Trib: Idaho To Immortalize Killer

Marty Trillhaase of the Lewiston Tribune presents a compelling argument that Idaho will immortalize Paul Ezra Rhoades if the state goes through with Rhoades’ execution on Nov. 18. In his editorial today, Marty writes: “Yet it will be Rhoades - not (victims) Michelbacher, not Baldwin and not Haddon - who will earn notoriety if he does become the first Idahoan executed in the 17 years since Keith Eugene Wells waived his appeals and died voluntarily, and the first since Raymond Allen Snowden in 1957, to be put to death against his will. Society’s ambivalence about the death penalty guarantees it. Some will say it’s arbitary. Rhoades will go to his death for serial murder. Charles Manson will die in prison of natural causes for the same thing. The same goes for Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and Eric Robert Rudolph, the Olympic Park Bomber. Both drew life sentences.” More here .

Question: Has the death penalty become so arbitrary that it’s useless?