Listening to Christians and Jews agonize over this issue always makes me glad I'm a heathen. We have a whole literature about vengeance, and vengeance gone wrong. I might be happy enough to look the other way, and even cheer a little, if Dr. Petit chose to take vengeance on his family's killers. But one of the axioms of our society is that we don't allow that. State-administered death for these creeps, on the other hand, is not vengeance. It's something else: justice. If you really can't tell the difference, or if your religion forbids you to accept that difference, then the world has a problem, and you are it.

Steven T Abell
Author of DAYS IN MIDGARD: A THOUSAND YEARS ON

Surgically and humanely remove the eyes, ears, tongue, teeth, vocal cords, arms and legs of Steven Hayes, hook him up to a feeding tube and keep him in a cell, alive forever, if possible.
Justice.
Posted by: FriendofKeyserSoze

Humane my arse. Give them what they gave those girls.

Surgically and humanely remove the eyes, ears, tongue, teeth, vocal cords, arms and legs of Steven Hayes, hook him up to a feeding tube and keep him in a cell, alive forever, if possible.

Justice.

Jibeerish...
The murderers of Dr Petit's family deserve a slow, agonizng death in which every effort to keep them alive to prolong the misery should be taken. I am tired of the foolish liberal diatribe and non-sensical avoidance of the death penalty. The accused are well difeined and, beyond a shodow of a doubt, properly identified. There is no mistake in who committed this crime. A very public execution in a very painful way might make even the most crack head POS low lives re-examine their current state.
Survival and peaceful living of the innocent truly completely trumps sparring the guilty, who are society's plaque and trash.

Outsource jails to China. Make jails factories.

> No, I do not believe in revenge. I believe in justice.

No, Rabbi, you do believe in revenge and vengeance, it shows throughout your posting.

We are too imperfect to exercise vengeance, and we should be very careful that we do not think that we do justice by inflicting vengeance. Though it is not your Scripture, the former Pharisee Paul said it best in Romans 12:19: "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

I'm a funeral planner. Put up a website to remember dead convicts.

The Moon is bright tonight. The pen is dark.

Feed your convictions and kids and starve the convicts. Bad economy, you die. We win.

Let's simplify. We are ignoring you, they aren't for sale and you aren't getting paid for failing. Deal with it, frauds don't pay. Losses are evil and capital is good to go. Just go away.

I watched the Hickory Police Chief struggle with his emotions when he cancelled the Amber alert and declared the case a homicide. I read a story online about the police searching a landscaping company where a wood chipper is located. Zahra’s father works there. I found out that the stepmother wrote a ransom note asking for a million dollars and the police found it. I watched a live shot from a news helicopter hovering over a small pond that was being drained in search of the body. Today I saw a picture of police carrying a mattress out of the home for forensic tests. Stories of abuse have surfaced and no one outside the immediate family have seen the girl in about a month.

So far Zahra has not been found.

We can all pray that Zahra turns up somewhere safe, but I don’t think that is going to be the case. We may never know what happened, but something did.

How can something as inconceivable as this happen? Do we all carry within us the potential for this kind of evil?
http://hubpages.com/hub/What-Happened-to-Zahra-Claire-Baker

The free press is a weapon in the struggle. Family does make a difference. That's how I learned it. Everything is more corporate today and that is failing. Go private go family. Profit saves souls and it goes generation to generation, so regenerate. We can find out what happened, the why will never be reasoned. We can't hate family, so it always wins the battle.

My heart goes out to Dr Petit and hope he can heal from this horrific tragedy.

Contrary to the Rabbi, killing Mr. Hayes only adds to the tragedy.

Leave the ultimate sentence up to God.

I really disagree. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach writes that when Jesus said to forgive your enemies, he meant that your enemy is the guy who steals your parking spacenot someone who commits murder. When Jesus said "Father, forgive them for they know what what they do" while dying on the cross, was he forgiving such trivial offenses?
I've got no argument with Dr. Petit's personal view of the matter--he's being authentic. The hole in his heart will never go away. He's lived through a great horror. I would in all likelihood feel the same if visited with the same level of evil. But Shmuley Boteach's assertions about what Jesus really meant only trivializes one of the purest, difficult, and most powerful teachings of Christianity. We may not like it, most of us could never live up to it, but I think Jesus knew exactly what his was saying when he spoke on forgiveness, and he did not mention limits or conditions.

Shouldn't this morality apply to mass murders like Georgie Bush, Dickie Cheney, Donie Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, et al??

How about life without parole? Free room, board, medical attention, dental care, Thanksgiving turkey and 4th of July barbeque, visits from family, earning degrees if desired, superbowl and world series games...emotional adjustment to contentment despite the fact the state has "grounded" you for being naughty. If a life sentence is so much more terrible than execution, why is it that those on death row fight tooth and nail to avoid the chair? Ah well, the state of Connecticut will take every dime Dr. Petit pays in state tax for the rest of his life to clothe, house and feed the murderers of his family...

Sigh! Rowing against the current of "No Death Penalties".

For cases like this one, I would prefer that Madam Guillotine do the honors, with the evil monsters placed face up to ponder AND watch the blade fall!

Might actually help to warn other monsters, especially if televised!

