9/18/15

The main question I have here is; should a person be allowed to continue with or have a “normal” life after they directly ended someone else’s in a situation that was not an accident? If you kill someone through your actions, should you get life in prison without parole or with the possibility of parole? Or maybe, perhaps a lesser sentence or no sentence at all? Or even be put to death? After all you have deprived someone of their life, should you be allowed to continue with yours?

We should also consider how the killing occurred? Did it occur during commission of a crime, in the heat of passion, because of impairment of some sort on the part of the killer (drugs/mental illness etc.), or was it deliberate and planned?

What about the impact of this death on the people who knew the deceased. They are now denied this individual in their lives. What is the price to be paid for this? What if the deceased had children, etc.? What if the deceased was homeless or had no family? What if the deceased was an important member of society? So many what if’s…?

People are generally important to someone; some might even say life is priceless. So is there a way to gauge this importance in order to determine a punishment? After all, a life was taken, what might that person have accomplished if their life hadn’t ended suddenly? Basically how do you judge the value of an individual life and the proper criminal punishment for the death? In ancient times, it was an eye for an eye, today, if you kill, does society have the right to remove you from it, even on a permanent basis?

I recently read an article about someone who was convicted of killing a taxi driver forty years ago during a robbery. Instead of taking the money and leaving, they choose to kill. Now their family is lobbying for their release saying the person has changed and is not the same person. This may be true, but they did kill. The victim was just living their life when the killer came into it and took it from them. No one is denying this fact. Why shouldn’t society take the killers life away also in one form or another? But now their family is trying to free them saying they have served enough time. Should this person be allowed their freedom after forty years (or any amount of time served)? Have they been punished enough? What about the family of the person they killed, do they still grieve the loss? What lasting devastation did this person inflict on this family? Would they even agree to let the killer out? What about the life the victim did not get to live? When you deprive someone else of their life, does your punishment ever end? Do you deserve to walk as a free person amongst the rest of humanity, ever? Should the killer be allowed to get a second chance at life after they ended someone else’s? The victim can’t get that second chance. You can’t replace a life like you can replace a car, once it’s gone; it’s gone, never to be duplicated. In this particular reality, there is no straight forward answer.