Murder

I work in a project room. The open nature of the room is nice and you never feel too trapped (though it is in the basement, so the lack of windows can wear on you). A wide open room begets discussion that is the same. It gets good.
This afternoon's topic spun to Brian Nichols, the guy here in Atlanta who killed four people - three at a courthouse and a law office at his home back in March. Anyone, one of my co-workers worked with this guy a couple years back.
From here we moved into a discussion about the appropriate consequences for those who kill. It was a lively debate, nothing heated, but lively for sure. There were a couple different points of view, ranging from the ability for a murderer to change to cut-and-dry death penalty for murder.
I feel the punishment should fit the crime. Sometimes people kill others on accident and as such they should be punished, but not killed. Accidents do happen, even preventable accidents shouldn't reap death as the consequence. Crimes of passion, I don't know. I imagine a persons brain function could become incapacitated beyond reason; these people should lose many of their basic privileges for a long time.
Premeditated murder should reap the consequence of death. There are people who don't deserve to live. Those who orchestrated and carried out the genocide of Nazi Germany, Rwanda, the Kurds in Iraq; those who flew two planes into the World Trade Center; the Smith lady who drove her car into a lake with her children strapped in the back seat; Scott Peterson killing his wife and unborn child; Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City.
These people took away a persons right to life, their right to make decisions, their right to be happy or miserable. And they knew they were going to do it. As such, I don't believe any amount of apologizing or writing of books expressing a new point of view will atone for the malicious taking of another human beings life.