[GhettoDogAllStars]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

Yes. He is. The murderer took an innocent life from the societal whole and society owes a duty to its remaining citizens.

As a society, we place a paramount value on the protection of innocent life. We believe, it is fundamental and necessary to our existence as a society and to those fundamental truths articulated in our founding documents: "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".

When someone demonstrates that they are willing to disregard/attack the core beliefs of our society, it is our duty, as a society, to make them pay the paramount penalty in order to demonstrate the value we as a society place on innocent life. Permitting a guilty murderer to live devalues the innocent life wrongly taken and, some would say, condones the taking of innocent life.

Again, is compassion and forgiveness an element of "justice", if so, who decides when compassion is appropriate? Which is more important - condoning societal compassion to a murderer or making a clear and consistent statement that, in our society, innocent life is our most treasured possesion?

Innocent life is clearly not valued and protected as much as you make it out to be when society enacts laws and punishments which inevitably lead to the death of innocents.