Remember: the death penalty is ultimately about us, not the criminal.

It is about you and me and all of us and what OUR standards are about how WE react to terrible crimes/criminals.

Simple as that.

when we let convicted/guilty/proven by dna murderers, sociopathical serieal killers live?.....

that we do it ourselves to prove how bad it is?

some people can't see, that the DP is not murder. If someone defends themselves, and fatally shoots someone in order to protect themselves, is that murder? NO, most people would say, its self defense...I'm for the DP, and when I see a convicted killer, who did the deed, be executed I don't see it as murder, as a lot of other posters proclaim, its murder, but I don't see it that way. Just like if someone fatally shots someone in self defense, its called Self-Defense, and not murder.

I'm a fan of accountability. IF you did the crime, you deserve the punishment. The DP is legal in most states, and if you commit henious murder, you are eligeble for that punishment. But anyway, i'm sure i'm going to get flamed...

And in fact killing is what I said in my post.

you used the word kill, in your post, my bad. So, if i kill in self defense, is that still killing, and should i go to jail, cause its killing?...:)

The death penalty is about US, not the criminal.

IMHO, it is about our reaction to something horrific, not the finer points of killing vs. murder.

... or otherwise no longer posing an immediate threat. Welcome to reality. I guess you supported Bush's invasion of Iraq? After all, that was called 'self-defense' too.

I talked about self defense... if someone is running away and is gunned down, and the gun man says, it was self defense, i agree with you, its not Self Defense, but murder.

I didn't support the Bush Invasion of Iraq, sorry to dissapoint you in that regard....:)

I'm saying, people see a distinction between self defense(when it is indeed self defense) and murder/killing....and i see that same distinction with the DP, I see someone who commited heinous acts, get the punishment, that his crimes warranted...sorry...go ahead and flame me as a GOP rw nut job....

But killing a man who is behind bars..

strapped to a table and surrounded by guards no less.

that is murder

... and 'only' 776 death sentences. Obviously, a death sentence is NOT the only way to punish someone who has committed murder, even in one of the most blood-thirsty states in the country.

You've got over 37,000 murderers to go to prove your point (if you have one) ... and that's in just one state.

just prove the point that the DP is reserved for the most heinous of the murderers. I'd be glad to hand it out for child rape, as well.

The heinousness of the crime has the least to do with it. Race, plea-bargaining, wealth, "luck of the draw" ... all have more to do with whether a murderer get the death penalty. For example, there are quite a few multiple-murderers with life sentences and single-murderers who got the death penalty.

:shrug: That rationalization just doesn't fly.

put them in General Population in Prison, and tell the other prisoners what they are there for.

much better punishment than ending their miserable lives.

I do not condone or believe there is justice in state sponsored death or any form of capital punishment. So, that leaves life imprisonment and confinement. I neither believe in torture, but the truly guilty and remorseful will “torture” themselves. Beyond this argument, I have no proof and can’t say, except that murder by any other name is still murder.