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Last month I visited Hazelton, the Federal penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, for a mock job fair. Convicts approaching their release date will have to go out looking for work, and their interviewing skills are rusty. So volunteers like me pretended to be employers, and the inmates practiced touting their job skills and presenting their resumés. Some of them made a pretty good impression.
This wasn't a new experience for me. In 2010-12, I was a full-time correctional chaplain at Pelican Bay State Prison in California. Most of my flock were lifers, though some had a prospect of freedom in the far future. They were a fascinating population to work with. Detainees are people with issues, but they're people. They have hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, strengths and weaknesses like the rest of us.
This week (Saturday) Jews are reading Deuteronomy 16-21, about judicial matters. Courts ought to be impartial and show no favoritism (Deuteronomy 16:19). Do we believe our criminal justice system treats everyone equally? We can all think of wealthy defendants who beat the rap with top-notch attorneys. And I don't need to tell you that racial minorities are overrepresented behind bars. What does that say about our society?
The Bible upholds the human rights of the accused. A defendant may not be convicted on the testimony of a single witness, but only two or three (Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15). Those who kill another by accident must not treated as murderers (Deuteronomy 19:2-10). An unsolved crime is not pinned on an arbitrary scapegoat, but is formally set aside through a ritual of disengagement (Deuteronomy 21:1-9). In short, the law is not to be enforced mechanically: judges are supposed to show, well, judgment. That's why we wouldn't want to replace our magistrates with A.I.!
"Justice, justice shall you pursue," says the text (Deuteronomy 16:20). Why is the word "justice" repeated? Maybe to hint that there are two kinds of justice: the strict justice of rules and statutes, and the flexible justice of conciliation and compromise. If two boats approach each other in a narrow watercourse, or two camels approach each other on a narrow mountain path, nobody can say abstractly which has the right of way. But if one doesn't move aside to let the other pass, they'll be stuck there forever (Talmud Sanhedrin 32b).
Or maybe the "justice, justice" formula teaches us to pursue just ends by just means: we can cultivate respect for life by forbearing to kill anyone, even murderers. For the modern reader, it may be troubling that the scripture seems to endorse vengeance, an eye for an eye and a life for a life (Deuteronomy 19:21). But the rabbis never interpreted "an eye for an eye" literally: there could be no safe and decent way to implement it (Talmud Bava Kamma 84a). And capital punishment was widespread in the ancient world, but that's because the authorities lacked other methods to deter crime: we don't have that problem today. Anyhow, Jewish law places so many safeguards around the death penalty as to make it practically unenforceable.
In our time, executions are mostly carried out by dictatorships like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. America is unusual among democracies in retaining the death penalty. In this country, 47 people were executed in 2025, and 21 so far in 2026. Capital punishment remains legal in 27 states: thankfully, West Virginia is not among them. A bill to reinstate the death penalty has passed through our Senate Judiciary Committee the last two years, but it has stalled in the Finance Committee. Ezekiel (33:11) says, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from their way, and live." Now that's a prophet!
Joe Hample is the rabbi emeritus at Tree of Life Congregation in Morgantown and is writing as part of the Morgantown Faith Leaders Network.