I don’t get why people support the death penalty in certain cases. It is never fair, moral or ethical.
This man did something absolutely horrible, but not close, not even by a factor of ten, to what the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik did.
In Norway we imprisoned him, probably for life, but we don’t kill him. We make sure he has a life that is reasonably comfortable inside prison. Because we are better than him. All life has value. Even his. We spend the miniscule amount of money is to provide him a decent life within confinement.
Recently a person was found innocent after spending about 20 years in prison for rape and killing two children. He would have been dead if we had capitol punishment in Norway.
Even if he seems lost completely and outside the possibility of rehabilitation, we give everyone a somewhat worthy life.
There are individualistic and collective ways of looking at this. Did society fail these people? Why did they become this way? Or was this destined to happened, because they are in some way inherently evil. If society failed in some way, then they at least deserve the minimum of a reasonably comfortable life in prison.
Because it is always partly a failing of society, true justice is never death.
