March Monthly Connection

Does someone deserve to die if they take the life of another person? When I first looked at this question, my immediate thought was, yes, of course they do it seems fair. That person took away someone elses right to live, so they should lose their right. This is one reason why things are kind of strange here in the US. If someone were to commit murder, then admit to it, they are completely exempt from the death penalty. Is this completely fair? The only way that someone is put to death in this country is if there is some small possible chance that they are indeed innocent. Then of course there are many criminals walking the street right now because we have lawyers who find loop holes and technicalities to let them walk free.



What goes on in the US Courts today is completely different from what happened in the novel The Stranger by Albert Camus where the main character, Meursault, admits to murdering a man and is then given the death penalty. There is even a chance that Meursault may be a little crazy. He doesn't really care about the things around him and feels no emotion towards his mother's death. Had he been an American in our society today, there is no way that he would have been killed, everyone would instead say that he is mentally ill. Funny how the system in the novel should be primative compared to ours when it is justifiable.