You can't read John's account of Jesus' trial before Pilate in today's gospel (Jn 18: 1-19:42) or Luke's account of the trial that we read on Palm Sunday and not come away convinced that there was a massive miscarriage of justice. Pilate tells the crowd time and time and time again that Jesus is not guilty. What little evidence there is that is presented against Him is manufactured and false. Jesus has done nothing deserving the death penalty. Yet He is still crucified. Not because Pilate thinks it is the right thing to do, or even wants that outcome. Not because Herod, the puppet Jewish "king," thinks it is right. Only because the crowd, stirred up by rabble-rousers, is getting so out of hand that the only way to calm them down is to agree to their demands. The death penalty meted out because those in charge give in to the demands of those ruled by emotion and a herd mentality. Sound familiar? It should. It should because in many ways that is how the death penalty is meted out in some places in this country. There are studies that show that in Alabama, where a judge can overrule a jury and sentance a defendant to death even if the jury said the defendant should have life in prison, and where judges are elected, a judge is more likely to overrule a jury and sentance a defendant to death in the year before he or she is up for re-election. In other words, the judge looks at the cries of the crowd seeking death, and orders it, when otherwise that wouldn't be the case. Sound like Pilate? Prosecutors misusing or lying about the evidence, like the Jewish leaders did with Jesus-- check. Defendants sentanced to death when they have not done something to deserve that sentance-- check. The list goes on. All these failings in the system are part of the reason the Church is so clear-- finally- that the death penalty is wrong, just as it was wrong to sentance Jesus to death. But there is a deeper reason. As the Church teaches, and as the Catechism was recently changed to make absolutely clear, killing another person is wrong because life is always sacred, even the life of someone who has sinned (as have we all, and for God, sin is sin). Sometimes when we hear of a horrible crime we have the reaction that the perpetrator of the crime should get the death peanlty. That's what he (it is almost always a male) deserves, we think. We need to stop thinking that way. That's the way the crowd talked about Jesus. That's a mindset that taps into the worst of us, our desire for vengence. That's a mindset that denies the inherent human dignity of the person accused. That's a mindset that does not believe in redemption or change or contrition. Just because certain influencers tell us that the death penalty is right or appropriate or just doesn't make it so. And just because it is a crowd-pleaser to seek death doesn't make it right. We might remember that it was the same thing-- influencers whipping up the blood-lust of the crowd-- that got Jesus crucified.