“Thou shalt not kill”
In Cold Blood“Thou shalt not kill” is the commandment at the center of a brief but consequential biblical argument in the trial’s closing speeches. Green presents it not as an absolute prohibition on execution, but as a rule against unlawful killing that can coexist with legally imposed punishment for murder.
The Commandment in Green’s Argument
Green anticipates that the defense will use the Bible against the death penalty. He reads the commandment from Exodus 20:13, then points to Exodus 21:12, which prescribes death as the penalty for killing. His reasoning turns on a distinction: the commandment forbids unlawful killing, while the next chapter, as he presents it, authorizes punishment under law.
Scriptural Context and Legal Claim
Green further rejects the defense’s suggestion that Christ’s coming changed the earlier law, invoking Christ’s statement that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it. He then cites Genesis 9:6, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” The sequence makes the commandment part of a larger scriptural case for capital punishment rather than an isolated rule against taking life.
Function in the Closing Argument
After making that biblical argument, Green says he sees nothing to be gained by debating the Bible and turns to Kansas law, which provides life imprisonment or death by hanging for first-degree murder. The expression thus marks a contested interpretive point: the same religious text invoked against execution is recast by the prosecution as compatible with the state’s legal punishment. The passage presents the commandment not as the end of the argument, but as the opening term in a dispute over who may lawfully take life.
