man could not be found guilty of a capital crime through his own confession or through the testimony of immediate members of his family. The rabbis demanded a condition of cool premeditation in the act of crime before they would sanction the death penalty; the specific test on which they insisted was that the criminal be warned prior to the crime, and that the criminal indicate by responding to the warning, that he is fully aware of his deed, but that he is determined to go through with it. In effect, this did away with the application of the death penalty. The rabbis were aware of this, and they declared openly that they found capital punishment repugnant to them… There is another reason which argues for the abolition of capital punishment. It is the fact of human fallibility. Too often, we learn of people who were convicted of crimes, and only later are new facts uncovered by which their innocence is established. The doors of the jail can be opened; in such cases, we can partially undo the injustice. But the dead cannot be brought back to life again. We regard all forms of capital punishment as barbaric and obsolete." Reform Judaism Since 1959, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism have formally opposed the death penalty. The Central Conference also resolved in 1979 that "both in concept and in practice, Jewish tradition found capital punishment repugnant", and there is no persuasive evidence "that capital punishment serves as a deterrent to crime". Humanistic Judaism Humanistic Judaism has no policy on the use of the death penalty. See also Capital punishment in Israel Death penalty in the Bible List of capital crimes in the Torah Religion and capital punishment Testimony in Jewish law Notes References Further reading Capital Punishment, Jewish Virtual Library The Death Penalty in Jewish Tradition Jewish Law Legal Briefs Jewish courts and civil law Corporal punishments Punishments in religion Jewish ethics Judaism and capital punishment Jewish law Capital punishment Ethically disputed judicial practices Penology 1st century in law