A strong case can be made in principle for capital punishment. Those who commit vicious crimes destroy the basis on which a moral community rests and forfeit their rights to citizenship and even to life itself. More than 13,000 people have been legally executed since colonial times, most of them in the early 20th Century. By the 1930s, as many as 150 people were executed each year in USA. I think that the nation should still actively use this form of punishment when necessary. It seems strange to me that the welfare of the community should not come before that of a convicted murderer. …
