NEWS: How Fun is it to Execute the Insane?

Because it's a ridiculous question and irrelevant (especially in this situation). You say "he deserves it" but what he "deserves" has no bearing on the law whatsoever. A court may decide his sentence based on a number of factors, but the law is not designed to give a person what he "deserves." The law is designed to mete out Justice. What Justice is will vary from case-to-case. It should be noted of course that simply because a Court has decided on a particular person's sentence that it may or may not be ultimately "Just." It also may or may not be "fair," "rational," or "Constitutional" but each and every one of those variables are in actuality quite independent of each other.

Incidentally, there is no one definition of Justice. You can argue for the rest of your natural life about it, but that's just like... your opinion man.

First off, I was building off other peoples' statements and the flow of the conversation. Maybe I have interpreted wrong, but I got the feeling that you were of the opinion that justice is ultimately about what's best for a society (which is ultimately arrived to through logic), and even if you weren't I was using it as the basis of my argument.

What's better for society as a whole? Saving money, saving innocent lives, and learning how to better profile anti-social (potentially murderous) behavior patterns or to kill people (which is inconsistent with our view of ethics "thou shalt not kill", in the first place) to make people feel better, because someone "got what they deserved"? Come on, can you really tell me the latter is better for society and based in logical social policy (thereby, IMO anyway, making it more just) than the former? Resist, resist, my friend, but just because it's legislated doesn't make it just (note: slavery).

Sorry, I was in a hurry earlier and I misread it, but people are still animals. If I'm ignorant, educate me.

Oh for pete's sake. The point is that people are not treated like animals under the law.

Not true, I went in to contest a traffic ticket once, and they hit me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

What he said.

So, in your view it is the people of the state who are responsible for executing the criminal? Surely, therefore, they are all killers and should be punished accordingly? Or is culpability for killing somehow like marmite? palatable and acceptable to common taste when spread very thin, but if found in one big lump (i.e. one person) detestable and deserving of being spat out? There's massive hypocrisy inherent in that.

Here is a list of crimes that the death penalty has previously been considered a fitting punishment for in the uk:

blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime
witchcraft
heresy
cutting down an orchard
shoplifting
the concealment of effects by bankrupts
being in the company of Gypsies for one month and brilliantly
"strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7-14 years of age"

during c18 & c19 all these things were considered so heinous that they deserved the "ultimate punishment" as you call it. At some point in history people woke up and realised that these criminals could be rehabilitated, and the removal of the death penalty is a continuation of this. Murderers may or may not deserve to die, but the function of the justice system in modern times is no longer to hand out people's just deserts. It functions as a means of protection for the public and rehabilitation for the transgressor.

The death penalty is based on an outmoded superstition that taking someone's life somehow makes up for the fact that they have done the same thing to someone else. It does not, it just means two people are dead instead of one. It belongs in the dustbin of legal history alongside trial by ordeal and the torture chamber.

Good news!

He did!

Well, Bean, Subrosa, pretty much said everything reasonable that I'd want to say.
What I often wonder about is what makes some people so gung ho for the death penalty and what it is that makes it so I and others are opposed. I wonder about what a supporter of the death penalty thinks about after reading Crime and Punishment? Of course, all the supporters of the death penalty I've chatted with either haven't read it or read the cliff notes.
Then I get to completely ridiculous thoughts such as, if you support the death penalty do you also believe that Batman is a pussy?

PS I'm glad Panetti won, I'm guessing he might not be aware that he won, but that is okay.

An eye for an eye,
till the whole world's
Blind