I agree that the vote was no big deal. All that was decided was to allow the temporary stay to continue so the lower court could make it's decision while it still had a chance to apply.

However I don't agree with you on the death penalty. I feel that locking someone up forever is quite cruel (although not unusual).

The key is that the 'death penalty' is not actually a penalty in the meaning of punishment. It's a penalty in the sense of a price you must pay. Rather like a tiger preserve hunting down and killing a tiger that's turned man eater, Society (yes, the capital-S kind) must occasionally deal with a member that is an active hazard to other members and who has no 'redeeming qualities'. Those are people that have chosen to exit Society. The world having filled in a bit there's no longer any place we can send them to guarantee they won't ever return. That leaves us with locking them in a box for the rest of their lives. Keeping them in a box for years and years is cruel. Therefore it is Society's unpleasant duty to make that caged life as short as possible.

It's not a punishment thing, it's a maintenance thing.

Not that I expect to convince you to change your mind, just an explanation of my view.

I dunno SWWBO. I've rooted around here(http://www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm) and found that Cathecism seems to be okay with capital punishment. It just sets the bar exceptionally high. BUt I rarely attended CCD and was never confirmed, and so I may be reading stuff wrong.
If it turns out that The Holy Father is okay with cp would your objections end, or is the association with fundie-countries still be enough to put you off the idea?

Okay, here's the actual text
2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68
I'm no lawyer and I'm surely not a priest. But I'm kinda certain that says it is okay for certain types of criminals---it may not have been okay to fry Tookie by this standard, but John Wayne Gasey or Charlie(Don't Surf) Manson seem to be okay.
(addy for the Vatican Cathecism page I took this from: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm#2266).

And no threatening to get John to crush my widdle head 'cause I'm annoying and contrarian(pleeeeeease?). ;)

I'm also against the death penalty, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, sometimes the person is actually innocent, and has been wrongly charged. If the death penalty had been in Australia at the time, Lindy Chamberlain would most certainly have died. What would Society have done when it was discovered she didn't actually do it? Say, oops, sorry?

Also, I just don't think it is right to kill someone for killing someone, how is your killing better than their killing?

And finally, who are we to decide who gets to live or die? We are all fallible, and capable of making mistakes.

I say keep them behind bars for the rest of their lives.