Hang 'em. Better yet, let them hang themselves.

I don't love the death penalty.  I don't like what it does to the people who must implement it.

That said, there are lots of people who really ought to be dead.

Ariel Castro is the sick bastard in Cleveland Ohio, the one who kidnapped three kids and then held them as his personal sex slaves for ten years, until each child had grown into adulthood.  They escaped earlier this week.

Now, how do you give these young women their childhoods back?  Not only can it not be done, but Castro even fathered a child with one of these women, the only pregnancy that he permitted to survive.  There were several others, but he beat the women until their pregnancies miscarried.

Here's where I come up against the dichotomy of my beliefs.  Someone like Castro doesn't deserve to breathe the air of good, law-abiding people.  He's evil.  And no one should have to acquire a taint of any evil to bring him down.

I think killing in any way is wrong.  Even court appointed capital punishment is still listed on the death certificate as "homicide," which is to say, someone actually killed this individual.

I say lock Castro in a room with a length of rope, a chair and a handy beam.  Then walk away.  He can either starve to death or he can kill himself.  But with what he's done to his community in general and his victims in particular, he shouldn't be permitted to take up any more space for any longer than absolutely necessary.

Not him, and not a whole lot of other people, either.

But not at the expense of a single right-living person's soul and spirit.  Locked room, rope.  What happens next is up to them.