| Summary: | A modern lawyer would automatically classify intentional homicide and mayhem/aggravated battery as criminal offenses, but the Jewish legal system classifies them differently. The former offense stands among the dine nefashot, capital offenses, and the latter is among the dine mamonot, offenses punishable by some type of pecuniary payment. With respect to the dine nefashot, writers have focused on the din torah with its high standard of evidence required for conviction and upon other procedural requirements which make capital conviction all but impossible to achieve. Upon close inspection, however, it is clear that capital penalties were imposed at various times and places, and indeed a capital punishment for the intentional murderer was both preferred and desired. The reason for this apparent harshness is suggested by the manner in which mayhem/aggravated battery, and less severe batteries as well, were handled. After the batterer paid the sums imposed by the court, he sought the victim's pardon — and the victim had to grant it. The social fabric is thus made whole again. When there is, however, no living victim to grant pardon, the death of the offender provides the necessary atonement for the offense so that divine pardon may be granted, and the offender enter upon eternal life. Through the death penalty, a sort of balance is restored on earth and in heaven, because the life of the offender is not held more worthy than the life of his victim, and the process of death, atonement and forgiveness clears the offender's slate of his grave sin. Jurisprudence and theology are intimately linked.
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