Well, if you don't believe in murder...then don't do it. Very simple.

Governments and governors should be included in that.

Human beings are not endowed with the authority to premeditatedly and deliberately end the lives of other human beings, in my opinion...specially not when they themselves are in absolutely no personal danger from those others at the time. It's a despicable thing to contemplate and a despicable thing to do. It's the act of the powerful against the completely powerless. It's stupid. It's unnecessary. It's an act of deep cowardice and ignorance. It denies even the possibility of redemption in another human being. If there were such a being as Satan, then how pleased he would be by that! How pleased he would be by the withholding of forgiveness, the withholding of mercy, and the application of stern and unyielding judgement upon a prisoner. How he would relish the fear, the despair, the suffering.

Jesus never recommended executing anyone, did he? There is an interesting dichotomy between the Old Testament and the New. The difference between "no mercy" and "complete mercy". Christians pick whichever book suits their basic inclinations when they use it to back up their own desires. The merciless can find plenty of passages in the O.T. to feed their unholy hunger for blood...all of which were repudiated by Jesus later. They can just ignore those aspects.

Jesus tried to reform an ancient, primitive, and hard-hearted faith. He was a Jew. He was not accepted by the mainstream Jewish church of his time. Would mainstream Christianity accept him today? I wonder. I know a lot of them wouldn't.

The point is not whether Tookie was or is a "good man" or not. The point is that murder, all murder, is wrong. Shall we cancel one murder out with another? Who made some man in a uniform or a judge's robe into God? If they did, they made a false god in the image of their own wrathful fear and judgement.