Rabbi, you mention Jesus, but The Gospels are written in a symbolic way and should never be taken literally. For example, "bread" in the Gospels, means food for our soul, not the baker's bread made of flour. "Cheek" does not mean a part of human face, it means our willingness to listen at others' complaints. Every single word in the Sermon on The Mount is symbolic. One of the many meanings of the word " forgive" is : let me look forward with hope for better, let me keep occupied with good deed and don't dwell in the past. Words have meanings not (yet) listed in dictionaries.

Thank You Rabbi. Revenge and Justice are indeed two different things. Hating evil is a good and just thing to do. The Death Penalty would be just were it applied based on Justice rather than the defendant's ability to hire a competent Lawyer or cases of Prosecutorial misconduct. A year ago yesterday, John Allen Muhammed was put to death, and that was a good thing to do.

Interesting interpretation of The Gospel of Jesus Christ by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Well, it would be if I were Jewish

Good article, Rabbi, thanks for writing it.

Dr. Petit is right, execute the guy and walk away. We don't need to hate the criminal, we just need to ensure he gets justice.

I've been following this story for weeks, I can't imagine how awful this crime must have been for the Petit family.

Addendum to Farnaz's post

An anecdote about rape;

A girl was raped and the rapist jailed.But,after some times,the rapist forgiven by state.
Then,the raped girl lodges complain to governor and says *Sir,the rapist at large,is this justice* The governor answers
*The State has forgiven him*
She thinks a little and ask again *Did he rape State or me*

I could not agree more with Rabbi Boteach. Evil men (and women) laugh at those who would "forgive" them for the evil they perpetrate. Show these animals mercy and forgiveness and they will take full advantage. If the good and the just do not defend themselves, our country will descend into chaos (as have many countries throughout the world). In our efforts to be civilized we have become too soft on those who commit heinous acts of violence against us.

No one should, as a Christian, feel compelled to forgive a viscious killer of a member of his family. Never!

But let us consider that God might forgive that killer and rapist, God's enemy. And even if we find a sentence of death to be just for that killer, just perhaps we might consider restraining our justice against our enemy and God's. Maybe God's justice doesn't demand his death. Perchance our justice would permit us to spare him. Not that anyone, even a Christian, should be condemned for not forgiving, or at least sparing, the enemy of God. But maybe, just perhaps, God has given someone else the gift of being more loving than oneself.

I'm not such a person! I want that illegitimate son of a mother dog to hang and be drqwn and quartered! And I'm confident that what I wish is just.

But maybe someone will pray for me so that I might concern myself more with mercy.

Meant to write--

It is correct that only the victim can FORGIVE a crime committed against her. I cannot forgive my neighbor's rapist for having raped her.
-------------------------
Addendum to previous post

The only man executed in the history of the state of Israel is Adolf Eichman. No other man or woman will ever be sentenced to death.

The worst animals are in Israeli jails as they are here. They could not be sentenced to death because Israel does not have the death penalty.

Personally, I would gladly kill the murderers in the case in question with my own hands. Every time I think of the murderer, seventeen at the time, in the case that ended the death penalty for those under eighteen, I wonder how it is possible that a piece of garbage like him continues to exist on the earth.

The problems with the death penalty are manifold, however. The moral argument collapses easily.

What then are we left with? And then there is that sticky problem of executing innocent people. One is too many, and we've killed more than one.

No. There is no way it is socially acceptable. And I say that with the deepest regret.

Alternatives suggest themselves. Get bastards like these killers into the system early, as children. Leading American prosecutors make this point endlessly. Prosecute, prosecute, prosecute.

Intervene with social services. If they don't work, throw away the key.

It is correct that only the victim can commit a crime committed against her. I cannot forgive my neighbor's rapist for having raped her.

The same is true in the case of murder. Only the murdered can forgive. Murder is exceptional.

God does not forgive the rapist; God does not forgive the murderer. Only the victims can forgive.

For justice, we have law. Thou shalt not murder.

There is only one man who has been executed in Israel. Murderers who slaughtered little children, shot them at point blank range, blew them up in buses, are in jail.

Thou shalt not murder. I am the Lord.

I am almost to a rule feel that death penalty is wrong, a life long incarceration instead. By the same token I would not be dissuaded from allowing chemical castration as a penalty for senseless rapes. there are other recourses available to punish the worst amongst us. That said, I part company from my liberal ilk, is when they tirelessly pursue each and every death penalty case to the ridiculous limits. This only weakens their moral high ground. As long as it is proper legal remedy we should let the chips fall where they may. By this I don't mean when there are legitimate cases we should pursue them. Statistically speaking most of these cases are not pursued to exculpate the convicted. If we strongly believe against the death penalty, by all means mount a direct challenge to them, through legislature and courts. But not bog down the courts with trivial technical crap, where the motivation is not setting a wrongly convicted person free but just postpone indefinitely the certain death. If death penalty is the law of the land, then there must be as many executions in a year as there are convictions. Fight the good fight on moral grounds but not on silly technical grounds.

In cases like this, I say give them a taste of what they did. Castrate them with a rusty spoon and no anesthesia, then pour gas on the them and light them up.

I agree with the rabbi (who I usually don't) here.

Death is NOT society's ultimate punishment.
We've taken slow, torturous death off the table.

It is in no way disproportionate to execute this man for his acts. And it "doesn't coarsen society" to do so humanely, after he wasn't.