I saw Melissa tweet part of an Albert Camus quote about the death penalty the other night, and then tonight while Rachel interviewed Allen Ault I felt compelled to go look it up:
Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date on which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not to be encountered in private life.
It's interesting that Mr. Ault too describes capital punishment as premeditated murder. When Rachel asked him why, his reasoning was even more practical than Camus':
Well, it's -- the policy book for execution's probably about an inch and a half thick. It is well-scripted. There's a lot of rehearsals. I don't know of any other type of murder that is that premeditated or even scripted. So, it's -- everybody involved knows exactly what they're to do and exactly what's going to happen and how that individual's going to be killed.