Mooh: I agree that it has been a good discussion. No minds were changed, however, on either side. "Thou shalt not kill" and "Do unto others", however, are rules that one would hope all individuals would practice. Unfortunately, not all people do. I am not certain myself that the writer of those Biblical verses was referring to the "State" when he wrote them either. I assume you do agree that the "State" has a legitimate roll in protecting the good guys from the bad ones. Es so?

Larry, I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was still greiving over a murder that occurred over thirty years ago. The greiving is over. I do regret that someone prevented my wife's mother from enjoying the pleasure of seeing her grandchildren grow up. That would have happened, of course, had she died an early natural death, but that wasn't the case. A man (we know that much) conciously took her life. Not with a gun (so we can't blame guns in this case), nor a knife (can't blame them either), but with his hands. He strangled her to death. In my opinion, society has a right to be protected from such people, and the only way to insure that is the case is execute them. Get them off the street. I do not believe society has the obligation to feed, clothe and shelter them for the rest of their lives. Obviously this is a minority opinion in the forum. So be it. If polls show that the pendulum of public opinion is swinging away from favoring capital punishment then so be it. I then will be counted among the minority rather than the majority. One last comment regarding Larry's posting: I never at anytime felt that I, personally, would extract "an eye or an eye, tooth for a tooth" if given the opportunity. And, since I assume you are a lawyer, I can understand that you would represent, if called upon, the butcher who slaughterd so many of your people. That is the role of the lawyer in our society and I think you should. I think the perpertrators of the kind of capital crimes we are discussing should have the absolutely best counsel possible. I agree that is not always the case. That is why we have the Appeals process. In the case of those sentenced to death (in the U.S. at least) the majority of those convicted take advantage of every Appeal possible. It's not a perfect system to be sure. But who knows of a better one?

I am confident that I changed no minds of any who have posted to this Thread. Frankly, that was not my purpose. I had my say, and am pleased that my minority veiws were read and did not result in any raging, irresponsible, flaming (yet). Peace.

DougR