Last week an acquaintance (sort of), a seemly ordinary guy, must have had a bad day, emotionally. He got drunk and drove no more than a mile down the road and got into a fender bender. He got out of his car and sat on the curb. The Huntsville police came and as they approached him, he pulled out a gun and shot an officer in the head. The officer died the next day. The shooter had had some bad times but he also an okay life with a Dilbert-like job, definitely not a crack head. The officer was the kind of guy everyone liked, who left behind a wife and kids. Should the shooter get capital punishment to help deter murder? I don’t think it would have made much difference to this shooter. Are innocent people given the death penalty? I’m sure they are and I’m there are some guilty people set free. Mistakes have happened and will continue to happen. As for being inhumane, I believe Dilbert would find living in our prisons (especially as someone’s bitch) to be pretty inhumane. But the thing is Capital punishment is that, a punishment, not a tool for revenge or as deterrent to murder. And the punishment should fit the crime.