I’ve always thought capital punishment made little sense as a “deterrent.” It only seems to work, really, on two levels: First, to restore a simple balance: Take someone’s life, forfeit your own. Second, as a last chance at redemption. I learned this, of course, at the movies.

In Dead Man Walking — a story based on a fervently anti-death penalty nun — it is only in the face of his own, imminent demise that the condemned man experiences the first glimmer of honest remorse. Nothing more sobering, it’s safe to say, than one’s own death.

Yet the problem of “collateral damage” � innocents sent to their death � remains unanswerable, and the strongest (only?) argument against the death penalty, IMHO. What’s to balance, or redeem, if you didn’t do nothin’ wrong in the first place? Like Tookie, scheduled for death next Tuesday, who has maintained his innocence all along, despite damning evidence and an apparent slipup/confession early on. And whose own redemption has already been declared, and documented (of course) in a movie.