The greatest crime

Murder is a unique crime. While things like rape and torture are equal if not worse, they affect you in your life. Murder is the ending of life. Victims of rape and torture are still alive, they can be helped. Murder takes on a whole different dimension, after it is committed nothing can be done. Rightly so it is considered one of the worst crimes possible. Then why is that we use it as a punishment? How can we justify destroying another human being? This sets a case of do as I say not as I do. If that the government says that some murder is justified, well whats to stop some crazed vigilante into taking the law into his own hands? To them the murder is justified. What makes them any different than the government? What American's don't realize is that in the vast majority of the civilized world, the death penalty is illegal, and murder of any kind is considered a crime. The death penalty is wrong, it does not discourage violent crimes and may even encourage them. There is no way to justify it's, wrong, does not save money as some of its advocates argue and in the case of Troy Davis, can results in innocent men being put on death row.