Unpayable debts

How would you feel if someone murdered one or more of your loved ones? Would you want to see the murderer receive the same fate as his victims? The Denver Post editorial board writes today that if James Holmes is convicted of the Aurora murders, he should not be put to death. In fact, The Denver Post wants the Colorado legislature to end the death penalty. As always, their headline writer is too clever by half with this headline: Death penalty should be killed.

A blogger named Professor Mondo writes about a trial that is scheduled for next May. His brother, who maintains his innocence, will be on trial for the murder of their parents, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky intends to seek the death penalty. Professor Mondo writes about it briefly but eloquently: "Capital punishment is not a mere abstract issue for me. Nonetheless, I will confess I tend to believe at least in part in a retributive model of justice — I have more faith in the penitentiary than in the reformatory.

I do believe that there are crimes so heinous that they warrant an ultimate sanction, and I believe that there are folks who are beyond human redemption. (The question of their ultimate redemption is God’s to deal with, not mine.)"

"Even though no action can bring their family members back to them — and that debt is unpayable — there may be some satisfaction in knowing that everything has been taken from the offender. And ultimately, life is our total earthly capital. Forfeiting a life may not — cannot — really put a criminal square with the house, but it is as close as we can come in a limited world."

Read more here:  http://profmondo.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/vengeance-in-a-limited-world/#comments
Read the Post editorial here: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_21277559/editorial-death-penalty-should-be-killed

Update: In an earlier post, the day after the Aurora massacre, Professor Mondo had this to say:
"This was not sick, nor was it ignorant or idiocy. It was evil. But if we can’t recognize it, we can’t do anything about it. For that matter, I’m not sure we can do anything about it in any case, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons we have moved to the diagnostic and root cause metaphors for evil — because the prospect of diagnosis offers the illusory idea of an eventual cure, and we find that comforting.
But while I don’t believe that humanity is basically evil, I believe some people are, and they cannot be cured — only extirpated.
I pray for peace for the survivors, mercy for the dead, and justice for the shooter."
 profmondo.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/rectifying-a-name