Thoughts on the Death Penalty

I am conflicted about the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia. On the one hand, I find the death penalty to be justified for heinous killers (I watched 'Gone Baby Gone' the other night and didn't seemed to mind when Casey Affleck, playing a private detective, executed a young man who had obviously just murdered a young boy). Yet I also know that racial prejudice has sometimes condemned innocent people to death over the years.

It concerns me when prominent folks I respect protest a particular death penalty verdict, yet I also know that if you're going to have the death penalty, then the system at some point has to be respected enough to do its job.

This is one of responsibilities laid upon political leaders that have to be particularly difficult. They have to be the ones in the end to finally decide, 'yea or ney', even if the original decision was made years before way, way down the line.

And which perspective is more respecting of life: that which punishes the destroyer of life by taking his/her life, or that which spares the life of the homicidal killer? There is no easy way out here, I think.

And what is so kind about locking someone up in prison--away from family, friends, etc.--for the rest of their life? Wouldn't death in some ways be kinder?

I have many questions about the death penalty, and I'm not even sure which way I fall. All I know is, either way you go, someone is grieving.