From at least some of the accounts I've been reading, it sounds at least possible that OBL may have been summarily executed. [UPDATE: Reuters is reporting that the SEAL team was under orders to kill, not capture, OBL.] Politically, I can see the reasons for doing that, since having him as a prisoner would have been a nightmare for the U.S. government. And I have little doubt that he would have been eligible for -- and received -- the death penalty after a trial. Understanding that we can't know all the facts and likely never will, I'm curious what readers think about the morality of that. The Catholic view of the death penalty allows for its use in exceptional circumstances. Here's what the Catechism says:
Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
Is OBL one of these rare circumstances where the death penalty would be permissible? If he were, does the absence of any adjudicative process affect your evaluation? My own view is that he would fit within the exception -- there's no factual question concerning his culpability for the killing of thousands of innocent people nor of his intention to continue sponsoring such killings in the future, and he would seem to be nearly as much a danger in prison as at large, though this last point is probably debatable -- but I'm curious what you think.
