"the death penalty would be OK, but that would be after a trial...".
How many people have to be released after decades in our hell-hole prisons, because they were in fact NOT GUILTY, for you to realize that the death penalty is NOT "OK"?
You think it's "OK" for an innocent person to die, just so "we" can inflict the ultimate revenge on the probably guilty?
I'm sorry, but "we" are not God. We can never know for sure. Never! And, given the number of cases where the jury got it wrong, or the prosecutor or police or witnesses lied, or the defendant was too poor for adequate counsel, or racism or classicism colored the proceedings, or the accused was mentally retarded, or underage, or there were mitigating circumstances that the prosecutor or the judge suppressed at trial, the death penalty is TOO FINAL to make corrections of our VERY FLAWED legal system.
You say, "My concern is not for the murderer...".. You mean the "accused murderer," right? Your concern is not for the ACCUSED murderer. What if the accused murderer is YOU, and you didn't do it? You want to be given a "lethal injection" before you have a chance to prove your innocence?
This notion that because the police or prosecutors or the Corporate 'news' media or "Homeland Security" accuses someone of murder or "terrorism"--or, in these days of drones, doesn't bother to accuse them, just offs them and anybody else standing around--and the rest of us are supposed to shut up and be "good Germans," is WRONG.
We're all supposed to gang up on this ACCUSED "terrorist" and hate him and hope he dies at the hands of 'the Law'? No. That is wrong.
Not even a jury can know the truth with such finality that death for the prisoner is "OK."
As for the rest of us--the spectators at such events--it is wrong to say, "My concern is not for the murderer" and "it is hard to care when it comes to a person like this guy." How do we know who "this guy" is or what he did or didn't do? We have only the Corporate media to go by, which has lied to us, time and again, about matters of critical importance. We simply don't know if the story we are being told is true, and if we were to sit on a jury in this case, we still wouldn't know, for sure, with 100% certainty, that what we were being told is true. Could we be so certain that we would take a gun and shoot the defendant on the spot? In our false certitude, we let others do the killing.
As for your second point, that "we must never allow the cops to act as judge and jury," the truth is that they do, and the truth is that those who do often get away it. We need to understand that our policing and legal systems are VERY FLAWED. Our "authorities" not only make mistakes, they commit crimes with impunity, and they lie, and they set people up, and cover for each other, and are vulnerable to all human weaknesses--ambition, fear, corruption, fatigue, etc. We cannot trust them with the death penalty. Period. It is TOO FINAL. And in our discussion of these matters, as concerned citizens, we must never forget the word "accused" that belongs in front of the words "murderer" or "terrorist."
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