Score one for the death penalty

I'm going to be getting up on my soapbox in this post, so you might want to take a couple steps back.

Not only am I going to disappoint some of my friends here, I'm also going to be politically incorrect - two things I manage to do on a regular basis.

Buckle up, here it comes: I'm in favor of the death penalty. Especially when it's applied to someone like the piece of human garbage you see here.

This is Rodney Alcala. He was convicted in February of kidnapping and murdering a 12 year- old girl in Orange County, and raping and murdering four Los Angeles women in the 1970's. Without going into the finer points, some of his instruments of choice were a rock, the claw end of a hammer, a shoelace, a nylon stocking and a belt.

For those of you keeping count, this is his third death sentence for these crimes. He was caught, tried, convicted and sentenced to death twice before. But the convictions were overturned, once by the California Supreme Court and once by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The good news however is that in this third trial, they had irrefutable DNA evidence. That's what finally did him in.

Here's the thing: I don't buy the argument that putting him to death brings us down to his level. It's a false analogy. Murdering innocent adults and young children, then executing the murderer as a consequence of their crime are two completely different things. They are not morally equivalent.

While it would be nice if the penalty worked as a deterrent, I don't really care whether it does or not. What does matter to me is that by putting him to death, one less monster walks among us.

A little bit of evil bites the dust.

The death penalty isn't handed out the same way sample cigarettes are on a street corner. You have to earn it. The sadly ironic thing is that once you do, the state then gives you years of automatic appeals to prove you don't deserve it. Many prisoners have been on ("languished" is far too sympathetic a word) death row more than 25 years in California while their appeals wind there way through the court system.

I wonder how many years that girl's parents will have to wait before seeing justice done. To bad there's not a bonus round where those years could go back to his victims.

Maybe it's just the parent in me because one of his victims was a 12 year-old, but I can't find a reason to justify his continued existence. He isn't mentally ill. He wasn't on drugs. He's not legally insane. He wasn't just sitting in the getaway car while the crimes were being committed.

And while it's probably true he did have a bad childhood, I'm just gonna call bullshit on that excuse.

A lot of people will say just the fact he's a human being is reason enough not to execute him. But see, that's another false argument. Obviously he's isn't.

The sister of the young girl Mr. Alcala viciously murdered said, "If there is a hell, I hope Rodney Alcala burns eternally. I wish he would experience the terror he put his victims through."

Ditto.