Death Penalty Is The Wrong Punishment For James Holmes

[davidn3600]

18. Justice is death? Are we not all going to die someday?

How can death be a penalty to fear if death is something we will all inevitably face?

"But...but...the death penalty ends his life quicker and that's the punishment!" Really? Who guaranteed that you will live a long, happy life? Any one of us can die in a car accident on the way to work tomorrow. Any one of us could have deadly cancer growing in our body right now and not know it. People die young everyday. There is no guarantee you will live to life expectancy. No body knows how long they are going to live.

Does killing Holmes provide closure? In what way? In Newtown, CT, Adam Lanza gunned down 22 and then shot himself. Adam is dead. So shouldn't we feel closure and that justice is served? Let's ask the victims families if they feel closure. Would it feel better if we caught Adam alive, kept him alive for 20 years, and then killed him ourselves? In that case, we are not after justice, we are after revenge. When Adam shot himself, he robbed the victim's families for their opportunity to get revenge.

The US is falling behind civilization on this issue though. Over 155 countries no longer practice the death penalty. China is the only country that executes more people than the US. The death penalty is banned through practically all of Europe. Yet at the same time we like to believe we are the world's leaders in human rights.