One Brick Short

Don’t think of it as capital punishment. Don’t think of it as punishment at all. Think of it as protecting society.

Joseph Edward Duncan III kidnapped and sexually abused two Idaho kids—a sister and brother—after beating their mother to death with a club. He then traipsed them around the northwest from campground to campground, raping them and torturing them. He eventually gut-shot the boy in front of his sister, finally shooting him in the head to kill him and then setting his body on fire while his sister watched.

According to the Associated Press, Duncan is a convicted pedophile from Tacoma, Wash., and pleaded guilty in December to 10 federal charges related to the kidnapping He pleaded guilty to all of that and now awaits sentencing. He faces the death penalty.

Don’t think of it as capital punishment. Don’t think of it as punishment at all. Think of it as protecting society.

Duncan’s past is littered with arrests and prison time for crimes ranging from car theft to rape and molestation, according to Associated Press reports. He is suspected in the 1996 slayings of two half-sisters from Seattle and is charged with the 1997 killing of a young boy in Riverside County, Calif. He’s no stranger to jail, prison, sexual assault, tortue or killing and has inflicted it upon others for more than a decade.

What value is Duncan’s life to society? Where ever he goes, where ever he lives, whether behind bars or in front of them, he presents a clear and present danger to all of those around him. He has not been rehabilitated. He never will be rehabilitated. He is a predator, like a bad pit bull that attacks children or a crazed puma that dines on jogger and he should be treated as such.

Don’t think of it as capital punishment. Don’t think of it as punishment at all. Think of it as protecting society both inside and outside of the walls of prison.