I am interested how we reconcile having a "death penalty", without having any other penalty like it. there is no "rape penalty", or "stab penalty", or "arson penalty", or "drunk driving penalty", or any penalty/punishment that is any way equal to the crime committed. can you imagine the judge/jury sentencing someone to be raped, by method of ________________? that's insane. but the death penalty, arguably the most severe of any "eye for an eye" punishments that you can think of, is still somehow acceptable in our society. for all the ways we claim to be advanced and progressive, our view of the death penalty is strikingly ignorant and Puritan.