Those who are murdered are not some public resource – they are not our relatives. We may feel sorrow for the victims and their family but uninvolved members of society have no reason to demand punishment on account of them being members of ‘our family’. What of all those who do not feel such resentment, should society enact a death penalty simply to gratify a part of the population that feels this way. This is not a rational grounds for a death penalty even for the very worst. In order to claim that the society wants the criminals' blood, you have to make sure that a)everyone does; b)the person killed deserves to be avenged.