Should John Muhammad be executed?

[opebo]

Oddly enough, I believe in Rehabilitation - not so much in the sense that it can be planned, devised, or predicted, but just that it is fairly obvious that the man being executed will have changed significantly from the one who did the sniping.  Who knows what he's like now?  We can only guess.

In any case, I wasn't particularly riled by the crimes.  In the first place as has been said above, this man does probably meet the definition of 'mentally ill'.  (though obviously that definition is quite dubious).  Whether we call his condition mental illness or just an unusual response, it seems clear to me that it was caused by society - various abuses that were imposed upon this man.

And in the second place its worth noting that there is something a bit, well, less offensive (I hope I don't offend anyone by saying so) about such very distant, detached killings.  The snipers killed fairly efficiently and with less 'suffering' than many other killers.