Botched Executions, Shock Gloves, and a Golf Club Retreat

A man was executed last night. Not the one everyone was watching. His name was Jamaal Howard. And his case leaves Christians with a hard question this morning: what does justice look like when the machinery of justice itself keeps breaking down? This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. Here's what we know. Jamaal Howard was put to death in Texas last night by lethal injection. He was convicted of killing Vickie Swartout in two thousand during an attempted robbery. He took one hundred fourteen dollars and some cigarettes. He was twenty years old. His lawyers raised two concerns. First, that Howard was intellectually disabled, with a full-scale IQ of seventy-four. Under the Supreme Court's two thousand two ruling in Atkins versus Virginia, that should make him ineligible. Second, that Texas uses the same drug, pentobarbital, that failed twice last week in Tennessee on Christa Pike. Pike survived two lethal doses. She's still alive, her arms severely damaged. The governor delayed her next execution until at least next year. Howard's appeals failed. The execution went forward. The Death Penalty Information Center counts at least sixty-four botched executions in the United States since nineteen eighty-two. Ten in Texas. Christians have genuinely disagreed about capital punishment for two thousand years. Scripture takes the shedding of innocent blood seriously. It also takes the dignity of the image-bearer seriously. Both are true at once. Proverbs twenty-four, verse eleven says, "Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter." That verse doesn't settle the policy debate. It does something else. It says the person strapped to that table is somebody. Not an abstraction. A soul. If you want to sit with Proverbs twenty-four today, Bible Copilot can walk you through it. Next. President Trump has proposed turning part of his private West Palm Beach golf club into a Camp David-style presidential retreat. He's offering it as a gift to future presidents and visiting heads of state. The Trump Organization would build the lodging. The county, which leases the land, would have to approve. For context: that same club earned Trump nearly thirty-seven million dollars during his first year back in office. It was also the site of a two thousand twenty-four assassination attempt against him. Reasonable people will see this differently. Some will see generosity. Some will see the commingling of public office and private business. First Timothy chapter three reminds us that leaders must be, quote, "above reproach." Not above criticism. Above reproach. Pray for wisdom today before you repeat what you have heard. Second development. A previously unreleased Army study shows that electric shock gloves, which ICE just bought six thousand pairs of for sixteen point seven million dollars, caused participants at Fort Leavenworth to feel "intense pain," stop fighting immediately, and fear being shocked again. The manufacturer warns they shouldn't be used on children, pregnant women, or people with disabilities. ICE calls them de-escalation devices. The study itself said just seeing the glove was enough to make participants comply. That's not de-escalation. That's fear. Christians should be able to name the difference. The question for us is simple: do we care how the vulnerable are handled when no camera is on? This episode is presented by Bible Copilot. Today's verse is Micah chapter six, verse eight. Open Bible Copilot and study the Verse of the Day first. You'll get a guided walk-through of what the passage says, what it means, what it reveals about God, and how to apply it. Start at mybiblecopilot dot com slash gospel. That's mybiblecopilot dot com slash gospel, or search Bible Copilot in the App Store. "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Three things. Justice. Kindness. Humility. Hold one without the others and you drift. Hold all three and you can face hard headlines without hardening your heart. Thanks for listening to The Gospel Briefing. The machinery of this world breaks down. The character of our God does not. We'll see you tomorrow.