Readers React: Does the death penalty deserve to die?

I don’t believe that those who oppose the death penalty hold higher moral ground than I do. My support of the death penalty is simply a matter of justice. (“How to kill the death penalty,” Opinion, May 28)

Without a death row, a convicted murderer lives in the prison general population. With that comes a certain number of privileges.

He can watch television, listen to the radio, check out books and even hold a job. He will hear that next great song, laugh at the newest jokes and be amazed at the new discoveries we make as a society. He may benefit from new medical advances, and he can expand his mind and grow as a person from reading countless books.

His victims can do none of those things. He shouldn’t be able to either.

That’s moral ground I am proud to stand on.

Steve Marchillo

Claremont

I applaud Moshik Temkin’s Op-Ed article.

Most reasonable people agree on the following arguments against the death penalty: Killing innocent people is an unbearable risk; the death penalty is more expensive than lifelong imprisonment; and research has shown that it doesn’t provide an increased deterrent to crime.

But the most logical argument often gets left out, namely: If you think that killing a person is wrong, how can you think that turning around and killing one yourself in retribution is right?

Christoph Bull

Los Angeles

Why has revenge gotten such a bad rap?

There’s an argument that Oklahoma murderer Clayton Lockett’s execution wasn’t “botched” but rather was exactly appropriate for his crime and, on top of that, came many years too late. Shouldn’t the punishment fit the crime?

There are individual acts that are unmistakably so heinous that life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is like a slap on the wrist.

For those who can actually forgive such a criminal, more power to them. But I bet that for most of us, there’s comfort in “an eye for an eye.”

Tay Weinman

Palos Verdes Estates

Temkin didn’t mention one argument against the death penalty.

I believe that execution by whatever means is a less severe punishment than spending the rest of one’s life languishing in jail and, if legally possible, being sentenced to unrewarded hard labor. Even if we could guarantee a quick and painless death, that, in my opinion, is letting the villain off lightly.

In serving life without parole, the perpetrator is forced to spend the rest of his life denied his freedom and living with the memory of the heinous action that put him there. The alternative — execution — is too easy an out.

Leon F. Marzillier

Granada Hills

Temkin is horrified by the death penalty. I am horrified by reports about murderers in prison who kill other prisoners, kill prison guards, order murders on the outside, are paroled and eventually kill again or sometimes escape and kill again.

Once more we hear the argument that the death penalty does not deter future killings. Common sense tell us that it does: Those executed will never kill again.

Gil Roscoe

Valley Village