Whilst nobody contends that crimes such as those you list are terrible, is it not sinking to their level to kill them? Not only would life imprisonment be extremely harsh on the criminals-who ants to spend their life in hell?-It is also recognised by almost the whole western world and a large chunk of the rest as being both a more humane and also more punishing sentence.
Be careful when you speak of the 'almost the whole western world.' The death penalty still enjoys the support of a majority of the people even in countries where it has been outlawed by the actions of judges and rogue politicians acting against the will of the people. The idea that there is some kind of concensus against the death penalty in the world at large is fallacious.
Second, I fail to see how life in prison can be both more humane and more punishing. Am I missing something? I thought the reason life in prison was thought to be more human was because it was less punishing. If it's not more punishing, then wouldn't death be the more humane punishment? And besides, isn't punishing a criminal exactly the point? Don't we want to punish the perpetrators of violent crimes for their actions?
But we must remember in this debate why we have the death penalty to begin with. One is a matter of justice. When a member of society commits an act so heinous as to violate every moral sensibility of the society at large, he or she must be punished, not as an act of vindictiveness, but as an act of justice. The death penalty provides a closure to those crimes and incidents that haunt this earth--a closure that life in prison cannot replicate.
Another reason we civilized societies have turned to the death penalty when dealing with crimes of the gravest nature is our general, collective belief in God, a final arbitor of the actions of men. The death penalty is, in a sense, an admission that all men are fallen; that no judge, no jury, and no society is capable of passing judgment on a soul. Only the Supreme Being, the creator of the universe, and the Lord of men is capable of handing down such a judgment. The death penalty is the act of yielding judgment to the only one who is capable of passing it.
