Justice is not if there are 16,000 murders a year but only 25 executions a year, a lot of these people are on death row for 20 years with appeals... so closure for the victims? I'm not so sure about.
There are heinous murders AND multiple murders which would seem to be worthy of the death penalty, this guy in Oklahoma killed a nice young teenage girl by burying her alive. How deranged is that?
Yet, at the same time, is this killing more than if someone robs the convenience store and kills the clerk?
I just don't know what the difference is and besides that, I know of one of the cases where someone was executed for killing a convenience store clerk. Maybe we have 16,000 murders a year but a fair percent of them are unsolved. Still.
Some guy goes in the convenience store to rob it, likely expecting no resistance. Discharging the firearm may even be unintentional, a result of a finger on the trigger and adrenaline. Or it may have been a cold, premeditated act, to exact vengeance on the clerk for some reason, wholly unnecessary otherwise. That was for the jury to decide, and the execution may send a message to others who might consider doing the same.
Contrast that with a guy who cruises the junior high, who picks out his victim, who has plans for her, who has his way with her, who kills her, not in the heat of passion, but slowly, deliberately, by burying her alive.
That criminal is a cold blooded predator, someone who used their abilities to plan and reason to select a victim, to carry out a horrible crime, who knew full well the effects of their actions well in time to stop, but didn't.
That act of killing was part and parcel of the intent, an intimate part of the crime, an intentional outcome planned for in advance. There are even sicker examples out there, Tom.
If you go digging for Biblical quotes, you might be disappointed. Among other things, the penalty of death was for Murder, Adultery, Bestiality, Rape of a betrothed virgin, and Male-male sexual intercourse.
But now, I must ask you, too, a question which no one has answered. If you think capital punishment is unacceptable, how would you have dealt with those condemned at The Nuremberg Trials?