Taking It Like a Man

Connecticut executed serial rapist/killer Michael Ross this morning. Opponents of the death penalty and family tried to stop the execution, but Ross didn't want them to:

Last fall, Ross announced he was abandoning all remaining appeals, which could have kept him alive for many years, because his victims' families had suffered enough.

"I owe these people. I killed their daughters. If I could stop the pain, I have to do that. This is my right," the former insurance agent and Cornell University graduate said last year. "I don't think there's anything crazy or incompetent about that."

Link.

Say what you want about the death penalty, it was just punishment in his case and, based on the quote above, he stepped to the plate and accepted it. It might have been one of the few decent things he ever did in his adult life. There's no reason to take that away from him. We seriously question whether our culture should be using the death penalty since it seems we turn to death as a panacea for all our troubles (in this, we echo JPII), but in a case like this, we just kinda shrug.