I believe I specifically said that's why we have appeals. Anyway, yes I read your Reed link, or re-read it, I familiar with the case, it is still being appealed, hence justice is still at work, the details of his specific case have never much interested me as I find abolitionists typically seem to think it's better to release murders than execute them, given an option, so I rarely trust their comments about conspiracies when the court seems to overrule them all the time and they seem to show up for every case. If it's overturned, justice obviously prevailed, if it isn't, and he's executed, I rather suspect justice will again have prevailed. Though obviously I don't want someone executed for a crime they didn't commit, you'll excuse me if I'm not crying tears over this particular scumbag who even if he didn't commit the crime, as I believe the evidence indicates, is hardly a model citizen. Of course, his other crimes and wrongdoings do not convict him of murder, but a jury did, and he's conviction has not been overturned so far. I have great faith in our legal system on criminal matters, and do not really like discussing ongoing cases.



Prisoners should be treated humanely, but not in an enviable state either, all emphasis on 'enviable' since we don't obviously want people saying 'gee, I wish I was in prison, how can I get in?' Execution is not inhumane.



Well, our view is common amongst lawyers and politicians ironically, since it's tends to be the default view except when someone is rabble-rousing for the public. Considering it's managed to hold this view for a long time now, and we are probably less 'lynchee' than we used to be, I would say most people, though emotion driven on these things, tend to be reasonable when they've cooled off, and our system seems to force that.

I would add, that while vengeance is a flawed motive for punishment, the reverse is also true, public rage and outcry or bloodlust does not mean we should let people go or improve their conditions. If some want to feel that 'they got what was coming to them', then that's fine, the rest of us with cool headers can continue to Thank God we haven't gotten what's coming to us and remind ourselves of that when we are tempted to see some horrible child-murderer tortured to death instead of humanely executed.