Opinion: Scott Peterson's death sentence--an eye for an eye, a murder for a murder?

12/14/04The jury that found Scott Peterson guilty of first degree murder for killing his wife, and second degree murder for killing there unborn son, has now recommended to Judge Alfred A. Delucchi that Peterson be put to death. The six men and six women of the jury are guilty of the attempted murder of Scott Peterson, and if he is eventually put to death after years of appeals, they will be guilty of murder.

The death penalty is inhumane, and no government should decide the mortality of its citizens. People who loved him and people who hated him are going to crowd into a room to watch through glass as Peterson is injected with lethal fluid. People will watch him die, let out a sigh of relief, and feel that justice has been served, alongside those who will watch a part of themselves die with him.

Hopefully even those who celebrated the sentence outside the coutroom must realize that taking Peterson's life will not bring back his wife and child, it will only cause more pain and suffering to his innocent relatives.

While guilt and innocence should be left up to a jury of his peers as the constitution states, life and death should never been in the hands of the government.

No one should have the right to kill--not Peterson, not the jury, not Delucchi, and certainly not, on our behalf, the state.