The eCrozier

We Georgians murdered someone Tuesday night. It was premeditated. We planned the murder right down to the precise amount of poison we would use. And then we did it at night. Maybe we thought God wouldn’t see us if we did it at night? God though was watching. The person we premeditatedly murdered was a man named Warren Lee Hill. He had a clemency hearing five days ago in front of the State Board of Pardons and Parole. That Board could’ve stopped our vengeful and shameful retribution, but they chose not to do so. They deemed him unworthy of clemency and said he was unfit to live. Warren Lee Hill did some despicable things in his life. He was a murderer.

But by murdering him on Tuesday we taught our children that two wrongs make a right. We taught them that it’s all right to murder someone as long as the State does it. By murdering Warren Lee Hill we’ve chosen to be like him, morally speaking. We’ve chosen the lower, baser path and not the path of humanity’s higher calling grounded in the merciful love of Jesus. By murdering him maybe we thought we were achieving some sort of justice, but what we really achieved was the recognition that we’re more like Warren Lee Hill than we’d ever cared to admit.

My brother and colleague in the Diocese of Atlanta, Bishop Rob Wright, wrote before Warren Lee Hill was murdered that it wouldn’t “be done in his (Bishop Wright’s) name.” That’s how he sees it. While I stand with him in opposition to this barbarity, I differ a bit with my brother and colleague. There’s no truthful way around this. This murder was done in Bishop Wright’s name, in my name,and in your name. Every citizen of this State, whether we want to own it or not, is complicit in the murder of Warren Lee Hill. No, we did not strap him to the executioner’s table, nor did we inject him with poisonous drugs, but we cannot deny our complicity.

Some have contended that Warren Lee Hill was horribly abused as a child; that he grew up to live violently since he was taught to be violent by his abusers. They’ve also pointed out that he was mentally deficient with an IQ of 70 and that Georgia’s standard for judging such mental deficiency (“beyond a reasonable doubt”) is unique among the other 49 States, which have a lower standard (“a preponderance of evidence”). So, they feel that those issues should have stopped his murder. But in my mind, Warren Lee Hill could have had an IQ of 140, had no childhood issues whatsoever, and what we did to him would still be wrong. This is about our behavior, not his. We chose vengeance and that, as the Bible tells us, is God’s province alone.

There are those who will reply to what I’ve written saying that Warren Lee Hill just got what he deserved. But isn’t our faith grounded on receiving the mercy we don’t deserve? Or, they’ll reply that we were just exercising the Old Testament maxim of “an eye for an eye.” But Jesus demands that we show mercy to others as God has shown us mercy through his mediation on the cross. I wish I could find some way for me and you to feel good about what we did. I wish I could find something uplifting to say, but I can’t. We murdered Warren Lee Hill on Tuesday. May God have mercy on us all.

+Scott