress?
The answer is that Joseph had the Biblical freedom to forgive Mary and spare her any punishment.
