David,
You have your beliefs and I respect that, but I believe in life after death and I know for a certainty that I shall never be disappointed in that belief.

I have been settled on this for a long time now and feel it is pretty straight forward.

I little have condemnation of people who on the spur of the moment kill someone who has clearly brutally raped or murdered a family member.

But once the perpetrator is in the arms of the State then the sanction for a new murder is revoked.

The definition of murder is:"the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another."

The only difference if the State does it is represented by the removal of just two letters in that definition. The killing is otherwise even more premeditated.

It is not a matter of whether the odd person might be innocent for me, but rather it diminishes us when we go about sanctioning, or aiding, of participating in the wilful murder of another. We take a step as a collective toward that person and their crime.

The more dearly we hold life the more heinous it makes the original slaying.

Also the deeper we believe in the sanctity of live the greater the reluctance to take it will exist across our society.

Steele,
Fair enough; and does it diminish us when an innocent person is murdered, with premeditation, by some previous murderer who was released by us?

There is an assumption that the death penalty once introduced is only applied to the most serious, most horrendous criminals, but history shows that not to be the case. I made the point that "offenders against the regime" (Jesus Christ for example) are more likely to be executed than not (China today). Once introduced it tends to be applied discriminatory rather than universally (a black man convicted of murder in the US is far more likely to be executed than a middle class white male committing a similar offence).

p/s Yuyutsu, would you support the notion that a person convicted of a serious offence involving a life sentence be given the option of euthanasia as an alternative?

Two Australian cases of execution.

Henry James O'Farrell, Poor Henry murdered no one, yet hung 21st April 1868.

Ronald Joseph Ryan was the last person to be executed in Australia. Found guilty of murder, Ryan a petty criminal may or may not have murdered warder George Hodson, to this day there is serious doubts if Ryan actually was a murderer. Poor Ronnie hung 3rd February 1967

Dear Is Mise,

If there is an afterlife we can meet on the other side, and I will admit that I was wrong.

David,
Perhaps we can, but I have absolutely no doubt that I shall not be disappointed and what’s more I can prove it, logically..