1. It warns parents that there are some real sickos running loose. I would NEVER let my children walk out of my yard when they were younger -- even my 17 year old daughter always has 2-3 friends with her when she goes anywhere. My advice to her is to travel with her pack (she pals with a nice bunch of kids from her school, I know them all pretty well and they are good kids, good students, no drugs or alcohol.) A girl alone is a mark for every monster out there like Smith.
2. This sentencing hearing demonstrated for the public at large what is necessary to put even a monster like this to death. (a) It was required for the judge to announce the reasons in detail for his sentence, in order to withstand the numerous appeals that every convicted murderer is entitled to by law. (b) THIS is the only type of heinous crime for which the death penalty can still be imposed. They have to rub our noses in it or he will not be put to death.
I don't need to watch movies or listen to the news about this stuff -- I've been a courthouse rat for 22 years. And the stuff they put on the news is TAME compared to the stuff I see every day. If I told you the details of a kidnapping/rape/torture case that crossed my desk last week, you would lose your dinner. The girl lived, but she might be better off dead. Major surgery just to survive, and she is blind, maimed, and is too badly damaged to ever have a baby.
There are evil people among us, and the public needs to know that on a gut level.
Everyone talks about how we all need to know this...
Myself, I don't need to wallow in evil to know it's there. There's a voyeuristic quality to this.