Why are police lives and government employee lives more valuable than the lives of everyone else? Shouldn't we also treat ALL murderers the same? Here in Atlanta a couple of colorful youts lured a pizza delivery driver to their apartment and then robbed and killed him. The lawyers for the younger one are saying that "all he did" was order the pizza , but both of the youts were posing on facebook with the gun a couple of hours befo de robbery. Shouldn't they get an automatic death sentence also? (My opinion is that they should)
I just don't understand why some citizens' lives are considered more valuable than others.
*Also federal government employees
In Texas, the murder of that delivery driver counts as capital murder. Murder of a peace officer or a murder in the commission of another felony offense is capital murder in Texas. As for why murders of LEO’s rate a near automatic death sentence is very simple: They put their lives on the line each and every day they put on their uniforms. They are the thin blue line that stands between the criminal element and law-abiding citizens that just want to live their lives in peace.
In George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin was portrayed and everyone was told they were ‘equal’ but then they were told some ‘were more equal’.
There should be no special laws saying a crime against someone who is of a racial group, has a different sexual orientation etc. etc. is a more serious crime deserving more punishment.
The same should go for law enforcement-government employees.
I’m a government employee and I don’t think my life is more valuable than the lives of others.
“I just don’t understand why some citizens’ lives are considered more valuable than others”
Neither do I, nor would the founders.
“Why are police lives and government employee lives more valuable than the lives of everyone else?”
They aren’t. And no law based on such a premise would withstand legal scrutiny. Equal protection.
However, there are mitigating factors for increasing the severity of the penalty of certain crimes. For example, robbery is a serious crime. Using a weapon, such as a gun, makes it aggravated robbery.
Targeting law enforcement officers for murder while in the commission of their duties escalates the severity of the crime. Compare this act to a bar room brawl where a fight leads to a death. Or compare it to someone who kills someone due to reckless driving caused by checking a cell phone text message. In the latter two cases a death is caused by someone, and these would probably bring felony charges if provable in court.
That being said, even while some murders may be more “serious” offenses than others, you can only implement the death penalty once. So a multiple homicide by a terrorist and a single murder by the jealous husband of an estranged spouse (which might have been “justifiable homicide” at one time in this nation) can still only be punished with no more than capital punishment. Beyond that is up to God.