[Grovenet] Death Penalty

[Jeff Cooper]

The article is probably the most compelling reason why we should *not* have the death penalty.  A drunken mother nukes her baby in the microwave, which of course is about as heinous a thing to do as one can imagine.  We're all disgusted and appalled.  Our gut instinct is to kill the mother in retribution.  Now... consider this.  A sober woman smothers her baby with a pillow because she feels the world is a horrible place and doesn't want the baby to grow up in it.  Same result, a dead baby.  You might feel differently about what the second mother deserves, might not.  But the gut reaction in the first case is kill the mother, the one in the second might have a bit of sympathy (if not empathy).  The question I raise here is "where and how do juries draw the line between what deserves death, and what deserves another sentence?" 



       
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