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All you have to do is explain to me how fear of losing his life might have deterred Klebold from carrying out his murder spree.

There is not need to explain how the death penalty would have deterred Klebold. The death penalty is not for the purposes of a deterrent. It is for the purpose of removing deadly dangers to the people of a state.

The rationale, pretty ancient I might add, is concurrent and the same as the right to use deadly force to protect yourself from clear and present human dangers to you and your family.

Since the state is the people of the state, it acquires either exclusive or concurrents right that people have. Very old doctrine.

The Supremem Court is dead wrong, as they have been being dead wrong almost sequentially these days. An under 18 functioning sociopath is as deadly a danger to the people of a state as an over 18 functioning sociopath.

You have to remember that rarely, in the stack of criminal cases, is the death penalty sought and as often imposed. Klebold would have and should have recieved the death penalty.

There are certain twists of human character that a few years in jail, at terrific expense to those same people the state is trying to protect, will not cure.

It is for the purpose of removing deadly dangers to the people of a state.

Prison does that.

The death penalty is revenge, plain and simple revenge.

Not deterrence, and not societies way of cleaning house, although this can be argued as a secondary effect, it is not the real purpose.

It is payback.

You are so right and I'm glad that made your post.

Last May, my sister was stabbed twenty-two times in the chest and killed. This happened in Iowa. The killer then immediately drove across the Missouri River and within an hour of my sister's death shot an old friend of mine eleven times, killing him.

Iowa has no death penalty. Nebraska does, but the prosecutors determined that the second death was not 'heinous' enough to bring a death penalty charge. Maybe if he'd shot him twelve times??

The murderer has already been convicted of the second crime. He stood in court and begged the court to kill him.

But they won't.

We'll warehouse him at great expense for the next 30-50 years. That is, if during that time, some collection of Leftists doesn't find some way to reinflict him on society...

The whole thing is a gross miscarriage of justice.

The Left's anti-life agenda is reigning supreme: To kill the innocent and spare the guilty.

You've got it!

""The death penalty is not for the purposes of a deterrent. It is for the purpose of removing deadly dangers to the people of a state.

The rationale, pretty ancient I might add, is concurrent and the same as the right to use deadly force to protect yourself from clear and present human dangers to you and your family. ""